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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Howards End
+
+Author: E. M. Forster
+
+Posting Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #2946]
+Release Date: November, 2001
+[Last updated September 8, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOWARDS END ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol
+
+
+
+
+
+HOWARDS END
+
+By E. M. Forster
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister.
+
+
+“Howards End,
+
+“Tuesday.
+
+“Dearest Meg,
+
+“It isn’t going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and
+altogether delightful--red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is,
+and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives
+to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or
+drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door
+in it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the
+first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a
+row above. That isn’t all the house really, but it’s all that one
+notices--nine windows as you look up from the front garden.
+
+“Then there’s a very big wych-elm--to the left as you look up--leaning
+a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden
+and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks--no
+nastier than ordinary oaks--pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No
+silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I
+only wanted to show that it isn’t the least what we expected. Why did
+we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their
+garden all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate
+them with expensive hotels--Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses
+down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are
+that unjust.
+
+“I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They are as
+angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is too tiresome,
+he starts a new mortal disease every month. How could he have got hay
+fever in London? and even if he could, it seems hard that you should
+give up a visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox
+(the son who is here) has hay fever too, but he’s brave, and gets quite
+cross when we inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a
+power of good. But you won’t agree, and I’d better change the subject.
+
+“This long letter is because I’m writing before breakfast. Oh, the
+beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I looked out
+earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. She evidently loves
+it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large
+red poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose
+corner to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress
+over the sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay
+that was cut yesterday--I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept
+on smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise
+of croquet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox
+practising; they are keen on all games. Presently he started sneezing
+and had to stop. Then I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox
+practising, and then, ‘a-tissue, a-tissue’: he has to stop too. Then
+Evie comes out, and does some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is
+tacked on to a green-gage-tree--they put everything to use--and then
+she says ‘a-tissue,’ and in she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears,
+trail, trail, still smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict
+all this on you because once you said that life is sometimes life and
+sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish tother from
+which, and up to now I have always put that down as ‘Meg’s clever
+nonsense.’ But this morning, it really does seem not life but a play,
+and it did amuse me enormously to watch the W’s. Now Mrs. Wilcox has
+come in.
+
+“I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an
+[omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isn’t exactly a go-as-you-please
+place, and if you shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we
+expected. Not if you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a
+great hedge of them over the lawn--magnificently tall, so that they fall
+down in garlands, and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see
+ducks through it and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only
+house near us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love
+to Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you
+company, but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.
+
+“HELEN.”
+
+
+
+“Howards End
+
+“Friday
+
+“Dearest Meg,
+
+“I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if quieter
+than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw anything like her
+steady unselfishness, and the best of it is that the others do not take
+advantage of her. They are the very happiest, jolliest family that you
+can imagine. I do really feel that we are making friends. The fun of
+it is that they think me a noodle, and say so--at least, Mr. Wilcox
+does--and when that happens, and one doesn’t mind, it’s a pretty sure
+test, isn’t it? He says the most horrid things about woman’s suffrage so
+nicely, and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms
+and gave me such a setting down as I’ve never had. Meg, shall we ever
+learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I
+couldn’t point to a time when men had been equal, nor even to a time
+when the wish to be equal had made them happier in other ways. I
+couldn’t say a word. I had just picked up the notion that equality is
+good from some book--probably from poetry, or you. Anyhow, it’s been
+knocked into pieces, and, like all people who are really strong, Mr.
+Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the other hand, I laugh at them for
+catching hay fever. We live like fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us
+out every day in the motor--a tomb with trees in it, a hermit’s house,
+a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of Mercia--tennis--a cricket
+match--bridge and at night we squeeze up in this lovely house. The whole
+clan’s here now--it’s like a rabbit warren. Evie is a dear. They want
+me to stop over Sunday--I suppose it won’t matter if I do. Marvellous
+weather and the views marvellous--views westward to the high ground.
+Thank you for your letter. Burn this.
+
+“Your affectionate
+
+“HELEN.”
+
+
+
+“Howards End,
+
+“Sunday.
+
+“Dearest, dearest Meg,--I do not know what you will say: Paul and I are
+in love--the younger son who only came here Wednesday.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Margaret glanced at her sister’s note and pushed it over the
+breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment’s hush, and then the
+flood-gates opened.
+
+“I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do. We
+met--we only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I know so
+little that I didn’t even know their son’s name. It’s all so--” She
+waved her hand and laughed a little.
+
+“In that case it is far too sudden.”
+
+“Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?”
+
+“But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn’t be unpractical now that we’ve
+come to facts. It is too sudden, surely.”
+
+“Who knows!”
+
+“But, Margaret, dear--”
+
+“I’ll go for her other letters,” said Margaret. “No, I won’t, I’ll
+finish my breakfast. In fact, I haven’t them. We met the Wilcoxes on an
+awful expedition that we made from Heidelberg to Speyer. Helen and I
+had got it into our heads that there was a grand old cathedral at
+Speyer--the Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electors--you
+know--‘Speyer, Maintz, and Koln.’ Those three sees once commanded the
+Rhine Valley and got it the name of Priest Street.”
+
+“I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret.”
+
+“The train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it looked
+quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole thing. The
+cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by restoration; not an
+inch left of the original structure. We wasted a whole day, and came
+across the Wilcoxes as we were eating our sandwiches in the public
+gardens. They too, poor things, had been taken in--they were actually
+stopping at Speyer--and they rather liked Helen’s insisting that they
+must fly with us to Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on
+next day. We all took some drives together. They knew us well enough to
+ask Helen to come and see them--at least, I was asked too, but Tibby’s
+illness prevented me, so last Monday she went alone. That’s all. You
+know as much as I do now. It’s a young man out of the unknown. She was
+to have come back Saturday, but put off till Monday, perhaps on account
+of--I don’t know.”
+
+She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning. Their
+house was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty promontory of
+buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare. One had the sense of
+a backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose waters flowed in from the
+invisible sea, and ebbed into a profound silence while the waves without
+were still beating. Though the promontory consisted of flats--expensive,
+with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms--it
+fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a
+certain measure of peace.
+
+These, too, would be swept away in time, and another promontory would
+arise upon their site, as humanity piled itself higher and higher on the
+precious soil of London.
+
+Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces. She decided
+that Margaret was a little hysterical, and was trying to gain time by
+a torrent of talk. Feeling very diplomatic, she lamented the fate of
+Speyer, and declared that never, never should she be so misguided as to
+visit it, and added of her own accord that the principles of restoration
+were ill understood in Germany. “The Germans,” she said, “are too
+thorough, and this is all very well sometimes, but at other times it
+does not do.”
+
+“Exactly,” said Margaret; “Germans are too thorough.” And her eyes began
+to shine.
+
+“Of course I regard you Schlegels as English,” said Mrs. Munt
+hastily--“English to the backbone.”
+
+Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.
+
+“And that reminds me--Helen’s letter.”
+
+“Oh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helen’s letter. I
+know--I must go down and see her. I am thinking about her all right. I
+am meaning to go down.”
+
+“But go with some plan,” said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her kindly voice
+a note of exasperation. “Margaret, if I may interfere, don’t be taken by
+surprise. What do you think of the Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they
+likely people? Could they appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very
+special sort of person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is
+most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most
+important. How old would the son be? She says ‘younger son.’ Would he
+be in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen happy? Did you
+gather--”
+
+“I gathered nothing.”
+
+They began to talk at once.
+
+“Then in that case--”
+
+“In that case I can make no plans, don’t you see.”
+
+“On the contrary--”
+
+“I hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isn’t a baby.”
+
+“Then in that case, my dear, why go down?”
+
+Margaret was silent. If her aunt could not see why she must go down,
+she was not going to tell her. She was not going to say, “I love my dear
+sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her life.” The affections
+are more reticent than the passions, and their expression more subtle.
+If she herself should ever fall in love with a man, she, like Helen,
+would proclaim it from the housetops, but as she loved only a sister she
+used the voiceless language of sympathy.
+
+“I consider you odd girls,” continued Mrs. Munt, “and very wonderful
+girls, and in many ways far older than your years. But--you won’t be
+offended? frankly, I feel you are not up to this business. It requires
+an older person. Dear, I have nothing to call me back to Swanage.” She
+spread out her plump arms. “I am all at your disposal. Let me go down to
+this house whose name I forget instead of you.”
+
+“Aunt Juley”--she jumped up and kissed her--“I must, must go to Howards
+End myself. You don’t exactly understand, though I can never thank you
+properly for offering.”
+
+“I do understand,” retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence. “I go
+down in no spirit of interference, but to make inquiries. Inquiries are
+necessary. Now, I am going to be rude. You would say the wrong thing; to
+a certainty you would. In your anxiety for Helen’s happiness you would
+offend the whole of these Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous
+questions--not that one minds offending them.”
+
+“I shall ask no questions. I have it in Helen’s writing that she and
+a man are in love. There is no question to ask as long as she keeps to
+that. All the rest isn’t worth a straw. A long engagement if you like,
+but inquiries, questions, plans, lines of action--no, Aunt Juley, no.”
+
+Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled
+with something that took the place of both qualities--something best
+described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to
+all that she encountered in her path through life.
+
+“If Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a
+penniless clerk--”
+
+“Dear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your good
+maids are dusting the banisters.”
+
+“--or if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter Paterson,
+I should have said the same.” Then, with one of those turns that
+convinced her aunt that she was not mad really, and convinced observers
+of another type that she was not a barren theorist, she added: “Though
+in the case of Carter Paterson I should want it to be a very long
+engagement indeed, I must say.”
+
+“I should think so,” said Mrs. Munt; “and, indeed, I can scarcely
+follow you. Now, just imagine if you said anything of that sort to the
+Wilcoxes. I understand it, but most good people would think you mad.
+Imagine how disconcerting for Helen! What is wanted is a person who will
+go slowly, slowly in this business, and see how things are and where
+they are likely to lead to.”
+
+Margaret was down on this.
+
+“But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken off.”
+
+“I think probably it must; but slowly.”
+
+“Can you break an engagement off slowly?” Her eyes lit up. “What’s an
+engagement made of, do you suppose? I think it’s made of some hard stuff
+that may snap, but can’t break. It is different to the other ties of
+life. They stretch or bend. They admit of degree. They’re different.”
+
+“Exactly so. But won’t you let me just run down to Howards House, and
+save you all the discomfort? I will really not interfere, but I do so
+thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels want that one
+quiet look round will be enough for me.”
+
+Margaret again thanked her, again kissed her, and then ran upstairs to
+see her brother.
+
+He was not so well.
+
+The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night. His head ached,
+his eyes were wet, his mucous membrane, he informed her, in a most
+unsatisfactory condition. The only thing that made life worth living was
+the thought of Walter Savage Landor, from whose Imaginary Conversations
+she had promised to read at frequent intervals during the day.
+
+It was rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She must
+be assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at first sight.
+A telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic, a personal visit
+seemed each moment more impossible. Now the doctor arrived, and said
+that Tibby was quite bad. Might it really be best to accept Aunt Juley’s
+kind offer, and to send her down to Howards End with a note?
+
+Certainly Margaret was impulsive. She did swing rapidly from one
+decision to another. Running downstairs into the library, she cried:
+“Yes, I have changed my mind; I do wish that you would go.”
+
+There was a train from King’s Cross at eleven. At half-past ten Tibby,
+with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was able to drive
+her aunt to the station.
+
+“You will remember, Aunt Juley, not to be drawn into discussing the
+engagement. Give my letter to Helen, and say whatever you feel yourself,
+but do keep clear of the relatives. We have scarcely got their names
+straight yet, and, besides, that sort of thing is so uncivilised and
+wrong.”
+
+“So uncivilised?” queried Mrs. Munt, fearing that she was losing the
+point of some brilliant remark.
+
+“Oh, I used an affected word. I only meant would you please talk the
+thing over only with Helen.”
+
+“Only with Helen.”
+
+“Because--” But it was no moment to expound the personal nature of love.
+Even Margaret shrank from it, and contented herself with stroking
+her good aunt’s hand, and with meditating, half sensibly and half
+poetically, on the journey that was about to begin from King’s Cross.
+
+Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong
+feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the
+glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and
+sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent
+and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands
+and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston;
+Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo. Italians realise this, as is
+natural; those of them who are so unfortunate as to serve as waiters in
+Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d’Italia, because by it they
+must return to their homes. And he is a chilly Londoner who does not
+endow his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however
+shyly, the emotions of fear and love.
+
+To Margaret--I hope that it will not set the reader against her--the
+station of King’s Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very
+situation--withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours of St.
+Pancras--implied a comment on the materialism of life. Those two great
+arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely
+clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might
+be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary
+language of prosperity. If you think this ridiculous, remember that it
+is not Margaret who is telling you about it; and let me hasten to add
+that they were in plenty of time for the train; that Mrs. Munt, though
+she took a second-class ticket, was put by the guard into a first (only
+two “seconds” on the train, one smoking and the other babies--one cannot
+be expected to travel with babies); and that Margaret, on her return to
+Wickham Place, was confronted with the following telegram:
+
+“All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one--, HELEN.”
+
+But Aunt Juley was gone--gone irrevocably, and no power on earth could
+stop her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Most complacently did Mrs. Munt rehearse her mission. Her nieces were
+independent young women, and it was not often that she was able to help
+them. Emily’s daughters had never been quite like other girls. They
+had been left motherless when Tibby was born, when Helen was five and
+Margaret herself but thirteen. It was before the passing of the Deceased
+Wife’s Sister Bill, so Mrs. Munt could without impropriety offer to
+go and keep house at Wickham Place. But her brother-in-law, who was
+peculiar and a German, had referred the question to Margaret, who with
+the crudity of youth had answered, “No, they could manage much better
+alone.” Five years later Mr. Schlegel had died too, and Mrs. Munt had
+repeated her offer. Margaret, crude no longer, had been grateful and
+extremely nice, but the substance of her answer had been the same. “I
+must not interfere a third time,” thought Mrs. Munt. However, of course
+she did. She learnt, to her horror, that Margaret, now of age, was
+taking her money out of the old safe investments and putting it into
+Foreign Things, which always smash. Silence would have been criminal.
+Her own fortune was invested in Home Rails, and most ardently did
+she beg her niece to imitate her. “Then we should be together, dear.”
+ Margaret, out of politeness, invested a few hundreds in the Nottingham
+and Derby Railway, and though the Foreign Things did admirably and the
+Nottingham and Derby declined with the steady dignity of which only Home
+Rails are capable, Mrs. Munt never ceased to rejoice, and to say, “I did
+manage that, at all events. When the smash comes poor Margaret will have
+a nest-egg to fall back upon.” This year Helen came of age, and exactly
+the same thing happened in Helen’s case; she also would shift her money
+out of Consols, but she, too, almost without being pressed, consecrated
+a fraction of it to the Nottingham and Derby Railway. So far so good,
+but in social matters their aunt had accomplished nothing. Sooner or
+later the girls would enter on the process known as throwing themselves
+away, and if they had delayed hitherto, it was only that they might
+throw themselves more vehemently in the future. They saw too many people
+at Wickham Place--unshaven musicians, an actress even, German cousins
+(one knows what foreigners are), acquaintances picked up at Continental
+hotels (one knows what they are too). It was interesting, and down
+at Swanage no one appreciated culture more than Mrs. Munt; but it was
+dangerous, and disaster was bound to come. How right she was, and how
+lucky to be on the spot when the disaster came!
+
+The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It was only an
+hour’s journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and lower the window again
+and again. She passed through the South Welwyn Tunnel, saw light for
+a moment, and entered the North Welwyn Tunnel, of tragic fame. She
+traversed the immense viaduct, whose arches span untroubled meadows and
+the dreamy flow of Tewin Water. She skirted the parks of politicians. At
+times the Great North Road accompanied her, more suggestive of infinity
+than any railway, awakening, after a nap of a hundred years, to such
+life as is conferred by the stench of motor-cars, and to such culture
+as is implied by the advertisements of antibilious pills. To history,
+to tragedy, to the past, to the future, Mrs. Munt remained equally
+indifferent; hers but to concentrate on the end of her journey, and to
+rescue poor Helen from this dreadful mess.
+
+The station for Howards End was at Hilton, one of the large villages
+that are strung so frequently along the North Road, and that owe their
+size to the traffic of coaching and pre-coaching days. Being near
+London, it had not shared in the rural decay, and its long High Street
+had budded out right and left into residential estates. For about a
+mile a series of tiled and slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt’s
+inattentive eyes, a series broken at one point by six Danish tumuli that
+stood shoulder to shoulder along the highroad, tombs of soldiers. Beyond
+these tumuli, habitations thickened, and the train came to a standstill
+in a tangle that was almost a town.
+
+The station, like the scenery, like Helen’s letters, struck an
+indeterminate note. Into which country will it lead, England or
+Suburbia? It was new, it had island platforms and a subway, and the
+superficial comfort exacted by business men. But it held hints of local
+life, personal intercourse, as even Mrs. Munt was to discover.
+
+“I want a house,” she confided to the ticket boy. “Its name is Howards
+Lodge. Do you know where it is?”
+
+“Mr. Wilcox!” the boy called.
+
+A young man in front of them turned around.
+
+“She’s wanting Howards End.”
+
+There was nothing for it but to go forward, though Mrs. Munt was too
+much agitated even to stare at the stranger. But remembering that there
+were two brothers, she had the sense to say to him, “Excuse me asking,
+but are you the younger Mr. Wilcox or the elder?”
+
+“The younger. Can I do anything for you?”
+
+“Oh, well”--she controlled herself with difficulty. “Really. Are you?
+I--” She moved; away from the ticket boy and lowered her voice. “I am
+Miss Schlegel’s aunt. I ought to introduce myself, oughtn’t I? My name
+is Mrs. Munt.”
+
+She was conscious that he raised his cap and said quite coolly, “Oh,
+rather; Miss Schlegel is stopping with us. Did you want to see her?”
+
+“Possibly.”
+
+“I’ll call you a cab. No; wait a mo--” He thought. “Our motor’s here.
+I’ll run you up in it.”
+
+“That is very kind.”
+
+“Not at all, if you’ll just wait till they bring out a parcel from the
+office. This way.”
+
+“My niece is not with you by any chance?”
+
+“No; I came over with my father. He has gone on north in your train.
+You’ll see Miss Schlegel at lunch. You’re coming up to lunch, I hope?”
+
+“I should like to come UP,” said Mrs. Munt, not committing herself to
+nourishment until she had studied Helen’s lover a little more. He seemed
+a gentleman, but had so rattled her round that her powers of observation
+were numbed. She glanced at him stealthily.
+
+To a feminine eye there was nothing amiss in the sharp depressions at
+the corners of his mouth, or in the rather box-like construction of his
+forehead. He was dark, clean-shaven, and seemed accustomed to command.
+
+“In front or behind? Which do you prefer? It may be windy in front.”
+
+“In front if I may; then we can talk.”
+
+“But excuse me one moment--I can’t think what they’re doing with that
+parcel.” He strode into the booking-office, and called with a new voice:
+“Hi! hi, you there! Are you going to keep me waiting all day? Parcel for
+Wilcox, Howards End. Just look sharp!”
+
+Emerging, he said in quieter tones: “This station’s abominably
+organised; if I had my way, the whole lot of ’em should get the sack.
+May I help you in?”
+
+“This is very good of you,” said Mrs. Munt, as she settled herself into
+a luxurious cavern of red leather, and suffered her person to be padded
+with rugs and shawls. She was more civil than she had intended, but
+really this young man was very kind. Moreover, she was a little afraid
+of him; his self-possession was extraordinary. “Very good indeed,” she
+repeated, adding: “It is just what I should have wished.”
+
+“Very good of you to say so,” he replied, with a slight look of
+surprise, which, like most slight looks, escaped Mrs. Munt’s attention.
+“I was just tooling my father over to catch the down train.”
+
+“You see, we heard from Helen this morning.”
+
+Young Wilcox was pouring in petrol, starting his engine, and performing
+other actions with which this story has no concern. The great car began
+to rock, and the form of Mrs. Munt, trying to explain things, sprang
+agreeably up and down among the red cushions. “The mater will be very
+glad to see you,” he mumbled. “Hi! I say. Parcel. Parcel for Howards
+End. Bring it out. Hi!”
+
+A bearded porter emerged with the parcel in one hand and an entry book
+in the other. With the gathering whir of the motor these ejaculations
+mingled: “Sign, must I? Why the -- should I sign after all this bother?
+Not even got a pencil on you? Remember next time I report you to the
+station-master. My time’s of value, though yours mayn’t be. Here”--here
+being a tip.
+
+“Extremely sorry, Mrs. Munt.”
+
+“Not at all, Mr. Wilcox.”
+
+“And do you object to going through the village? It is rather a longer
+spin, but I have one or two commissions.”
+
+“I should love going through the village. Naturally I am very anxious to
+talk things over with you.”
+
+As she said this she felt ashamed, for she was disobeying Margaret’s
+instructions. Only disobeying them in the letter, surely. Margaret had
+only warned her against discussing the incident with outsiders. Surely
+it was not “uncivilised or wrong” to discuss it with the young man
+himself, since chance had thrown them together.
+
+A reticent fellow, he made no reply. Mounting by her side, he put on
+gloves and spectacles, and off they drove, the bearded porter--life is a
+mysterious business--looking after them with admiration.
+
+The wind was in their faces down the station road, blowing the dust into
+Mrs. Munt’s eyes. But as soon as they turned into the Great North Road
+she opened fire. “You can well imagine,” she said, “that the news was a
+great shock to us.”
+
+“What news?”
+
+“Mr. Wilcox,” she said frankly, “Margaret has told me
+everything--everything. I have seen Helen’s letter.”
+
+He could not look her in the face, as his eyes were fixed on his work;
+he was travelling as quickly as he dared down the High Street. But he
+inclined his head in her direction, and said: “I beg your pardon; I
+didn’t catch.”
+
+“About Helen. Helen, of course. Helen is a very exceptional person--I
+am sure you will let me say this, feeling towards her as you do--indeed,
+all the Schlegels are exceptional. I come in no spirit of interference,
+but it was a great shock.”
+
+They drew up opposite a draper’s. Without replying, he turned round in
+his seat, and contemplated the cloud of dust that they had raised in
+their passage through the village. It was settling again, but not all
+into the road from which he had taken it. Some of it had percolated
+through the open windows, some had whitened the roses and gooseberries
+of the wayside gardens, while a certain proportion had entered the
+lungs of the villagers. “I wonder when they’ll learn wisdom and tar the
+roads,” was his comment. Then a man ran out of the draper’s with a roll
+of oilcloth, and off they went again.
+
+“Margaret could not come herself, on account of poor Tibby, so I am here
+to represent her and to have a good talk.”
+
+“I’m sorry to be so dense,” said the young man, again drawing up outside
+a shop. “But I still haven’t quite understood.”
+
+“Helen, Mr. Wilcox--my niece and you.”
+
+He pushed up his goggles and gazed at her, absolutely bewildered. Horror
+smote her to the heart, for even she began to suspect that they were at
+cross-purposes, and that she had commenced her mission by some hideous
+blunder.
+
+“Miss Schlegel and myself?” he asked, compressing his lips.
+
+“I trust there has been no misunderstanding,” quavered Mrs. Munt. “Her
+letter certainly read that way.”
+
+“What way?”
+
+“That you and she--” She paused, then drooped her eyelids.
+
+“I think I catch your meaning,” he said stickily. “What an extraordinary
+mistake!”
+
+“Then you didn’t the least--” she stammered, getting blood-red in the
+face, and wishing she had never been born.
+
+“Scarcely, as I am already engaged to another lady.” There was a
+moment’s silence, and then he caught his breath and exploded with, “Oh,
+good God! Don’t tell me it’s some silliness of Paul’s.”
+
+“But you are Paul.”
+
+“I’m not.”
+
+“Then why did you say so at the station?”
+
+“I said nothing of the sort.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, you did.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, I did not. My name is Charles.”
+
+“Younger” may mean son as opposed to father, or second brother as
+opposed to first. There is much to be said for either view, and later on
+they said it. But they had other questions before them now.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me that Paul--”
+
+But she did not like his voice. He sounded as if he was talking to a
+porter, and, certain that he had deceived her at the station, she too
+grew angry.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me that Paul and your niece--”
+
+Mrs. Munt--such is human nature--determined that she would champion the
+lovers. She was not going to be bullied by a severe young man. “Yes,
+they care for one another very much indeed,” she said. “I dare say they
+will tell you about it by-and-by. We heard this morning.”
+
+And Charles clenched his fist and cried, “The idiot, the idiot, the
+little fool!”
+
+Mrs. Munt tried to divest herself of her rugs. “If that is your
+attitude, Mr. Wilcox, I prefer to walk.”
+
+“I beg you will do no such thing. I take you up this moment to the
+house. Let me tell you the thing’s impossible, and must be stopped.”
+
+Mrs. Munt did not often lose her temper, and when she did it was only to
+protect those whom she loved. On this occasion she blazed out. “I quite
+agree, sir. The thing is impossible, and I will come up and stop it. My
+niece is a very exceptional person, and I am not inclined to sit still
+while she throws herself away on those who will not appreciate her.”
+
+Charles worked his jaws.
+
+“Considering she has only known your brother since Wednesday, and only
+met your father and mother at a stray hotel--”
+
+“Could you possibly lower your voice? The shopman will overhear.”
+
+Esprit de classe--if one may coin the phrase--was strong in Mrs. Munt.
+She sat quivering while a member of the lower orders deposited a metal
+funnel, a saucepan, and a garden squirt beside the roll of oilcloth.
+
+“Right behind?”
+
+“Yes, sir.” And the lower orders vanished in a cloud of dust.
+
+“I warn you: Paul hasn’t a penny; it’s useless.”
+
+“No need to warn us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you. The warning is all the
+other way. My niece has been very foolish, and I shall give her a good
+scolding and take her back to London with me.”
+
+“He has to make his way out in Nigeria. He couldn’t think of marrying
+for years, and when he does it must be a woman who can stand the
+climate, and is in other ways--Why hasn’t he told us? Of course he’s
+ashamed. He knows he’s been a fool. And so he has--a downright fool.”
+
+She grew furious.
+
+“Whereas Miss Schlegel has lost no time in publishing the news.”
+
+“If I were a man, Mr. Wilcox, for that last remark I’d box your ears.
+You’re not fit to clean my niece’s boots, to sit in the same room with
+her, and you dare--you actually dare--I decline to argue with such a
+person.”
+
+“All I know is, she’s spread the thing and he hasn’t, and my father’s
+away and I--”
+
+“And all that I know is--”
+
+“Might I finish my sentence, please?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Charles clenched his teeth and sent the motor swerving all over the
+lane.
+
+She screamed.
+
+So they played the game of Capping Families, a round of which is always
+played when love would unite two members of our race. But they played it
+with unusual vigour, stating in so many words that Schlegels were better
+than Wilcoxes, Wilcoxes better than Schlegels. They flung decency
+aside. The man was young, the woman deeply stirred; in both a vein of
+coarseness was latent. Their quarrel was no more surprising than are
+most quarrels--inevitable at the time, incredible afterwards. But it was
+more than usually futile. A few minutes, and they were enlightened. The
+motor drew up at Howards End, and Helen, looking very pale, ran out to
+meet her aunt.
+
+“Aunt Juley, I have just had a telegram from Margaret; I--I meant to
+stop your coming. It isn’t--it’s over.”
+
+The climax was too much for Mrs. Munt. She burst into tears.
+
+“Aunt Juley dear, don’t. Don’t let them know I’ve been so silly. It
+wasn’t anything. Do bear up for my sake.”
+
+“Paul,” cried Charles Wilcox, pulling his gloves off.
+
+“Don’t let them know. They are never to know.”
+
+“Oh, my darling Helen--”
+
+“Paul! Paul!”
+
+A very young man came out of the house.
+
+“Paul, is there any truth in this?”
+
+“I didn’t--I don’t--”
+
+“Yes or no, man; plain question, plain answer. Did or didn’t Miss
+Schlegel--”
+
+“Charles, dear,” said a voice from the garden. “Charles, dear Charles,
+one doesn’t ask plain questions. There aren’t such things.”
+
+They were all silent. It was Mrs. Wilcox.
+
+She approached just as Helen’s letter had described her, trailing
+noiselessly over the lawn, and there was actually a wisp of hay in her
+hands. She seemed to belong not to the young people and their motor, but
+to the house, and to the tree that overshadowed it. One knew that she
+worshipped the past, and that the instinctive wisdom the past can alone
+bestow had descended upon her--that wisdom to which we give the clumsy
+name of aristocracy. High born she might not be. But assuredly she cared
+about her ancestors, and let them help her. When she saw Charles angry,
+Paul frightened, and Mrs. Munt in tears, she heard her ancestors say,
+“Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most. The rest
+can wait.” So she did not ask questions. Still less did she pretend that
+nothing had happened, as a competent society hostess would have done.
+She said: “Miss Schlegel, would you take your aunt up to your room or
+to my room, whichever you think best. Paul, do find Evie, and tell her
+lunch for six, but I’m not sure whether we shall all be downstairs for
+it.” And when they had obeyed her, she turned to her elder son, who
+still stood in the throbbing, stinking car, and smiled at him with
+tenderness, and without saying a word, turned away from him towards her
+flowers.
+
+“Mother,” he called, “are you aware that Paul has been playing the fool
+again?”
+
+“It is all right, dear. They have broken off the engagement.”
+
+“Engagement--!”
+
+“They do not love any longer, if you prefer it put that way,” said Mrs.
+Wilcox, stooping down to smell a rose.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Helen and her aunt returned to Wickham Place in a state of collapse, and
+for a little time Margaret had three invalids on her hands. Mrs. Munt
+soon recovered. She possessed to a remarkable degree the power of
+distorting the past, and before many days were over she had forgotten
+the part played by her own imprudence in the catastrophe. Even at the
+crisis she had cried, “Thank goodness, poor Margaret is saved this!”
+ which during the journey to London evolved into, “It had to be gone
+through by some one,” which in its turn ripened into the permanent form
+of “The one time I really did help Emily’s girls was over the Wilcox
+business.” But Helen was a more serious patient. New ideas had burst
+upon her like a thunderclap, and by them and by their reverberations she
+had been stunned.
+
+The truth was that she had fallen in love, not with an individual, but
+with a family.
+
+Before Paul arrived she had, as it were, been tuned up into his key.
+The energy of the Wilcoxes had fascinated her, had created new images of
+beauty in her responsive mind. To be all day with them in the open air,
+to sleep at night under their roof, had seemed the supreme joy of
+life, and had led to that abandonment of personality that is a possible
+prelude to love. She had liked giving in to Mr. Wilcox, or Evie,
+or Charles; she had liked being told that her notions of life were
+sheltered or academic; that Equality was nonsense, Votes for Women
+nonsense, Socialism nonsense, Art and Literature, except when conducive
+to strengthening the character, nonsense. One by one the Schlegel
+fetiches had been overthrown, and, though professing to defend them, she
+had rejoiced. When Mr. Wilcox said that one sound man of business did
+more good to the world than a dozen of your social reformers, she had
+swallowed the curious assertion without a gasp, and had leant back
+luxuriously among the cushions of his motorcar. When Charles said, “Why
+be so polite to servants? they don’t understand it,” she had not given
+the Schlegel retort of, “If they don’t understand it, I do.” No; she
+had vowed to be less polite to servants in the future. “I am swathed in
+cant,” she thought, “and it is good for me to be stripped of it.” And
+all that she thought or did or breathed was a quiet preparation for
+Paul. Paul was inevitable. Charles was taken up with another girl, Mr.
+Wilcox was so old, Evie so young, Mrs. Wilcox so different. Round the
+absent brother she began to throw the halo of Romance, to irradiate
+him with all the splendour of those happy days, to feel that in him she
+should draw nearest to the robust ideal. He and she were about the same
+age, Evie said. Most people thought Paul handsomer than his brother. He
+was certainly a better shot, though not so good at golf. And when Paul
+appeared, flushed with the triumph of getting through an examination,
+and ready to flirt with any pretty girl, Helen met him halfway, or more
+than halfway, and turned towards him on the Sunday evening.
+
+He had been talking of his approaching exile in Nigeria, and he should
+have continued to talk of it, and allowed their guest to recover. But
+the heave of her bosom flattered him. Passion was possible, and he
+became passionate. Deep down in him something whispered, “This girl
+would let you kiss her; you might not have such a chance again.”
+
+That was “how it happened,” or, rather, how Helen described it to her
+sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own. But the poetry
+of that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there was in life for
+hours after it--who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman
+to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular
+cynic and the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity. It is so
+easy to talk of “passing emotion,” and to forget how vivid the emotion
+was ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good
+one. We recognise that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are
+personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for
+an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the impulse too highly. We do not
+admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be
+shaken open. To Helen, at all events, her life was to bring nothing more
+intense than the embrace of this boy who played no part in it. He had
+drawn her out of the house, where there was danger of surprise and
+light; he had led her by a path he knew, until they stood under the
+column of the vast wych-elm. A man in the darkness, he had whispered “I
+love you” when she was desiring love. In time his slender personality
+faded, the scene that he had evoked endured. In all the variable years
+that followed she never saw the like of it again.
+
+“I understand,” said Margaret-- “at least, I understand as much as ever
+is understood of these things. Tell me now what happened on the Monday
+morning.”
+
+“It was over at once.”
+
+“How, Helen?”
+
+“I was still happy while I dressed, but as I came downstairs I got
+nervous, and when I went into the dining-room I knew it was no good.
+There was Evie--I can’t explain--managing the tea-urn, and Mr. Wilcox
+reading the Times.”
+
+“Was Paul there?”
+
+“Yes; and Charles was talking to him about stocks and shares, and he
+looked frightened.”
+
+By slight indications the sisters could convey much to each other.
+Margaret saw horror latent in the scene, and Helen’s next remark did not
+surprise her.
+
+“Somehow, when that kind of man looks frightened it is too awful. It is
+all right for us to be frightened, or for men of another sort--father,
+for instance; but for men like that! When I saw all the others so
+placid, and Paul mad with terror in case I said the wrong thing, I felt
+for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of
+newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it fell I should
+find nothing behind it but panic and emptiness.”
+
+“I don’t think that. The Wilcoxes struck me as being genuine people,
+particularly the wife.”
+
+“No, I don’t really think that. But Paul was so broad-shouldered; all
+kinds of extraordinary things made it worse, and I knew that it would
+never do--never. I said to him after breakfast, when the others were
+practising strokes, ‘We rather lost our heads,’ and he looked better
+at once, though frightfully ashamed. He began a speech about having no
+money to marry on, but it hurt him to make it, and I stopped him. Then
+he said, ‘I must beg your pardon over this, Miss Schlegel; I can’t think
+what came over me last night.’ And I said, ‘Nor what over me; never
+mind.’ And then we parted--at least, until I remembered that I had
+written straight off to tell you the night before, and that frightened
+him again. I asked him to send a telegram for me, for he knew you would
+be coming or something; and he tried to get hold of the motor, but
+Charles and Mr. Wilcox wanted it to go to the station; and Charles
+offered to send the telegram for me, and then I had to say that the
+telegram was of no consequence, for Paul said Charles might read it, and
+though I wrote it out several times, he always said people would suspect
+something. He took it himself at last, pretending that he must walk down
+to get cartridges, and, what with one thing and the other, it was not
+handed in at the post-office until too late. It was the most terrible
+morning. Paul disliked me more and more, and Evie talked cricket
+averages till I nearly screamed. I cannot think how I stood her all the
+other days. At last Charles and his father started for the station, and
+then came your telegram warning me that Aunt Juley was coming by that
+train, and Paul--oh, rather horrible--said that I had muddled it. But
+Mrs. Wilcox knew.”
+
+“Knew what?”
+
+“Everything; though we neither of us told her a word, and she had known
+all along, I think.”
+
+“Oh, she must have overheard you.”
+
+“I suppose so, but it seemed wonderful. When Charles and Aunt Juley
+drove up, calling each other names, Mrs. Wilcox stepped in from the
+garden and made everything less terrible. Ugh! but it has been a
+disgusting business. To think that--” She sighed.
+
+“To think that because you and a young man meet for a moment, there must
+be all these telegrams and anger,” supplied Margaret.
+
+Helen nodded.
+
+“I’ve often thought about it, Helen. It’s one of the most interesting
+things in the world. The truth is that there is a great outer life that
+you and I have never touched--a life in which telegrams and anger count.
+Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme there. There
+love means marriage settlements, death, death duties. So far I’m clear.
+But here my difficulty. This outer life, though obviously horrid; often
+seems the real one--there’s grit in it. It does breed character. Do
+personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?”
+
+“Oh, Meg--, that’s what I felt, only not so clearly, when the Wilcoxes
+were so competent, and seemed to have their hands on all the ropes.”
+
+“Don’t you feel it now?”
+
+“I remember Paul at breakfast,” said Helen quietly. “I shall never
+forget him. He had nothing to fall back upon. I know that personal
+relations are the real life, for ever and ever.”
+
+“Amen!”
+
+So the Wilcox episode fell into the background, leaving behind it
+memories of sweetness and horror that mingled, and the sisters pursued
+the life that Helen had commended. They talked to each other and to
+other people, they filled the tall thin house at Wickham Place with
+those whom they liked or could befriend. They even attended public
+meetings. In their own fashion they cared deeply about politics, though
+not as politicians would have us care; they desired that public
+life should mirror whatever is good in the life within. Temperance,
+tolerance, and sexual equality were intelligible cries to them; whereas
+they did not follow our Forward Policy in Tibet with the keen attention
+that it merits, and would at times dismiss the whole British Empire with
+a puzzled, if reverent, sigh. Not out of them are the shows of history
+erected: the world would be a grey, bloodless place were it composed
+entirely of Miss Schlegels. But the world being what it is, perhaps they
+shine out in it like stars.
+
+A word on their origin. They were not “English to the back-bone,” as
+their aunt had piously asserted. But, on the other hand, they were not
+“Germans of the dreadful sort.” Their father had belonged to a type that
+was more prominent in Germany fifty years ago than now. He was not the
+aggressive German, so dear to the English journalist, nor the domestic
+German, so dear to the English wit. If one classed him at all it would
+be as the countryman of Hegel and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be
+dreamy, whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. Not that
+his life had been inactive. He had fought like blazes against Denmark,
+Austria, France. But he had fought without visualising the results of
+victory. A hint of the truth broke on him after Sedan, when he saw the
+dyed moustaches of Napoleon going grey; another when he entered Paris,
+and saw the smashed windows of the Tuileries. Peace came--it was all
+very immense, one had turned into an Empire--but he knew that some
+quality had vanished for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate
+him. Germany a commercial Power, Germany a naval Power, Germany with
+colonies here and a Forward Policy there, and legitimate aspirations in
+the other place, might appeal to others, and be fitly served by
+them; for his own part, he abstained from the fruits of victory, and
+naturalised himself in England. The more earnest members of his family
+never forgave him, and knew that his children, though scarcely English
+of the dreadful sort, would never be German to the back-bone. He had
+obtained work in one of our provincial universities, and there married
+Poor Emily (or Die Englanderin, as the case may be), and as she had
+money, they proceeded to London, and came to know a good many people.
+But his gaze was always fixed beyond the sea. It was his hope that the
+clouds of materialism obscuring the Fatherland would part in time, and
+the mild intellectual light re-emerge. “Do you imply that we Germans are
+stupid, Uncle Ernst?” exclaimed a haughty and magnificent nephew. Uncle
+Ernst replied, “To my mind. You use the intellect, but you no longer
+care about it. That I call stupidity.” As the haughty nephew did not
+follow, he continued, “You only care about the things that you can use,
+and therefore arrange them in the following order: Money, supremely
+useful; intellect, rather useful; imagination, of no use at all.
+No”--for the other had protested--“your Pan-Germanism is no more
+imaginative than is our Imperialism over here. It is the vice of a
+vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square
+miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and
+that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven. That is
+not imagination. No, it kills it. When their poets over here try to
+celebrate bigness they are dead at once, and naturally. Your poets
+too are dying, your philosophers, your musicians, to whom Europe has
+listened for two hundred years. Gone. Gone with the little courts that
+nurtured them--gone with Esterhazy and Weimar. What? What’s that? Your
+universities? Oh yes, you have learned men, who collect more facts
+than do the learned men of England. They collect facts, and facts, and
+empires of facts. But which of them will rekindle the light within?”
+
+To all this Margaret listened, sitting on the haughty nephew’s knee.
+
+It was a unique education for the little girls. The haughty nephew would
+be at Wickham Place one day, bringing with him an even haughtier wife,
+both convinced that Germany was appointed by God to govern the world.
+Aunt Juley would come the next day, convinced that Great Britain had
+been appointed to the same post by the same authority. Were both these
+loud-voiced parties right? On one occasion they had met and Margaret
+with clasped hands had implored them to argue the subject out in her
+presence. Whereat they blushed, and began to talk about the weather.
+“Papa,” she cried--she was a most offensive child--“why will they not
+discuss this most clear question?” Her father, surveying the parties
+grimly, replied that he did not know. Putting her head on one side,
+Margaret then remarked, “To me one of two things is very clear; either
+God does not know his own mind about England and Germany, or else these
+do not know the mind of God.” A hateful little girl, but at thirteen
+she had grasped a dilemma that most people travel through life without
+perceiving. Her brain darted up and down; it grew pliant and strong. Her
+conclusion was, that any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any
+organisation, and from this she never varied.
+
+Helen advanced along the same lines, though with a more irresponsible
+tread. In character she resembled her sister, but she was pretty, and so
+apt to have a more amusing time. People gathered round her more readily,
+especially when they were new acquaintances, and she did enjoy a little
+homage very much. When their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham
+Place, she often absorbed the whole of the company, while Margaret--both
+were tremendous talkers--fell flat. Neither sister bothered about this.
+Helen never apologised afterwards, Margaret did not feel the slightest
+rancour. But looks have their influence upon character. The sisters
+were alike as little girls, but at the time of the Wilcox episode their
+methods were beginning to diverge; the younger was rather apt to entice
+people, and, in enticing them, to be herself enticed; the elder went
+straight ahead, and accepted an occasional failure as part of the game.
+
+Little need be premised about Tibby. He was now an intelligent man of
+sixteen, but dyspeptic and difficile.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the
+most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All
+sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs.
+Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come--of course, not so as
+to disturb the others--or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks
+in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or
+like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full
+score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who
+remembers all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch; or like Fraulein
+Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach: in
+any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound
+to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. It is cheap, even
+if you hear it in the Queen’s Hall, dreariest music-room in London,
+though not as dreary as the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; and even if
+you sit on the extreme left of that hall, so that the brass bumps at you
+before the rest of the orchestra arrives, it is still cheap.
+
+“Whom is Margaret talking to?” said Mrs. Munt, at the conclusion of the
+first movement. She was again in London on a visit to Wickham Place.
+
+Helen looked down the long line of their party, and said that she did
+not know.
+
+“Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest in?”
+
+“I expect so,” Helen replied. Music enwrapped her, and she could not
+enter into the distinction that divides young men whom one takes an
+interest in from young men whom one knows.
+
+“You girls are so wonderful in always having--Oh dear! one mustn’t
+talk.”
+
+For the Andante had begun--very beautiful, but bearing a family likeness
+to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had written, and,
+to Helen’s mind, rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of the
+first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third. She heard the
+tune through once, and then her attention wandered, and she gazed at the
+audience, or the organ, or the architecture. Much did she censure
+the attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen’s
+Hall, inclining each to each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow
+pantaloons, on which the October sunlight struck. “How awful to marry a
+man like those Cupids!” thought Helen. Here Beethoven started decorating
+his tune, so she heard him through once more, and then she smiled at
+her Cousin Frieda. But Frieda, listening to Classical Music, could not
+respond. Herr Liesecke, too, looked as if wild horses could not make him
+inattentive; there were lines across his forehead, his lips were parted,
+his pince-nez at right angles to his nose, and he had laid a thick,
+white hand on either knee. And next to her was Aunt Juley, so British,
+and wanting to tap. How interesting that row of people was! What diverse
+influences had gone to the making! Here Beethoven, after humming and
+hawing with great sweetness, said “Heigho,” and the Andante came to an
+end. Applause, and a round of “wunderschoning” and pracht volleying from
+the German contingent. Margaret started talking to her new young man;
+Helen said to her aunt: “Now comes the wonderful movement: first of all
+the goblins, and then a trio of elephants dancing”; and Tibby implored
+the company generally to look out for the transitional passage on the
+drum.
+
+“On the what, dear?”
+
+“On the drum, Aunt Juley.”
+
+“No; look out for the part where you think you have done with the
+goblins and they come back,” breathed Helen, as the music started with
+a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others
+followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made
+them so terrible to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there
+was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world. After the
+interlude of elephants dancing, they returned and made the observation
+for the second time. Helen could not contradict them, for, once at all
+events, she had felt the same, and had seen the reliable walls of youth
+collapse. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were
+right. Her brother raised his finger; it was the transitional passage on
+the drum.
+
+For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold of the goblins
+and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in person. He gave them
+a little push, and they began to walk in a major key instead of in a
+minor, and then--he blew with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts
+of splendour, gods and demigods contending with vast swords, colour
+and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory,
+magnificent death! Oh, it all burst before the girl, and she even
+stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible. Any fate was
+titanic; any contest desirable; conqueror and conquered would alike be
+applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.
+
+And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? They were only
+the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would
+dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would
+say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They
+might return--and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might
+boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the
+terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked
+quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic
+and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.
+Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up.
+He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were
+scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the
+youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of
+a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the
+goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that
+is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.
+
+Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She desired to be alone.
+The music had summed up to her all that had happened or could happen in
+her career.
+
+She read it as a tangible statement, which could never be superseded.
+The notes meant this and that to her, and they could have no other
+meaning, and life could have no other meaning. She pushed right out of
+the building and walked slowly down the outside staircase, breathing the
+autumnal air, and then she strolled home.
+
+“Margaret,” called Mrs. Munt, “is Helen all right?”
+
+“Oh yes.”
+
+“She is always going away in the middle of a programme,” said Tibby.
+
+“The music has evidently moved her deeply,” said Fraulein Mosebach.
+
+“Excuse me,” said Margaret’s young man, who had for some time been
+preparing a sentence, “but that lady has, quite inadvertently, taken my
+umbrella.”
+
+“Oh, good gracious me!--I am so sorry. Tibby, run after Helen.”
+
+“I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do.”
+
+“Tibby, love, you must go.”
+
+“It isn’t of any consequence,” said the young man, in truth a little
+uneasy about his umbrella.
+
+“But of course it is. Tibby! Tibby!”
+
+Tibby rose to his feet, and wilfully caught his person on the backs of
+the chairs. By the time he had tipped up the seat and had found his
+hat, and had deposited his full score in safety, it was “too late” to
+go after Helen. The Four Serious Songs had begun, and one could not move
+during their performance.
+
+“My sister is so careless,” whispered Margaret.
+
+“Not at all,” replied the young man; but his voice was dead and cold.
+
+“If you would give me your address--”
+
+“Oh, not at all, not at all;” and he wrapped his greatcoat over his
+knees.
+
+Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret’s ears. Brahms, for
+all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed what it felt like
+to be suspected of stealing an umbrella. For this fool of a young man
+thought that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence
+trick on him, and that if he gave his address they would break into
+his rooms some midnight or other and steal his walking-stick too. Most
+ladies would have laughed, but Margaret really minded, for it gave her
+a glimpse into squalor. To trust people is a luxury in which only the
+wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it. As soon as Brahms had
+grunted himself out, she gave him her card and said, “That is where
+we live; if you preferred, you could call for the umbrella after the
+concert, but I didn’t like to trouble you when it has all been our
+fault.”
+
+His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W. It
+was sad to see him corroded with suspicion, and yet not daring to be
+impolite, in case these well-dressed people were honest after all. She
+took it as a good sign that he said to her, “It’s a fine programme
+this afternoon, is it not?” for this was the remark with which he had
+originally opened, before the umbrella intervened.
+
+“The Beethoven’s fine,” said Margaret, who was not a female of the
+encouraging type. “I don’t like the Brahms, though, nor the Mendelssohn
+that came first and ugh! I don’t like this Elgar that’s coming.”
+
+“What, what?” called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. “The ‘Pomp and
+Circumstance’ will not be fine?”
+
+“Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!” cried her aunt.
+
+“Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for ‘Pomp and
+Circumstance,’ and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him
+to hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,--you musn’t run down our English
+composers, Margaret.”
+
+“For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin,” said Fraulein
+Mosebach, “on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little.”
+
+“Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art.
+And English literature, except Shakespeare, and he’s a German. Very
+well, Frieda, you may go.”
+
+The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common impulse,
+they rose to their feet and fled from “Pomp and Circumstance.”
+
+“We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true,” said Herr
+Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music
+started.
+
+“Margaret--” loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.
+
+“Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag
+behind her on the seat.”
+
+Sure enough, there was Frieda’s reticule, containing her address book,
+her pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.
+
+“Oh, what a bother--what a family we are! Fr--frieda!”
+
+“Hush!” said all those who thought the music fine.
+
+“But it’s the number they want in Finsbury Circus.”
+
+“Might I--couldn’t I--” said the suspicious young man, and got very red.
+
+“Oh, I would be so grateful.”
+
+He took the bag--money clinking inside it--and slipped up the gangway
+with it. He was just in time to catch them at the swing-door, and he
+received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her
+cavalier. He returned to his seat upsides with the world. The trust that
+they had reposed in him was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his
+mistrust for them, and that probably he would not be “had” over his
+umbrella. This young man had been “had” in the past badly, perhaps
+overwhelmingly--and now most of his energies went in defending himself
+against the unknown. But this afternoon--perhaps on account of music--he
+perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what is the good
+of being alive? Wickham Place, W., though a risk, was as safe as most
+things, and he would risk it.
+
+So when the concert was over and Margaret said, “We live quite near; I
+am going there now. Could you walk round with me, and we’ll find your
+umbrella?” he said, “Thank you,” peaceably, and followed her out of
+the Queen’s Hall. She wished that he was not so anxious to hand a lady
+downstairs, or to carry a lady’s programme for her--his class was near
+enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him interesting
+on the whole--every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that
+time--and while her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to
+invite him to tea.
+
+“How tired one gets after music!” she began.
+
+“Do you find the atmosphere of Queen’s Hall oppressive?”
+
+“Yes, horribly.”
+
+“But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive.”
+
+“Do you go there much?”
+
+“When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera.”
+
+Helen would have exclaimed, “So do I. I love the gallery,” and thus
+have endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these things. But
+Margaret had an almost morbid horror of “drawing people out,” of “making
+things go.” She had been to the gallery at Covent Garden, but she did
+not “attend” it, preferring the more expensive seats; still less did she
+love it. So she made no reply.
+
+“This year I have been three times--to ‘Faust,’ ‘Tosca,’ and--” Was it
+“Tannhouser” or “Tannhoyser”? Better not risk the word.
+
+Margaret disliked “Tosca” and “Faust.” And so, for one reason and
+another, they walked on in silence, chaperoned by the voice of Mrs.
+Munt, who was getting into difficulties with her nephew.
+
+“I do in a WAY remember the passage, Tibby, but when every instrument is
+so beautiful, it is difficult to pick out one thing rather than another.
+I am sure that you and Helen take me to the very nicest concerts. Not a
+dull note from beginning to end. I only wish that our German friends had
+stayed till it finished.”
+
+“But surely you haven’t forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low
+C, Aunt Juley?” came Tibby’s voice. “No one could. It’s unmistakable.”
+
+“A specially loud part?” hazarded Mrs. Munt. “Of course I do not go
+in for being musical,” she added, the shot failing. “I only care for
+music--a very different thing. But still I will say this for myself--I
+do know when I like a thing and when I don’t. Some people are the same
+about pictures. They can go into a picture gallery--Miss Conder can--and
+say straight off what they feel, all round the wall. I never could do
+that. But music is so different from pictures, to my mind. When it comes
+to music I am as safe as houses, and I assure you, Tibby, I am by no
+means pleased by everything. There was a thing--something about a faun
+in French--which Helen went into ecstasies over, but I thought it most
+tinkling and superficial, and said so, and I held to my opinion too.”
+
+“Do you agree?” asked Margaret. “Do you think music is so different from
+pictures?”
+
+“I--I should have thought so, kind of,” he said.
+
+“So should I. Now, my sister declares they’re just the same. We have
+great arguments over it. She says I’m dense; I say she’s sloppy.”
+ Getting under way, she cried: “Now, doesn’t it seem absurd to you? What
+is the good of the Arts if they’re interchangeable? What is the good
+of the ear if it tells you the same as the eye? Helen’s one aim is to
+translate tunes into the language of painting, and pictures into the
+language of music. It’s very ingenious, and she says several pretty
+things in the process, but what’s gained, I’d like to know? Oh, it’s
+all rubbish, radically false. If Monet’s really Debussy, and Debussy’s
+really Monet, neither gentleman is worth his salt--that’s my opinion.”
+
+Evidently these sisters quarrelled.
+
+“Now, this very symphony that we’ve just been having--she won’t let it
+alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish; turns it into
+literature. I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be
+treated as music. Yet I don’t know. There’s my brother--behind us. He
+treats music as music, and oh, my goodness! He makes me angrier than any
+one, simply furious. With him I daren’t even argue.”
+
+An unhappy family, if talented.
+
+“But, of course, the real villain is Wagner. He has done more than any
+man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts. I
+do feel that music is in a very serious state just now, though
+extraordinarily interesting. Every now and then in history there do
+come these terrible geniuses, like Wagner, who stir up all the wells of
+thought at once. For a moment it’s splendid. Such a splash as never
+was. But afterwards--such a lot of mud; and the wells--as it were, they
+communicate with each other too easily now, and not one of them will run
+quite clear. That’s what Wagner’s done.”
+
+Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds. If only he
+could talk like this, he would have caught the world. Oh, to acquire
+culture! Oh, to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh, to be well
+informed, discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But
+it would take one years. With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours
+in the evening, how was it possible to catch up with leisured women,
+who had been reading steadily from childhood? His brain might be full
+of names, he might have even heard of Monet and Debussy; the trouble
+was that he could not string them together into a sentence, he could not
+make them “tell,” he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella.
+Yes, the umbrella was the real trouble. Behind Monet and Debussy the
+umbrella persisted, with the steady beat of a drum. “I suppose my
+umbrella will be all right,” he was thinking. “I don’t really mind about
+it. I will think about music instead. I suppose my umbrella will be all
+right.” Earlier in the afternoon he had worried about seats. Ought he
+to have paid as much as two shillings? Earlier still he had wondered,
+“Shall I try to do without a programme?” There had always been something
+to worry him ever since he could remember, always something that
+distracted him in the pursuit of beauty. For he did pursue beauty, and,
+therefore, Margaret’s speeches did flutter away from him like birds.
+
+Margaret talked ahead, occasionally saying, “Don’t you think so? don’t
+you feel the same?” And once she stopped, and said, “Oh, do interrupt
+me!” which terrified him. She did not attract him, though she filled him
+with awe. Her figure was meagre, her face seemed all teeth and eyes, her
+references to her sister and her brother were uncharitable. For all
+her cleverness and culture, she was probably one of those soulless,
+atheistical women who have been so shown up by Miss Corelli. It was
+surprising (and alarming) that she should suddenly say, “I do hope that
+you’ll come in and have some tea. We should be so glad. I have dragged
+you so far out of your way.”
+
+They had arrived at Wickham Place. The sun had set, and the backwater,
+in deep shadow, was filling with a gentle haze. To the right the
+fantastic sky-line of the flats towered black against the hues of
+evening; to the left the older houses raised a square-cut, irregular
+parapet against the grey. Margaret fumbled for her latch-key. Of course
+she had forgotten it. So, grasping her umbrella by its ferrule, she
+leant over the area and tapped at the dining-room window.
+
+“Helen! Let us in!”
+
+“All right,” said a voice.
+
+“You’ve been taking this gentleman’s umbrella.”
+
+“Taken a what?” said Helen, opening the door. “Oh, what’s that? Do come
+in! How do you do?”
+
+“Helen, you must not be so ramshackly. You took this gentleman’s
+umbrella away from Queen’s Hall, and he has had the trouble of coming
+round for it.”
+
+“Oh, I am so sorry!” cried Helen, all her hair flying. She had pulled
+off her hat as soon as she returned, and had flung herself into the
+big dining-room chair. “I do nothing but steal umbrellas. I am so very
+sorry! Do come in and choose one. Is yours a hooky or a nobbly? Mine’s a
+nobbly--at least, I THINK it is.”
+
+The light was turned on, and they began to search the hall, Helen, who
+had abruptly parted with the Fifth Symphony, commenting with shrill
+little cries.
+
+“Don’t you talk, Meg! You stole an old gentleman’s silk top-hat. Yes,
+she did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact. She thought it was a muff.
+Oh, heavens! I’ve knocked the In-and-Out card down. Where’s Frieda?
+Tibby, why don’t you ever--No, I can’t remember what I was going to say.
+That wasn’t it, but do tell the maids to hurry tea up. What about this
+umbrella?” She opened it. “No, it’s all gone along the seams. It’s an
+appalling umbrella. It must be mine.”
+
+But it was not.
+
+He took it from her, murmured a few words of thanks, and then fled, with
+the lilting step of the clerk.
+
+“But if you will stop--” cried Margaret. “Now, Helen, how stupid you’ve
+been!”
+
+“Whatever have I done?”
+
+“Don’t you see that you’ve frightened him away? I meant him to stop to
+tea. You oughtn’t to talk about stealing or holes in an umbrella. I saw
+his nice eyes getting so miserable. No, it’s not a bit of good now.” For
+Helen had darted out into the street, shouting, “Oh, do stop!”
+
+“I dare say it is all for the best,” opined Mrs. Munt. “We know nothing
+about the young man, Margaret, and your drawing-room is full of very
+tempting little things.”
+
+But Helen cried: “Aunt Juley, how can you! You make me more and more
+ashamed. I’d rather he had been a thief and taken all the apostle spoons
+than that I--Well, I must shut the front-door, I suppose. One more
+failure for Helen.”
+
+“Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent,” said
+Margaret. Seeing that her aunt did not understand, she added: “You
+remember ‘rent’? It was one of father’s words--Rent to the ideal, to his
+own faith in human nature. You remember how he would trust strangers,
+and if they fooled him he would say, ‘It’s better to be fooled than to
+be suspicious’--that the confidence trick is the work of man, but the
+want-of-confidence trick is the work of the devil.”
+
+“I remember something of the sort now,” said Mrs. Munt, rather tartly,
+for she longed to add, “It was lucky that your father married a wife
+with money.” But this was unkind, and she contented herself with, “Why,
+he might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well.”
+
+“Better that he had,” said Helen stoutly.
+
+“No, I agree with Aunt Juley,” said Margaret. “I’d rather mistrust
+people than lose my little Ricketts. There are limits.”
+
+Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, had stolen upstairs to
+see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the teapot--almost too
+deftly--rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had provided,
+poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with really
+boiling water, and now called to the ladies to be quick or they would
+lose the aroma.
+
+“All right, Auntie Tibby,” called Helen, while Margaret, thoughtful
+again, said: “In a way, I wish we had a real boy in the house--the kind
+of boy who cares for men. It would make entertaining so much easier.”
+
+“So do I,” said her sister. “Tibby only cares for cultured females
+singing Brahms.” And when they joined him she said rather sharply: “Why
+didn’t you make that young man welcome, Tibby? You must do the host a
+little, you know. You ought to have taken his hat and coaxed him into
+stopping, instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women.”
+
+Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.
+
+“Oh, it’s no good looking superior. I mean what I say.”
+
+“Leave Tibby alone!” said Margaret, who could not bear her brother to be
+scolded.
+
+“Here’s the house a regular hen-coop!” grumbled Helen.
+
+“Oh, my dear!” protested Mrs. Munt. “How can you say such dreadful
+things! The number of men you get here has always astonished me. If
+there is any danger it’s the other way round.”
+
+“Yes, but it’s the wrong sort of men, Helen means.”
+
+“No, I don’t,” corrected Helen. “We get the right sort of man, but the
+wrong side of him, and I say that’s Tibby’s fault. There ought to be a
+something about the house--an--I don’t know what.”
+
+“A touch of the W’s, perhaps?”
+
+Helen put out her tongue.
+
+“Who are the W’s?” asked Tibby.
+
+“The W’s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don’t,
+so there!”
+
+“I suppose that ours is a female house,” said Margaret, “and one must
+just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don’t mean that this house is full of
+women. I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it
+was irrevocably feminine, even in father’s time. Now I’m sure you
+understand! Well, I’ll give you another example. It’ll shock you, but
+I don’t care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that
+the guests had been Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith,
+Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would
+have been artistic? Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would
+have seen to that. So with our house--it must be feminine, and all we
+can do is to see that it isn’t effeminate. Just as another house that
+I can mention, but won’t, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its
+inmates can do is to see that it isn’t brutal.”
+
+“That house being the W’s house, I presume,” said Tibby.
+
+“You’re not going to be told about the W’s, my child,” Helen cried, “so
+don’t you think it. And on the other hand, I don’t the least mind if
+you find out, so don’t you think you’ve done anything clever, in either
+case. Give me a cigarette.”
+
+“You do what you can for the house,” said Margaret. “The drawing-room
+reeks of smoke.”
+
+“If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere
+is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria’s
+dinner-party--if something had been just a little Different--perhaps if
+she’d worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin.”
+
+“With an India shawl over her shoulders--”
+
+“Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin.”
+
+Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half
+German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, “How
+inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art.” And the
+conversation drifted away and away, and Helen’s cigarette turned to
+a spot in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with
+lighted windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished
+incessantly. Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that
+could never be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of
+Wapping, the moon was rising.
+
+“That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into
+the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and that is so
+firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea.”
+
+For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might
+be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not
+for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these
+superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has
+recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him,
+and no name.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only
+to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals
+with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are
+gentlefolk.
+
+The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was
+not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people whom he knew
+had dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he was poor, and would
+admit it; he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority to
+the rich. This may be splendid of him. But he was inferior to most rich
+people, there is not the least doubt of it. He was not as courteous
+as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as
+lovable. His mind and his body had been alike underfed, because he was
+poor, and because he was modern they were always craving better food.
+Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations
+of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his
+income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy
+had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and
+proclaiming, “All men are equal--all men, that is to say, who possess
+umbrellas,” and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip
+into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are
+inaudible.
+
+As he walked away from Wickham Place, his first care was to prove that
+he was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in his pride, he
+tried to wound them in return. They were probably not ladies. Would real
+ladies have asked him to tea? They were certainly ill-natured and cold.
+At each step his feeling of superiority increased. Would a real lady
+have talked about stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves
+after all, and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a
+chloroformed handkerchief over his face. He walked on complacently as
+far as the Houses of Parliament. There an empty stomach asserted itself,
+and told him that he was a fool.
+
+“Evening, Mr. Bast.”
+
+“Evening, Mr. Dealtry.”
+
+“Nice evening.”
+
+“Evening.”
+
+Mr. Dealtry, a fellow clerk, passed on, and Leonard stood wondering
+whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him, or
+whether he would walk. He decided to walk--it is no good giving in,
+and he had spent money enough at Queen’s Hall--and he walked over
+Westminster Bridge, in front of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and through
+the immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at
+Vauxhall. In the tunnel he paused and listened to the roar of the
+trains. A sharp pain darted through his head, and he was conscious of
+the exact form of his eye sockets. He pushed on for another mile, and
+did not slacken speed until he stood at the entrance of a road called
+Camelia Road which was at present his home.
+
+Here he stopped again, and glanced suspiciously to right and left,
+like a rabbit that is going to bolt into its hole. A block of flats,
+constructed with extreme cheapness, towered on either hand. Farther down
+the road two more blocks were being built, and beyond these an old house
+was being demolished to accommodate another pair. It was the kind
+of scene that may be observed all over London, whatever the
+locality--bricks and mortar rising and falling with the restlessness of
+the water in a fountain as the city receives more and more men upon her
+soil. Camelia Road would soon stand out like a fortress, and command,
+for a little, an extensive view. Only for a little. Plans were out for
+the erection of flats in Magnolia Road also. And again a few years, and
+all the flats in either road might be pulled down, and new buildings, of
+a vastness at present unimaginable, might arise where they had fallen.
+
+“Evening, Mr. Bast.”
+
+“Evening, Mr. Cunningham.”
+
+“Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester.”
+
+“I beg your pardon?”
+
+“Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester,”
+ repeated Mr. Cunningham, tapping the Sunday paper, in which the calamity
+in question had just been announced to him.
+
+“Ah, yes,” said Leonard, who was not going to let on that he had not
+bought a Sunday paper.
+
+“If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be
+stationary in 1960.”
+
+“You don’t say so.”
+
+“I call it a very serious thing, eh?”
+
+“Good-evening, Mr. Cunningham.”
+
+“Good-evening, Mr. Bast.”
+
+Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats, and turned, not upstairs,
+but down, into what is known to house agents as a semi-basement, and to
+other men as a cellar. He opened the door, and cried, “Hullo!” with
+the pseudo geniality of the Cockney. There was no reply. “Hullo!” he
+repeated. The sitting-room was empty, though the electric light had been
+left burning. A look of relief came over his face, and he flung himself
+into the armchair.
+
+The sitting-room contained, besides the armchair, two other chairs, a
+piano, a three-legged table, and a cosy corner. Of the walls, one was
+occupied by the window, the other by a draped mantelshelf bristling
+with Cupids. Opposite the window was the door, and beside the door a
+bookcase, while over the piano there extended one of the masterpieces of
+Maud Goodman. It was an amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the
+curtains were drawn, and the lights turned on, and the gas-stove unlit.
+But it struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the
+dwelling-place. It had been too easily gained, and could be relinquished
+too easily.
+
+As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged table,
+and a photograph frame, honourably poised upon it, slid sideways, fell
+off into the fireplace, and smashed. He swore in a colourless sort of
+way, and picked the photograph up. It represented a young lady called
+Jacky, and had been taken at the time when young ladies called Jacky
+were often photographed with their mouths open. Teeth of dazzling
+whiteness extended along either of Jacky’s jaws, and positively weighed
+her head sideways, so large were they and so numerous. Take my word for
+it, that smile was simply stunning, and it is only you and I who will be
+fastidious, and complain that true joy begins in the eyes, and that
+the eyes of Jacky did not accord with her smile, but were anxious and
+hungry.
+
+Leonard tried to pull out the fragments of glass, and cut his fingers
+and swore again. A drop of blood fell on the frame, another followed,
+spilling over on to the exposed photograph. He swore more vigorously,
+and dashed into the kitchen, where he bathed his hands. The kitchen
+was the same size as the sitting-room; beyond it was a bedroom. This
+completed his home. He was renting the flat furnished; of all the
+objects that encumbered it none were his own except the photograph
+frame, the Cupids, and the books.
+
+“Damn, damn, damnation!” he murmured, together with such other words as
+he had learnt from older men. Then he raised his hand to his forehead
+and said, “Oh, damn it all--” which meant something different. He pulled
+himself together. He drank a little tea, black and silent, that still
+survived upon an upper shelf. He swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake.
+Then he went back to the sitting-room, settled himself anew, and began
+to read a volume of Ruskin.
+
+“Seven miles to the north of Venice--”
+
+How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command of
+admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking to us from his
+gondola.
+
+“Seven miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the
+city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level,
+and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and
+there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.”
+
+Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin; he understood him to
+be the greatest master of English Prose. He read forward steadily,
+occasionally making a few notes.
+
+“Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and
+first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what is very
+peculiar to this church--its luminousness.”
+
+Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he
+adapt it to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with
+modifications, when he next wrote a letter to his brother, the
+lay-reader? For example:
+
+“Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and
+first (for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already),
+what is very peculiar to this flat--its obscurity.”
+
+Something told him that the modifications would not do; and that
+something, had he known it, was the spirit of English Prose. “My flat is
+dark as well as stuffy.” Those were the words for him.
+
+And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping melodiously of Effort
+and Self-Sacrifice, full of high purpose, full of beauty, full even of
+sympathy and the love of men, yet somehow eluding all that was actual
+and insistent in Leonard’s life. For it was the voice of one who had
+never been dirty or hungry, and had not guessed successfully what dirt
+and hunger are.
+
+Leonard listened to it with reverence. He felt that he was being done
+good to, and that if he kept on with Ruskin, and the Queen’s Hall
+Concerts, and some pictures by Watts, he would one day push his head
+out of the grey waters and see the universe. He believed in sudden
+conversion, a belief which may be right, but which is peculiarly
+attractive to a half-baked mind. It is the basis of much popular
+religion; in the domain of business it dominates the Stock Exchange,
+and becomes that “bit of luck” by which all successes and failures are
+explained. “If only I had a bit of luck, the whole thing would come
+straight... He’s got a most magnificent place down at Streatham and a 20
+h.p. Fiat, but then, mind you, he’s had luck... I’m sorry the wife’s
+so late, but she never has any luck over catching trains.” Leonard
+was superior to these people; he did believe in effort and in a steady
+preparation for the change that he desired. But of a heritage that may
+expand gradually, he had no conception; he hoped to come to Culture
+suddenly, much as the Revivalist hopes to come to Jesus. Those Miss
+Schlegels had come to it; they had done the trick; their hands were upon
+the ropes, once and for all. And meanwhile, his flat was dark, as well
+as stuffy.
+
+Presently there was a noise on the staircase. He shut up Margaret’s card
+in the pages of Ruskin, and opened the door. A woman entered, of whom
+it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was
+awesome. She seemed all strings and bell-pulls--ribbons, chains, bead
+necklaces that clinked and caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round
+her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double
+row of pearls, her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again
+be detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was
+flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed
+with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes,
+and there no. She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or
+rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went
+down her back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for
+a lighter destiny, rippled around her forehead. The face--the face does
+not signify. It was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth
+were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly
+not so white. Yes, Jacky was past her prime, whatever that prime
+may have been. She was descending quicker than most women into the
+colourless years, and the look in her eyes confessed it.
+
+“What ho!” said Leonard, greeting the apparition with much spirit, and
+helping it off with its boa.
+
+Jacky, in husky tones, replied, “What ho!”
+
+“Been out?” he asked. The question sounds superfluous, but it cannot
+have been really, for the lady answered, “No,” adding, “Oh, I am so
+tired.”
+
+“You tired?”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“I’m tired,” said he, hanging the boa up.
+
+“Oh, Len, I am so tired.”
+
+“I’ve been to that classical concert I told you about,” said Leonard.
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+“I came back as soon as it was over.”
+
+“Any one been round to our place?” asked Jacky.
+
+“Not that I’ve seen. I met Mr. Cunningham outside, and we passed a few
+remarks.”
+
+“What, not Mr. Cunningham?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Oh, you mean Mr. Cunningham.”
+
+“Yes. Mr. Cunningham.”
+
+“I’ve been out to tea at a lady friend’s.”
+
+Her secret being at last given--to the world, and the name of the lady
+friend being even adumbrated, Jacky made no further experiments in the
+difficult and tiring art of conversation. She never had been a great
+talker. Even in her photographic days she had relied upon her smile and
+her figure to attract, and now that she was
+
+      “On the shelf,
+       On the shelf,
+       Boys, boys, I’m on the shelf,”
+
+she was not likely to find her tongue. Occasional bursts of song (of
+which the above is an example) still issued from her lips, but the
+spoken word was rare.
+
+She sat down on Leonard’s knee, and began to fondle him. She was now a
+massive woman of thirty-three, and her weight hurt him, but he could not
+very well say anything. Then she said, “Is that a book you’re reading?”
+ and he said, “That’s a book,” and drew it from her unreluctant grasp.
+Margaret’s card fell out of it. It fell face downwards, and he murmured,
+“Bookmarker.”
+
+“Len--”
+
+“What is it?” he asked, a little wearily, for she only had one topic of
+conversation when she sat upon his knee.
+
+“You do love me?”
+
+“Jacky, you know that I do. How can you ask such questions!”
+
+“But you do love me, Len, don’t you?”
+
+“Of course I do.”
+
+A pause. The other remark was still due.
+
+“Len--”
+
+“Well? What is it?”
+
+“Len, you will make it all right?”
+
+“I can’t have you ask me that again,” said the boy, flaring up into a
+sudden passion. “I’ve promised to marry you when I’m of age, and that’s
+enough. My word’s my word. I’ve promised to marry you as soon as ever
+I’m twenty-one, and I can’t keep on being worried. I’ve worries enough.
+It isn’t likely I’d throw you over, let alone my word, when I’ve spent
+all this money. Besides, I’m an Englishman, and I never go back on my
+word. Jacky, do be reasonable. Of course I’ll marry you. Only do stop
+badgering me.”
+
+“When’s your birthday, Len?”
+
+“I’ve told you again and again, the eleventh of November next. Now get
+off my knee a bit; some one must get supper, I suppose.”
+
+Jacky went through to the bedroom, and began to see to her hat. This
+meant blowing at it with short sharp puffs. Leonard tidied up the
+sitting-room, and began to prepare their evening meal. He put a penny
+into the slot of the gas-meter, and soon the flat was reeking with
+metallic fumes. Somehow he could not recover his temper, and all the
+time he was cooking he continued to complain bitterly.
+
+“It really is too bad when a fellow isn’t trusted. It makes one feel so
+wild, when I’ve pretended to the people here that you’re my wife--all
+right, all right, you SHALL be my wife--and I’ve bought you the ring to
+wear, and I’ve taken this flat furnished, and it’s far more than I can
+afford, and yet you aren’t content, and I’ve also not told the truth
+when I’ve written home.” He lowered his voice. “He’d stop it.” In a tone
+of horror, that was a little luxurious, he repeated: “My brother’d stop
+it. I’m going against the whole world, Jacky.
+
+“That’s what I am, Jacky. I don’t take any heed of what any one says. I
+just go straight forward, I do. That’s always been my way. I’m not one
+of your weak knock-kneed chaps. If a woman’s in trouble, I don’t leave
+her in the lurch. That’s not my street. No, thank you.
+
+“I’ll tell you another thing too. I care a good deal about improving
+myself by means of Literature and Art, and so getting a wider outlook.
+For instance, when you came in I was reading Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.
+I don’t say this to boast, but just to show you the kind of man I am. I
+can tell you, I enjoyed that classical concert this afternoon.”
+
+To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent. When supper was
+ready--and not before--she emerged from the bedroom, saying: “But you do
+love me, don’t you?”
+
+They began with a soup square, which Leonard had just dissolved in some
+hot water. It was followed by the tongue--a freckled cylinder of meat,
+with a little jelly at the top, and a great deal of yellow fat at
+the bottom--ending with another square dissolved in water (jelly:
+pineapple), which Leonard had prepared earlier in the day. Jacky ate
+contentedly enough, occasionally looking at her man with those anxious
+eyes, to which nothing else in her appearance corresponded, and which
+yet seemed to mirror her soul. And Leonard managed to convince his
+stomach that it was having a nourishing meal.
+
+After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few statements.
+She observed that her “likeness” had been broken. He found occasion to
+remark, for the second time, that he had come straight back home after
+the concert at Queen’s Hall. Presently she sat upon his knee. The
+inhabitants of Camelia Road tramped to and fro outside the window,
+just on a level with their heads, and the family in the flat on the
+ground-floor began to sing, “Hark, my soul, it is the Lord.”
+
+“That tune fairly gives me the hump,” said Leonard.
+
+Jacky followed this, and said that, for her part, she thought it a
+lovely tune.
+
+“No; I’ll play you something lovely. Get up, dear, for a minute.”
+
+He went to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg. He played badly and
+vulgarly, but the performance was not without its effect, for Jacky
+said she thought she’d be going to bed. As she receded, a new set of
+interests possessed the boy, and he began to think of what had been said
+about music by that odd Miss Schlegel--the one that twisted her face
+about so when she spoke. Then the thoughts grew sad and envious. There
+was the girl named Helen, who had pinched his umbrella, and the German
+girl who had smiled at him pleasantly, and Herr some one, and Aunt some
+one, and the brother--all, all with their hands on the ropes. They had
+all passed up that narrow, rich staircase at Wickham Place to some ample
+room, whither he could never follow them, not if he read for ten hours
+a day. Oh, it was no good, this continual aspiration. Some are born
+cultured; the rest had better go in for whatever comes easy. To see life
+steadily and to see it whole was not for the likes of him.
+
+From the darkness beyond the kitchen a voice called, “Len?”
+
+“You in bed?” he asked, his forehead twitching.
+
+“All right.”
+
+Presently she called him again.
+
+“I must clean my boots ready for the morning,” he answered.
+
+Presently she called him again.
+
+“I rather want to get this chapter done.”
+
+“What?”
+
+He closed his ears against her.
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+“All right, Jacky, nothing; I’m reading a book.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“What?” he answered, catching her degraded deafness.
+
+Presently she called him again.
+
+Ruskin had visited Torcello by this time, and was ordering his
+gondoliers to take him to Murano. It occurred to him, as he glided over
+the whispering lagoons, that the power of Nature could not be shortened
+by the folly, nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery of such
+as Leonard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+“Oh, Margaret,” cried her aunt next morning, “such a most unfortunate
+thing has happened. I could not get you alone.”
+
+The most unfortunate thing was not very serious. One of the flats in
+the ornate block opposite had been taken furnished by the Wilcox family,
+“coming up, no doubt, in the hope of getting into London society.”
+ That Mrs. Munt should be the first to discover the misfortune was not
+remarkable, for she was so interested in the flats, that she watched
+their every mutation with unwearying care. In theory she despised
+them--they took away that old-world look--they cut off the sun--flats
+house a flashy type of person. But if the truth had been known, she
+found her visits to Wickham Place twice as amusing since Wickham
+Mansions had arisen, and would in a couple of days learn more about
+them than her nieces in a couple of months, or her nephew in a couple
+of years. She would stroll across and make friends with the porters, and
+inquire what the rents were, exclaiming for example: “What! a hundred
+and twenty for a basement? You’ll never get it!” And they would answer:
+“One can but try, madam.” The passenger lifts, the arrangement for coals
+(a great temptation for a dishonest porter), were all familiar matters
+to her, and perhaps a relief from the politico-economical-esthetic
+atmosphere that reigned at the Schlegels.
+
+Margaret received the information calmly, and did not agree that it
+would throw a cloud over poor Helen’s life.
+
+“Oh, but Helen isn’t a girl with no interests,” she explained. “She has
+plenty of other things and other people to think about. She made a false
+start with the Wilcoxes, and she’ll be as willing as we are to have
+nothing more to do with them.”
+
+“For a clever girl, dear, how very oddly you do talk. Helen’ll HAVE to
+have something more to do with them, now that they’re all opposite. She
+may meet that Paul in the street. She cannot very well not bow.”
+
+“Of course she must bow. But look here; let’s do the flowers. I was
+going to say, the will to be interested in him has died, and what else
+matters? I look on that disastrous episode (over which you were so
+kind) as the killing of a nerve in Helen. It’s dead, and she’ll never be
+troubled with it again. The only things that matter are the things
+that interest one. Bowing, even calling and leaving cards, even a
+dinner-party--we can do all those things to the Wilcoxes, if they find
+it agreeable; but the other thing, the one important thing--never again.
+Don’t you see?”
+
+Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a most
+questionable statement--that any emotion, any interest once vividly
+aroused, can wholly die.
+
+“I also have the honour to inform you that the Wilcoxes are bored with
+us. I didn’t tell you at the time--it might have made you angry, and you
+had enough to worry you--but I wrote a letter to Mrs. W, and apologised
+for the trouble that Helen had given them. She didn’t answer it.”
+
+“How very rude!”
+
+“I wonder. Or was it sensible?”
+
+“No, Margaret, most rude.”
+
+“In either case one can class it as reassuring.”
+
+Mrs. Munt sighed. She was going back to Swanage on the morrow, just as
+her nieces were wanting her most. Other regrets crowded upon her: for
+instance, how magnificently she would have cut Charles if she had met
+him face to face. She had already seen him, giving an order to the
+porter--and very common he looked in a tall hat. But unfortunately his
+back was turned to her, and though she had cut his back, she could not
+regard this as a telling snub.
+
+“But you will be careful, won’t you?” she exhorted.
+
+“Oh, certainly. Fiendishly careful.”
+
+“And Helen must be careful, too.”
+
+“Careful over what?” cried Helen, at that moment coming into the room
+with her cousin.
+
+“Nothing” said Margaret, seized with a momentary awkwardness.
+
+“Careful over what, Aunt Juley?”
+
+Mrs. Munt assumed a cryptic air. “It is only that a certain family,
+whom we know by name but do not mention, as you said yourself last
+night after the concert, have taken the flat opposite from the
+Mathesons--where the plants are in the balcony.”
+
+Helen began some laughing reply, and then disconcerted them all by
+blushing. Mrs. Munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed, “What,
+Helen, you don’t mind them coming, do you?” and deepened the blush to
+crimson.
+
+“Of course I don’t mind,” said Helen a little crossly. “It is that you
+and Meg are both so absurdly grave about it, when there’s nothing to be
+grave about at all.”
+
+“I’m not grave,” protested Margaret, a little cross in her turn.
+
+“Well, you look grave; doesn’t she, Frieda?”
+
+“I don’t feel grave, that’s all I can say; you’re going quite on the
+wrong tack.”
+
+“No, she does not feel grave,” echoed Mrs. Munt. “I can bear witness to
+that. She disagrees--”
+
+“Hark!” interrupted Fraulein Mosebach. “I hear Bruno entering the hall.”
+
+For Herr Liesecke was due at Wickham Place to call for the two younger
+girls. He was not entering the hall--in fact, he did not enter it for
+quite five minutes. But Frieda detected a delicate situation, and said
+that she and Helen had much better wait for Bruno down below, and
+leave Margaret and Mrs. Munt to finish arranging the flowers. Helen
+acquiesced. But, as if to prove that the situation was not delicate
+really, she stopped in the doorway and said:
+
+“Did you say the Mathesons’ flat, Aunt Juley? How wonderful you are!
+I never knew that the name of the woman who laced too tightly was
+Matheson.”
+
+“Come, Helen,” said her cousin.
+
+“Go, Helen,” said her aunt; and continued to Margaret almost in the same
+breath: “Helen cannot deceive me. She does mind.”
+
+“Oh, hush!” breathed Margaret. “Frieda’ll hear you, and she can be so
+tiresome.”
+
+“She minds,” persisted Mrs. Munt, moving thoughtfully about the room,
+and pulling the dead chrysanthemums out of the vases. “I knew she’d
+mind--and I’m sure a girl ought to! Such an experience! Such awful
+coarse-grained people! I know more about them than you do, which you
+forget, and if Charles had taken you that motor drive--well, you’d have
+reached the house a perfect wreck. Oh, Margaret, you don’t know what
+you are in for! They’re all bottled up against the drawing-room window.
+There’s Mrs. Wilcox--I’ve seen her. There’s Paul. There’s Evie, who is a
+minx. There’s Charles--I saw him to start with. And who would an elderly
+man with a moustache and a copper-coloured face be?”
+
+“Mr. Wilcox, possibly.”
+
+“I knew it. And there’s Mr. Wilcox.”
+
+“It’s a shame to call his face copper colour,” complained Margaret. “He
+has a remarkably good complexion for a man of his age.”
+
+Mrs. Munt, triumphant elsewhere, could afford to concede Mr. Wilcox
+his complexion. She passed on from it to the plan of campaign that her
+nieces should pursue in the future. Margaret tried to stop her.
+
+“Helen did not take the news quite as I expected, but the Wilcox nerve
+is dead in her really, so there’s no need for plans.”
+
+“It’s as well to be prepared.”
+
+“No--it’s as well not to be prepared.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because--”
+
+Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not
+explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all
+the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the
+expense of joy. It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or
+a dinner-party, or a possible fall in the price of stock: those who
+attempt human relations must adopt another method, or fail. “Because I’d
+sooner risk it,” was her lame conclusion.
+
+“But imagine the evenings,” exclaimed her aunt, pointing to the Mansions
+with the spout of the watering can. “Turn the electric light on here
+or there, and it’s almost the same room. One evening they may forget to
+draw their blinds down, and you’ll see them; and the next, you yours,
+and they’ll see you. Impossible to sit out on the balconies. Impossible
+to water the plants, or even speak. Imagine going out of the front-door,
+and they come out opposite at the same moment. And yet you tell me that
+plans are unnecessary, and you’d rather risk it.”
+
+“I hope to risk things all my life.”
+
+“Oh, Margaret, most dangerous.”
+
+“But after all,” she continued with a smile, “there’s never any great
+risk as long as you have money.”
+
+“Oh, shame! What a shocking speech!”
+
+“Money pads the edges of things,” said Miss Schlegel. “God help those
+who have none.”
+
+“But this is something quite new!” said Mrs. Munt, who collected new
+ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those
+that are portable.
+
+“New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I
+and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath
+our feet that we forget its very existence. It’s only when we see some
+one near us tottering that we realise all that an independent income
+means. Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began
+to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the
+lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of coin.”
+
+“I call that rather cynical.”
+
+“So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to
+criticise others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most
+of the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot
+always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever
+escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the
+tragedy last June, if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people, and
+couldn’t invoke railways and motor-cars to part them.”
+
+“That’s more like Socialism,” said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.
+
+“Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one’s hand
+spread open on the table. I’m tired of these rich people who pretend
+to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money
+that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred
+pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as
+fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed--from
+the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of
+six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don’t want to
+steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want
+to steal them and do steal them sometimes, and that what’s a joke up
+here is down there reality.”
+
+“There they go--there goes Fraulein Mosebach. Really, for a German she
+does dress charmingly. Oh!--”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Helen was looking up at the Wilcoxes’ flat.”
+
+“Why shouldn’t she?”
+
+“I beg your pardon, I interrupted you. What was it you were saying about
+reality?”
+
+“I had worked round to myself, as usual,” answered Margaret in tones
+that were suddenly preoccupied.
+
+“Do tell me this, at all events. Are you for the rich or for the poor?”
+
+“Too difficult. Ask me another. Am I for poverty or for riches? For
+riches. Hurrah for riches!”
+
+“For riches!” echoed Mrs. Munt, having, as it were, at last secured her
+nut.
+
+“Yes. For riches. Money for ever!”
+
+“So am I, and so, I am afraid, are most of my acquaintances at Swanage,
+but I am surprised that you agree with us.”
+
+“Thank you so much, Aunt Juley. While I have talked theories, you have
+done the flowers.”
+
+“Not at all, dear. I wish you would let me help you in more important
+things.”
+
+“Well, would you be very kind? Would you come round with me to the
+registry office? There’s a housemaid who won’t say yes but doesn’t say
+no.”
+
+On their way thither they too looked up at the Wilcoxes’ flat. Evie was
+in the balcony, “staring most rudely,” according to Mrs. Munt. Oh yes,
+it was a nuisance, there was no doubt of it. Helen was proof against
+a passing encounter, but--Margaret began to lose confidence. Might it
+reawake the dying nerve if the family were living close against her
+eyes? And Frieda Mosebach was stopping with them for another fortnight,
+and Frieda was sharp, abominably sharp, and quite capable of remarking,
+“You love one of the young gentlemen opposite, yes?” The remark would be
+untrue, but of the kind which, if stated often enough, may become true;
+just as the remark, “England and Germany are bound to fight,” renders
+war a little more likely each time that it is made, and is therefore
+made the more readily by the gutter press of either nation. Have the
+private emotions also their gutter press? Margaret thought so, and
+feared that good Aunt Juley and Frieda were typical specimens of it.
+They might, by continual chatter, lead Helen into a repetition of the
+desires of June. Into a repetition--they could not do more; they
+could not lead her into lasting love. They were--she saw it
+clearly--Journalism; her father, with all his defects and
+wrong-headedness, had been Literature, and had he lived, he would have
+persuaded his daughter rightly.
+
+The registry office was holding its morning reception. A string of
+carriages filled the street. Miss Schlegel waited her turn, and finally
+had to be content with an insidious “temporary,” being rejected by
+genuine housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs. Her failure
+depressed her, and though she forgot the failure, the depression
+remained. On her way home she again glanced up at the Wilcoxes’ flat,
+and took the rather matronly step of speaking about the matter to Helen.
+
+“Helen, you must tell me whether this thing worries you.”
+
+“If what?” said Helen, who was washing her hands for lunch.
+
+“The Ws’ coming.”
+
+“No, of course not.”
+
+“Really?”
+
+“Really.” Then she admitted that she was a little worried on Mrs.
+Wilcox’s account; she implied that Mrs. Wilcox might reach backward
+into deep feelings, and be pained by things that never touched the other
+members of that clan. “I shan’t mind if Paul points at our house and
+says, ‘There lives the girl who tried to catch me.’ But she might.”
+
+“If even that worries you, we could arrange something. There’s no reason
+we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease, thanks
+to our money. We might even go away for a little.”
+
+“Well, I am going away. Frieda’s just asked me to Stettin, and I shan’t
+be back till after the New Year. Will that do? Or must I fly the country
+altogether? Really, Meg, what has come over you to make such a fuss?”
+
+“Oh, I’m getting an old maid, I suppose. I thought I minded nothing, but
+really I--I should be bored if you fell in love with the same man twice
+and”--she cleared her throat--“you did go red, you know, when Aunt Juley
+attacked you this morning. I shouldn’t have referred to it otherwise.”
+
+But Helen’s laugh rang true, as she raised a soapy hand to heaven and
+swore that never, nowhere and nohow, would she again fall in love with
+any of the Wilcox family, down to its remotest collaterals.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which was to develop
+so quickly and with such strange results, may perhaps have had its
+beginnings at Speyer, in the spring. Perhaps the elder lady, as she
+gazed at the vulgar, ruddy cathedral, and listened to the talk of her
+husband and Helen, may have detected in the other and less charming of
+the sisters a deeper sympathy, a sounder judgment. She was capable
+of detecting such things. Perhaps it was she who had desired the Miss
+Schlegels to be invited to Howards End, and Margaret whose presence she
+had particularly desired. All this is speculation; Mrs. Wilcox has left
+few clear indications behind her. It is certain that she came to call at
+Wickham Place a fortnight later, the very day that Helen was going with
+her cousin to Stettin.
+
+“Helen!” cried Fraulein Mosebach in awestruck tones (she was now in
+her cousin’s confidence)--“his mother has forgiven you!” And then,
+remembering that in England the new-comer ought not to call before she
+is called upon, she changed her tone from awe to disapproval, and opined
+that Mrs. Wilcox was keine Dame.
+
+“Bother the whole family!” snapped Margaret. “Helen, stop giggling and
+pirouetting, and go and finish your packing. Why can’t the woman leave
+us alone?”
+
+“I don’t know what I shall do with Meg,” Helen retorted, collapsing upon
+the stairs. “She’s got Wilcox and Box upon the brain. Meg, Meg, I don’t
+love the young gentleman; I don’t love the young gentleman, Meg, Meg.
+Can a body speak plainer?”
+
+“Most certainly her love has died,” asserted Fraulein Mosebach.
+
+“Most certainly it has, Frieda, but that will not prevent me from being
+bored with the Wilcoxes if I return the call.”
+
+Then Helen simulated tears, and Fraulein Mosebach, who thought her
+extremely amusing, did the same. “Oh, boo hoo! boo hoo hoo! Meg’s
+going to return the call, and I can’t. ‘Cos why? ‘Cos I’m going to
+German-eye.”
+
+“If you are going to Germany, go and pack; if you aren’t, go and call on
+the Wilcoxes instead of me.”
+
+“But, Meg, Meg, I don’t love the young gentleman; I don’t love the
+young--O lud, who’s that coming down the stairs? I vow ‘tis my brother.
+O crimini!”
+
+A male--even such a male as Tibby--was enough to stop the foolery. The
+barrier of sex, though decreasing among the civilised, is still high,
+and higher on the side of women. Helen could tell her sister all, and
+her cousin much about Paul; she told her brother nothing. It was not
+prudishness, for she now spoke of “the Wilcox ideal” with laughter, and
+even with a growing brutality. Nor was it precaution, for Tibby seldom
+repeated any news that did not concern himself. It was rather the
+feeling that she betrayed a secret into the camp of men, and that,
+however trivial it was on this side of the barrier, it would become
+important on that. So she stopped, or rather began to fool on other
+subjects, until her long-suffering relatives drove her upstairs.
+Fraulein Mosebach followed her, but lingered to say heavily over the
+banisters to Margaret, “It is all right--she does not love the young
+man--he has not been worthy of her.”
+
+“Yes, I know; thanks very much.”
+
+“I thought I did right to tell you.”
+
+“Ever so many thanks.”
+
+“What’s that?” asked Tibby. No one told him, and he proceeded into the
+dining-room, to eat plums.
+
+That evening Margaret took decisive action. The house was very quiet,
+and the fog--we are in November now--pressed against the windows like an
+excluded ghost. Frieda and Helen and all their luggages had gone. Tibby,
+who was not feeling well, lay stretched on a sofa by the fire. Margaret
+sat by him, thinking. Her mind darted from impulse to impulse, and
+finally marshalled them all in review. The practical person, who knows
+what he wants at once, and generally knows nothing else, will accuse her
+of indecision. But this was the way her mind worked. And when she did
+act, no one could accuse her of indecision then. She hit out as lustily
+as if she had not considered the matter at all. The letter that she
+wrote Mrs. Wilcox glowed with the native hue of resolution. The pale
+cast of thought was with her a breath rather than a tarnish, a breath
+that leaves the colours all the more vivid when it has been wiped away.
+
+
+“DEAR MRS. WILCOX,
+
+“I have to write something discourteous. It would be better if we did
+not meet. Both my sister and my aunt have given displeasure to your
+family, and, in my sister’s case, the grounds for displeasure might
+recur. So far as I know she no longer occupies her thoughts with your
+son. But it would not be fair, either to her or to you, if they met, and
+it is therefore right that our acquaintance, which began so pleasantly,
+should end.
+
+“I fear that you will not agree with this; indeed, I know that you
+will not, since you have been good enough to call on us. It is only
+an instinct on my part, and no doubt the instinct is wrong. My sister
+would, undoubtedly, say that it is wrong. I write without her knowledge,
+and I hope that you will not associate her with my discourtesy.
+
+“Believe me,
+
+“Yours truly,
+
+“M. J. SCHLEGEL.”
+
+
+Margaret sent this letter round by the post. Next morning she received
+the following reply by hand:
+
+
+“DEAR MISS SCHLEGEL,
+
+“You should not have written me such a letter. I called to tell you that
+Paul has gone abroad.
+
+“RUTH WILCOX.”
+
+
+Margaret’s cheeks burnt. She could not finish her breakfast. She was on
+fire with shame. Helen had told her that the youth was leaving England,
+but other things had seemed more important, and she had forgotten. All
+her absurd anxieties fell to the ground, and in their place arose the
+certainty that she had been rude to Mrs. Wilcox. Rudeness affected
+Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it
+is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. She flung
+on a hat and shawl, just like a poor woman, and plunged into the fog,
+which still continued. Her lips were compressed, the letter remained in
+her hand, and in this state she crossed the street, entered the marble
+vestibule of the flats, eluded the concierges, and ran up the stairs
+till she reached the second floor. She sent in her name, and to her
+surprise was shown straight into Mrs. Wilcox’s bedroom.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, I have made the baddest blunder. I am more, more
+ashamed and sorry than I can say.”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox bowed gravely. She was offended, and did not pretend to the
+contrary. She was sitting up in bed, writing letters on an invalid table
+that spanned her knees. A breakfast tray was on another table beside
+her. The light of the fire, the light from the window, and the light of
+a candle-lamp, which threw a quivering halo round her hands combined to
+create a strange atmosphere of dissolution.
+
+“I knew he was going to India in November, but I forgot.”
+
+“He sailed on the 17th for Nigeria, in Africa.”
+
+“I knew--I know. I have been too absurd all through. I am very much
+ashamed.”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox did not answer.
+
+“I am more sorry than I can say, and I hope that you will forgive me.”
+
+“It doesn’t matter, Miss Schlegel. It is good of you to have come round
+so promptly.”
+
+“It does matter,” cried Margaret. “I have been rude to you; and my
+sister is not even at home, so there was not even that excuse.”
+
+“Indeed?”
+
+“She has just gone to Germany.”
+
+“She gone as well,” murmured the other. “Yes, certainly, it is quite
+safe--safe, absolutely, now.”
+
+“You’ve been worrying too!” exclaimed Margaret, getting more and
+more excited, and taking a chair without invitation. “How perfectly
+extraordinary! I can see that you have. You felt as I do; Helen mustn’t
+meet him again.”
+
+“I did think it best.”
+
+“Now why?”
+
+“That’s a most difficult question,” said Mrs. Wilcox, smiling, and a
+little losing her expression of annoyance. “I think you put it best in
+your letter--it was an instinct, which may be wrong.”
+
+“It wasn’t that your son still--”
+
+“Oh no; he often--my Paul is very young, you see.”
+
+“Then what was it?”
+
+She repeated: “An instinct which may be wrong.”
+
+“In other words, they belong to types that can fall in love, but
+couldn’t live together. That’s dreadfully probable. I’m afraid that in
+nine cases out of ten Nature pulls one way and human nature another.”
+
+“These are indeed ‘other words,’” said Mrs. Wilcox. “I had nothing so
+coherent in my head. I was merely alarmed when I knew that my boy cared
+for your sister.”
+
+“Ah, I have always been wanting to ask you. How DID you know? Helen
+was so surprised when our aunt drove up, and you stepped forward and
+arranged things. Did Paul tell you?”
+
+“There is nothing to be gained by discussing that,” said Mrs. Wilcox
+after a moment’s pause.
+
+“Mrs. Wilcox, were you very angry with us last June? I wrote you a
+letter and you didn’t answer it.”
+
+“I was certainly against taking Mrs. Matheson’s flat. I knew it was
+opposite your house.”
+
+“But it’s all right now?”
+
+“I think so.”
+
+“You only think? You aren’t sure? I do love these little muddles tidied
+up?”
+
+“Oh yes, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Wilcox, moving with uneasiness beneath
+the clothes. “I always sound uncertain over things. It is my way of
+speaking.”
+
+“That’s all right, and I’m sure, too.”
+
+Here the maid came in to remove the breakfast-tray. They were
+interrupted, and when they resumed conversation it was on more normal
+lines.
+
+“I must say good-bye now--you will be getting up.”
+
+“No--please stop a little longer--I am taking a day in bed. Now and then
+I do.”
+
+“I thought of you as one of the early risers.”
+
+“At Howards End--yes; there is nothing to get up for in London.”
+
+“Nothing to get up for?” cried the scandalised Margaret. “When there are
+all the autumn exhibitions, and Ysaye playing in the afternoon! Not to
+mention people.”
+
+“The truth is, I am a little tired. First came the wedding, and then
+Paul went off, and, instead of resting yesterday, I paid a round of
+calls.”
+
+“A wedding?”
+
+“Yes; Charles, my elder son, is married.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“We took the flat chiefly on that account, and also that Paul could get
+his African outfit. The flat belongs to a cousin of my husband’s, and
+she most kindly offered it to us. So before the day came we were able to
+make the acquaintance of Dolly’s people, which we had not yet done.”
+
+Margaret asked who Dolly’s people were.
+
+“Fussell. The father is in the Indian army--retired; the brother is in
+the army. The mother is dead.”
+
+So perhaps these were the “chinless sunburnt men” whom Helen had espied
+one afternoon through the window. Margaret felt mildly interested in
+the fortunes of the Wilcox family. She had acquired the habit on Helen’s
+account, and it still clung to her. She asked for more information
+about Miss Dolly Fussell that was, and was given it in even, unemotional
+tones. Mrs. Wilcox’s voice, though sweet and compelling, had little
+range of expression. It suggested that pictures, concerts, and people
+are all of small and equal value. Only once had it quickened--when
+speaking of Howards End.
+
+“Charles and Albert Fussell have known one another some time. They
+belong to the same club, and are both devoted to golf. Dolly plays
+golf too, though I believe not so well; and they first met in a mixed
+foursome. We all like her, and are very much pleased. They were married
+on the 11th, a few days before Paul sailed. Charles was very anxious to
+have his brother as best man, so he made a great point of having it on
+the 11th. The Fussells would have preferred it after Christmas, but they
+were very nice about it. There is Dolly’s photograph--in that double
+frame.”
+
+“Are you quite certain that I’m not interrupting, Mrs. Wilcox?”
+
+“Yes, quite.”
+
+“Then I will stay. I’m enjoying this.”
+
+Dolly’s photograph was now examined. It was signed “For dear Mims,”
+ which Mrs. Wilcox interpreted as “the name she and Charles had settled
+that she should call me.” Dolly looked silly, and had one of those
+triangular faces that so often prove attractive to a robust man. She
+was very pretty. From her Margaret passed to Charles, whose features
+prevailed opposite. She speculated on the forces that had drawn the two
+together till God parted them. She found time to hope that they would be
+happy.
+
+“They have gone to Naples for their honeymoon.”
+
+“Lucky people!”
+
+“I can hardly imagine Charles in Italy.”
+
+“Doesn’t he care for travelling?”
+
+“He likes travel, but he does see through foreigners so. What he enjoys
+most is a motor tour in England, and I think that would have carried the
+day if the weather had not been so abominable. His father gave him a car
+for a wedding present, which for the present is being stored at Howards
+End.”
+
+“I suppose you have a garage there?”
+
+“Yes. My husband built a little one only last month, to the west of the
+house, not far from the wych-elm, in what used to be the paddock for the
+pony.”
+
+The last words had an indescribable ring about them.
+
+“Where’s the pony gone?” asked Margaret after a pause.
+
+“The pony? Oh, dead, ever so long ago.”
+
+“The wych-elm I remember. Helen spoke of it as a very splendid tree.”
+
+“It is the finest wych-elm in Hertfordshire. Did your sister tell you
+about the teeth?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Oh, it might interest you. There are pigs’ teeth stuck into the trunk,
+about four feet from the ground. The country people put them in long
+ago, and they think that if they chew a piece of the bark, it will cure
+the toothache. The teeth are almost grown over now, and no one comes to
+the tree.”
+
+“I should. I love folklore and all festering superstitions.”
+
+“Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one believed
+in it?”
+
+“Of course it did. It would cure anything--once.”
+
+“Certainly I remember cases--you see I lived at Howards End long, long
+before Mr. Wilcox knew it. I was born there.”
+
+The conversation again shifted. At the time it seemed little more than
+aimless chatter. She was interested when her hostess explained that
+Howards End was her own property. She was bored when too minute an
+account was given of the Fussell family, of the anxieties of Charles
+concerning Naples, of the movements of Mr. Wilcox and Evie, who were
+motoring in Yorkshire. Margaret could not bear being bored. She grew
+inattentive, played with the photograph frame, dropped it, smashed
+Dolly’s glass, apologised, was pardoned, cut her finger thereon,
+was pitied, and finally said she must be going--there was all the
+housekeeping to do, and she had to interview Tibby’s riding-master.
+
+Then the curious note was struck again.
+
+“Good-bye, Miss Schlegel, good-bye. Thank you for coming. You have
+cheered me up.”
+
+“I’m so glad!”
+
+“I--I wonder whether you ever think about yourself?”
+
+“I think of nothing else,” said Margaret, blushing, but letting her hand
+remain in that of the invalid.
+
+“I wonder. I wondered at Heidelberg.”
+
+“I’M sure!”
+
+“I almost think--”
+
+“Yes?” asked Margaret, for there was a long pause--a pause that was
+somehow akin to the flicker of the fire, the quiver of the reading-lamp
+upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a pause of shifting
+and eternal shadows.
+
+“I almost think you forget you’re a girl.”
+
+Margaret was startled and a little annoyed. “I’m twenty-nine,” she
+remarked. “That’s not so wildly girlish.”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox smiled.
+
+“What makes you say that? Do you mean that I have been gauche and rude?”
+
+A shake of the head. “I only meant that I am fifty-one, and that to
+me both of you--Read it all in some book or other; I cannot put things
+clearly.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve got it--inexperience. I’m no better than Helen, you mean, and
+yet I presume to advise her.”
+
+“Yes. You have got it. Inexperience is the word.”
+
+“Inexperience,” repeated Margaret, in serious yet buoyant tones.
+
+“Of course, I have everything to learn--absolutely everything--just
+as much as Helen. Life’s very difficult and full of surprises. At all
+events, I’ve got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go
+straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the
+submerged--well, one can’t do all these things at once, worse luck,
+because they’re so contradictory. It’s then that proportion comes in--to
+live by proportion. Don’t BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that.
+Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have
+failed, and a deadlock--Gracious me, I’ve started preaching!”
+
+“Indeed, you put the difficulties of life splendidly,” said Mrs. Wilcox,
+withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows. “It is just what I should
+have liked to say about them myself.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about
+life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty,
+and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel.
+She had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with
+distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up
+a brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet
+the little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox’s honour was not
+a success. The new friend did not blend with the “one or two delightful
+people” who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of
+polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture
+slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in
+the dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started
+as a conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with
+cries of joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was half
+over did they realise that the principal guest had taken no part in the
+chase. There was no common topic. Mrs. Wilcox, whose life had been spent
+in the service of husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who
+had never shared it, and whose age was half her own. Clever talk alarmed
+her, and withered her delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart
+of a motor-car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice
+she deplored the weather, twice criticised the train service on the
+Great Northern Railway. They vigorously assented, and rushed on, and
+when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen, her hostess was
+too much occupied in placing Rothenstein to answer. The question was
+repeated: “I hope that your sister is safe in Germany by now.” Margaret
+checked herself and said, “Yes, thank you; I heard on Tuesday.” But the
+demon of vociferation was in her, and the next moment she was off again.
+
+“Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you ever know
+any one living at Stettin?”
+
+“Never,” said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour, a young man low
+down in the Education Office, began to discuss what people who lived
+at Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity?
+Margaret swept on.
+
+“People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses.
+At least, our cousins do, but aren’t particularly rich. The town isn’t
+interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the
+Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would
+love the Oder! The river, or rather rivers--there seem to be dozens
+of them--are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest
+green.”
+
+“Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel.”
+
+“So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no, it’s like music.
+The course of the Oder is to be like music. It’s obliged to remind her
+of a symphonic poem. The part by the landing-stage is in B minor, if I
+remember rightly, but lower down things get extremely mixed. There is a
+slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning mud-banks, and another for
+the navigable canal, and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major,
+pianissimo.”
+
+“What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?” asked the man,
+laughing.
+
+“They make a great deal of it,” replied Margaret, unexpectedly rushing
+off on a new track. “I think it’s affectation to compare the Oder to
+music, and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take
+beauty seriously, which we don’t, and the average Englishman doesn’t,
+and despises all who do. Now don’t say ‘Germans have no taste,’ or I
+shall scream. They haven’t. But--but--such a tremendous but!--they take
+poetry seriously. They do take poetry seriously.”
+
+“Is anything gained by that?”
+
+“Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss
+it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking
+beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At
+Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as
+he repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh--I, who never
+repeat poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember one fragment of verse
+to thrill myself with. My blood boils--well, I’m half German, so put
+it down to patriotism--when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the
+average islander for things Teutonic, whether they’re Bocklin or my
+veterinary surgeon. ‘Oh, Bocklin,’ they say; ‘he strains after beauty,
+he peoples Nature with gods too consciously.’ Of course Bocklin strains,
+because he wants something--beauty and all the other intangible gifts
+that are floating about the world. So his landscapes don’t come off, and
+Leader’s do.”
+
+“I am not sure that I agree. Do you?” said he, turning to Mrs. Wilcox.
+
+She replied: “I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;” and a
+chill fell on the conversation.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It’s such a snub to be
+told you put things splendidly.”
+
+“I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech interested me so much.
+Generally people do not seem quite to like Germany. I have long wanted
+to hear what is said on the other side.”
+
+“The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give us your side.”
+
+“I have no side. But my husband”--her voice softened, the chill
+increased--“has very little faith in the Continent, and our children
+have all taken after him.”
+
+“On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in bad form?”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to grounds. She was
+not intellectual, nor even alert, and it was odd that, all the same, she
+should give the idea of greatness. Margaret, zigzagging with her friends
+over Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that transcended
+their own and dwarfed their activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs.
+Wilcox; there was not even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious
+or uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life were
+out of focus; one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she
+seemed more out of focus than usual, and nearer the line that divides
+daily life from a life that may be of greater importance.
+
+“You will admit, though, that the Continent--it seems silly to speak of
+‘the Continent,’ but really it is all more like itself than any part of
+it is like England. England is unique. Do have another jelly first. I
+was going to say that the Continent, for good or for evil, is interested
+in ideas. Its Literature and Art have what one might call the kink of
+the unseen about them, and this persists even through decadence and
+affectation. There is more liberty of action in England, but for liberty
+of thought go to bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with
+humility vital questions that we here think ourselves too good to touch
+with tongs.”
+
+“I do not want to go to Prussia,” said Mrs. Wilcox “not even to see
+that interesting view that you were describing. And for discussing with
+humility I am too old. We never discuss anything at Howards End.”
+
+“Then you ought to!” said Margaret. “Discussion keeps a house alive. It
+cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone.”
+
+“It cannot stand without them,” said Mrs. Wilcox, unexpectedly catching
+on to the thought, and rousing, for the first and last time, a faint
+hope in the breasts of the delightful people. “It cannot stand without
+them, and I sometimes think--But I cannot expect your generation to
+agree, for even my daughter disagrees with me here.”
+
+“Never mind us or her. Do say!”
+
+“I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and discussion to
+men.”
+
+There was a little silence.
+
+“One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE extraordinarily
+strong,” said a girl opposite, leaning forward and crumbling her bread.
+
+“Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too thankful not to
+have a vote myself.”
+
+“We didn’t mean the vote, though, did we?” supplied Margaret. “Aren’t
+we differing on something much wider, Mrs. Wilcox? Whether women are to
+remain what they have been since the dawn of history; or whether, since
+men have moved forward so far, they too may move forward a little now. I
+say they may. I would even admit a biological change.”
+
+“I don’t know, I don’t know.”
+
+“I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse,” said the man.
+“They’ve turned disgracefully strict.”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox also rose.
+
+“Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested plays. Do you like
+MacDowell? Do you mind his only having two noises? If you must really
+go, I’ll see you out. Won’t you even have coffee?”
+
+They left the dining-room closing the door behind them, and as Mrs.
+Wilcox buttoned up her jacket, she said: “What an interesting life you
+all lead in London!”
+
+“No, we don’t,” said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion. “We lead the
+lives of gibbering monkeys. Mrs. Wilcox--really--We have something quiet
+and stable at the bottom. We really have. All my friends have. Don’t
+pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed it, but forgive me by coming
+again, alone, or by asking me to you.”
+
+“I am used to young people,” said Mrs. Wilcox, and with each word she
+spoke the outlines of known things grew dim. “I hear a great deal of
+chatter at home, for we, like you, entertain a great deal. With us it
+is more sport and politics, but--I enjoyed my lunch very much, Miss
+Schlegel, dear, and am not pretending, and only wish I could have joined
+in more. For one thing, I’m not particularly well just to-day. For
+another, you younger people move so quickly that it dazes me. Charles
+is the same, Dolly the same. But we are all in the same boat, old and
+young. I never forget that.”
+
+They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn emotion, they shook
+hands. The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret re-entered the
+dining-room; her friends had been talking over her new friend, and had
+dismissed her as uninteresting.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Several days passed.
+
+Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many of
+them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests
+and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them.
+Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a
+definite name for such behaviour--flirting--and if carried far enough
+it is punishable by law. But no law--not public opinion even--punishes
+those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they
+inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as
+intolerable. Was she one of these?
+
+Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner’s impatience, she
+wanted everything to be settled up immediately. She mistrusted the
+periods of quiet that are essential to true growth. Desiring to book
+Mrs. Wilcox as a friend, she pressed on the ceremony, pencil, as it
+were, in hand, pressing the more because the rest of the family were
+away, and the opportunity seemed favourable. But the elder woman would
+not be hurried. She refused to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to
+reopen discussion of Helen and Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised
+as a short-cut. She took her time, or perhaps let time take her, and
+when the crisis did come all was ready.
+
+The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come shopping?
+Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand with the
+presents. She had taken some more days in bed, and must make up for lost
+time. Margaret accepted, and at eleven o’clock one cheerless morning
+they started out in a brougham.
+
+“First of all,” began Margaret, “we must make a list and tick off the
+people’s names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken up any
+moment. Have you any ideas?”
+
+“I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores,” said Mrs.
+Wilcox rather hopelessly. “Everything is sure to be there. I am not a
+good shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is quite right--one
+ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then, and write your own name at
+the top of the page.”
+
+“Oh, hooray!” said Margaret, writing it. “How very kind of you to start
+with me!” But she did not want to receive anything expensive. Their
+acquaintance was singular rather than intimate, and she divined that the
+Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure on outsiders; the more compact
+families do. She did not want to be thought a second Helen, who would
+snatch presents since she could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed
+like a second Aunt Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity
+of demeanour was best, and she added: “I don’t really want a Yuletide
+gift, though. In fact, I’d rather not.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because I’ve odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that money
+can buy. I want more people, but no more things.”
+
+“I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance, Miss
+Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely fortnight.
+It has so happened that I have been left alone, and you have stopped me
+from brooding. I am too apt to brood.”
+
+“If that is so,” said Margaret, “if I have happened to be of use to you,
+which I didn’t know, you cannot pay me back with anything tangible.”
+
+“I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of
+something as we go about.”
+
+Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was written
+opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was white, and when
+they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At times they passed through
+a clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox’s vitality was low that morning, and it was
+Margaret who decided on a horse for this little girl, a golliwog for
+that, for the rector’s wife a copper warming-tray. “We always give the
+servants money.” “Yes, do you, yes, much easier,” replied Margaret but
+felt the grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing
+from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys.
+Vulgarity reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual exhortation
+against temperance reform, invited men to “Join our Christmas goose
+club”--one bottle of gin, etc., or two, according to subscription. A
+poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little
+red devils, who had come in again that year, were prevalent upon the
+Christmas-cards. Margaret was no morbid idealist. She did not wish
+this spate of business and self-advertisement checked. It was only the
+occasion of it that struck her with amazement annually. How many of
+these vacillating shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it
+was a divine event that drew them together? She realised it, though
+standing outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted
+sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young
+artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if pressed,
+would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their belief were
+Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced, a little money
+spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten. Inadequate. But in
+public who shall express the unseen adequately? It is private life that
+holds out the mirror to infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone,
+that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision.
+
+“No, I do like Christmas on the whole,” she announced. “In its clumsy
+way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every
+year.”
+
+“Is it? I am only used to country Christmases.”
+
+“We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour--carols at
+the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids, followed by
+Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with songs from Helen.
+The drawing-room does very well for that. We put the tree in the
+powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted, and with
+the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty. I wish we might have
+a powder-closet in our next house. Of course, the tree has to be very
+small, and the presents don’t hang on it. No; the presents reside in a
+sort of rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper.”
+
+“You spoke of your ‘next house,’ Miss Schlegel. Then are you leaving
+Wickham Place?”
+
+“Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must.”
+
+“Have you been there long?”
+
+“All our lives.”
+
+“You will be very sorry to leave it.”
+
+“I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father--” She broke off,
+for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket Stores,
+and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private greeting cards.
+
+“If possible, something distinctive,” she sighed. At the counter
+she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with
+her insipidly, wasting much time. “My husband and our daughter are
+motoring.” “Bertha, too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!”
+
+Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as this.
+While they talked, she went through a volume of specimen cards,
+and submitted one for Mrs. Wilcox’s inspection. Mrs. Wilcox was
+delighted--so original, words so sweet; she would order a hundred
+like that, and could never be sufficiently grateful. Then, just as the
+assistant was booking the order, she said: “Do you know, I’ll wait. On
+second thoughts, I’ll wait. There’s plenty of time still, isn’t there,
+and I shall be able to get Evie’s opinion.”
+
+They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were in, she
+said, “But couldn’t you get it renewed?”
+
+“I beg your pardon?” asked Margaret.
+
+“The lease, I mean.”
+
+“Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How very
+kind of you!”
+
+“Surely something could be done.”
+
+“No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down Wickham
+Place, and build flats like yours.”
+
+“But how horrible!”
+
+“Landlords are horrible.”
+
+Then she said vehemently: “It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it isn’t
+right. I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do pity you from
+the bottom of my heart. To be parted from your house, your father’s
+house--it oughtn’t to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather
+die than--Oh, poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right, if
+people mayn’t die in the room where they were born? My dear, I am so
+sorry.”
+
+Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the
+shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.
+
+“Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me.”
+
+“I--Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond of
+ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an
+ordinary London house. We shall easily find another.”
+
+“So you think.”
+
+“Again my lack of experience, I suppose!” said Margaret, easing away
+from the subject. “I can’t say anything when you take up that line, Mrs.
+Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me--foreshortened into a
+backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming--wonderfully well read for
+my age, but incapable--”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. “Come down with me to Howards End
+now,” she said, more vehemently than ever. “I want you to see it. You
+have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put
+things so wonderfully.”
+
+Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her
+companion. “Later on I should love it,” she continued, “but it’s hardly
+the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we’re
+fresh. Isn’t the house shut up, too?”
+
+She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.
+
+“Might I come some other day?”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. “Back to Wickham Place,
+please!” was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.
+
+“A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help.”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind--the
+Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice.”
+
+It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became
+annoyed.
+
+“My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That is why
+I dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town chiefly to shop,
+but got through nothing, and now he writes that they must cut their
+tour short, the weather is so bad, and the police-traps have been so
+bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey. Ours is such a careful chauffeur, and
+my husband feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like
+road-hogs.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Well, naturally he--he isn’t a road-hog.”
+
+“He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to suffer
+with the lower animals.”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove homewards.
+The city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets oppressing like the
+galleries of a mine.
+
+No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the lighted
+windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was rather a
+darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to find a more
+grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a dozen times, but
+something throttled her. She felt petty and awkward, and her meditations
+on Christmas grew more cynical. Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is
+there a single Londoner to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for
+excitement and for elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had
+she seen any example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself?
+She had failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a
+little queer and imaginative--she, whose birthright it was to nourish
+imagination! Better to have accepted, to have tired themselves a little
+by the journey, than coldly to reply, “Might I come some other day?” Her
+cynicism left her. There would be no other day. This shadowy woman would
+never ask her again.
+
+They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due civilities,
+and Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up the hall to
+the lift. As the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an
+imprisonment The beautiful head disappeared first, still buried in the
+muff; the long trailing skirt followed. A woman of undefinable rarity
+was going up heavenward, like a specimen in a bottle. And into what a
+heaven--a vault as of hell, sooty black, from which soot descended!
+
+At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on
+talking. Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something drove
+him to do the unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her a long
+account of the day-school that he sometimes patronised. The account was
+interesting, and she had often pressed him for it before, but she
+could not attend now, for her mind was focussed on the invisible. She
+discerned that Mrs. Wilcox, though a loving wife and mother, had only
+one passion in life--her house--and that the moment was solemn when she
+invited a friend to share this passion with her. To answer “another day”
+ was to answer as a fool. “Another day” will do for brick and mortar, but
+not for the Holy of Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured.
+Her own curiosity was slight. She had heard more than enough about it in
+the summer. The nine windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had no pleasant
+connections for her, and she would have preferred to spend the afternoon
+at a concert. But imagination triumphed. While her brother held forth
+she determined to go, at whatever cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go,
+too. When lunch was over she stepped over to the flats.
+
+Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.
+
+Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs, and
+took a hansom to King’s Cross. She was convinced that the escapade
+was important, though it would have puzzled her to say why. There was
+question of imprisonment and escape, and though she did not know the
+time of the train, she strained her eyes for St. Pancras’s clock.
+
+Then the clock of King’s Cross swung into sight, a second moon in that
+infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was a train for
+Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in her agitation for
+a single. As she did so, a grave and happy voice saluted her and thanked
+her.
+
+“I will come if I still may,” said Margaret, laughing nervously.
+
+“You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my house
+is most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show you my meadow
+properly except at sunrise. These fogs”--she pointed at the station
+roof--“never spread far. I dare say they are sitting in the sun in
+Hertfordshire, and you will never repent joining them.”
+
+“I shall never repent joining you.”
+
+“It is the same.”
+
+They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood the
+train, breasting the darkness without. They never reached it. Before
+imagination could triumph, there were cries of “Mother! mother!” and a
+heavy-browed girl darted out of the cloak-room and seized Mrs. Wilcox by
+the arm.
+
+“Evie!” she gasped--“Evie, my pet--”
+
+The girl called, “Father! I say! look who’s here.”
+
+“Evie, dearest girl, why aren’t you in Yorkshire?”
+
+“No--motor smash--changed plans--father’s coming.”
+
+“Why, Ruth!” cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them, “what in the name of all
+that’s wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?”
+
+Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.
+
+“Oh, Henry dear!--here’s a lovely surprise--but let me introduce--but I
+think you know Miss Schlegel.”
+
+“Oh yes,” he replied, not greatly interested. “But how’s yourself,
+Ruth?”
+
+“Fit as a fiddle,” she answered gaily.
+
+“So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but there
+a wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver--”
+
+“Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day.”
+
+“I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman himself
+admits.”
+
+“Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course.”
+
+“--But as we’ve insured against third party risks, it won’t so much
+matter--”
+
+“--Cart and car being practically at right angles--”
+
+The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left alone.
+No one wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King’s Cross between her
+husband and her daughter, listening to both of them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The funeral was over. The carriages had rolled away through the soft
+mud, and only the poor remained. They approached to the newly-dug shaft
+and looked their last at the coffin, now almost hidden beneath the
+spadefuls of clay. It was their moment. Most of them were women from the
+dead woman’s district, to whom black garments had been served out by Mr.
+Wilcox’s orders. Pure curiosity had brought others. They thrilled with
+the excitement of a death, and of a rapid death, and stood in groups or
+moved between the graves, like drops of ink. The son of one of them, a
+wood-cutter, was perched high above their heads, pollarding one of the
+churchyard elms. From where he sat he could see the village of Hilton,
+strung upon the North Road, with its accreting suburbs; the sunset
+beyond, scarlet and orange, winking at him beneath brows of grey; the
+church; the plantations; and behind him an unspoilt country of fields
+and farms. But he, too, was rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth.
+He tried to tell his mother down below all that he had felt when he saw
+the coffin approaching: how he could not leave his work, and yet did not
+like to go on with it; how he had almost slipped out of the tree, he was
+so upset; the rooks had cawed, and no wonder--it was as if rooks knew
+too. His mother claimed the prophetic power herself--she had seen
+a strange look about Mrs. Wilcox for some time. London had done the
+mischief, said others. She had been a kind lady; her grandmother had
+been kind, too--a plainer person, but very kind. Ah, the old sort was
+dying out! Mr. Wilcox, he was a kind gentleman. They advanced to the
+topic again and again, dully, but with exaltation. The funeral of a rich
+person was to them what the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is to the
+educated. It was Art; though remote from life, it enhanced life’s
+values, and they witnessed it avidly.
+
+The grave-diggers, who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval--they
+disliked Charles; it was not a moment to speak of such things, but they
+did not like Charles Wilcox--the grave-diggers finished their work and
+piled up the wreaths and crosses above it. The sun set over Hilton;
+the grey brows of the evening flushed a little, and were cleft with
+one scarlet frown. Chattering sadly to each other, the mourners passed
+through the lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down
+to the village. The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer, poised
+above the silence and swaying rhythmically. At last the bough fell
+beneath his saw. With a grunt, he descended, his thoughts dwelling no
+longer on death, but on love, for he was mating. He stopped as he passed
+the new grave; a sheaf of tawny chrysanthemums had caught his eye.
+“They didn’t ought to have coloured flowers at buryings,” he reflected.
+Trudging on a few steps, he stopped again, looked furtively at the dusk,
+turned back, wrenched a chrysanthemum from the sheaf, and hid it in his
+pocket.
+
+After him came silence absolute. The cottage that abutted on the
+churchyard was empty, and no other house stood near. Hour after hour
+the scene of the interment remained without an eye to witness it. Clouds
+drifted over it from the west; or the church may have been a ship,
+high-prowed, steering with all its company towards infinity. Towards
+morning the air grew colder, the sky clearer, the surface of the earth
+hard and sparkling above the prostrate dead. The wood-cutter, returning
+after a night of joy, reflected: “They lilies, they chrysants; it’s a
+pity I didn’t take them all.”
+
+Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast. Charles and Evie sat
+in the dining-room, with Mrs. Charles. Their father, who could not bear
+to see a face, breakfasted upstairs. He suffered acutely. Pain came over
+him in spasms, as if it was physical, and even while he was about to
+eat, his eyes would fill with tears, and he would lay down the morsel
+untasted.
+
+He remembered his wife’s even goodness during thirty years. Not anything
+in detail--not courtship or early raptures--but just the unvarying
+virtue, that seemed to him a woman’s noblest quality. So many women are
+capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion or frivolity. Not so his
+wife. Year after year, summer and winter, as bride and mother, she had
+been the same, he had always trusted her. Her tenderness! Her innocence!
+The wonderful innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth knew
+no more of worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her
+garden, or the grass in her field. Her idea of business--“Henry, why
+do people who have enough money try to get more money?” Her idea of
+politics--“I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet,
+there would be no more wars,” Her idea of religion--ah, this had been a
+cloud, but a cloud that passed. She came of Quaker stock, and he and his
+family, formerly Dissenters, were now members of the Church of England.
+The rector’s sermons had at first repelled her, and she had expressed a
+desire for “a more inward light,” adding, “not so much for myself as for
+baby” (Charles). Inward light must have been granted, for he heard no
+complaints in later years. They brought up their three children without
+dispute. They had never disputed.
+
+She lay under the earth now. She had gone, and as if to make her going
+the more bitter, had gone with a touch of mystery that was all unlike
+her. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew of it?” he had moaned, and her
+faint voice had answered: “I didn’t want to, Henry--I might have been
+wrong--and every one hates illnesses.” He had been told of the horror by
+a strange doctor, whom she had consulted during his absence from town.
+Was this altogether just? Without fully explaining, she had died. It
+was a fault on her part, and--tears rushed into his eyes--what a little
+fault! It was the only time she had deceived him in those thirty years.
+
+He rose to his feet and looked out of the window, for Evie had come in
+with the letters, and he could meet no one’s eye. Ah yes--she had been a
+good woman--she had been steady. He chose the word deliberately. To him
+steadiness included all praise. He himself, gazing at the wintry garden,
+is in appearance a steady man. His face was not as square as his son’s,
+and, indeed, the chin, though firm enough in outline, retreated a
+little, and the lips, ambiguous, were curtained by a moustache. But
+there was no external hint of weakness. The eyes, if capable of kindness
+and good-fellowship, if ruddy for the moment with tears, were the eyes
+of one who could not be driven. The forehead, too, was like Charles’s.
+High and straight, brown and polished, merging abruptly into temples and
+skull, it had the effect of a bastion that protected his head from the
+world. At times it had the effect of a blank wall. He had dwelt behind
+it, intact and happy, for fifty years. “The post’s come, father,” said
+Evie awkwardly.
+
+“Thanks. Put it down.”
+
+“Has the breakfast been all right?”
+
+“Yes, thanks.”
+
+The girl glanced at him and at it with constraint. She did not know what
+to do.
+
+“Charles says do you want the Times?”
+
+“No, I’ll read it later.”
+
+“Ring if you want anything, father, won’t you?”
+
+“I’ve all I want.”
+
+Having sorted the letters from the circulars, she went back to the
+dining-room.
+
+“Father’s eaten nothing,” she announced, sitting down with wrinkled
+brows behind the tea-urn.
+
+Charles did not answer, but after a moment he ran quickly upstairs,
+opened the door, and said “Look here father, you must eat, you know;”
+ and having paused for a reply that did not come, stole down again. “He’s
+going to read his letters first, I think,” he said evasively; “I dare
+say he will go on with his breakfast afterwards.” Then he took up the
+Times, and for some time there was no sound except the clink of cup
+against saucer and of knife on plate.
+
+Poor Mrs. Charles sat between her silent companions terrified at
+the course of events, and a little bored. She was a rubbishy little
+creature, and she knew it. A telegram had dragged her from Naples to
+the death-bed of a woman whom she had scarcely known. A word from her
+husband had plunged her into mourning. She desired to mourn inwardly as
+well, but she wished that Mrs. Wilcox, since fated to die, could have
+died before the marriage, for then less would have been expected of her.
+Crumbling her toast, and too nervous to ask for the butter, she remained
+almost motionless, thankful only for this, that her father-in-law was
+having his breakfast upstairs.
+
+At last Charles spoke. “They had no business to be pollarding those elms
+yesterday,” he said to his sister.
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“I must make a note of that,” he continued. “I am surprised that the
+rector allowed it.”
+
+“Perhaps it may not be the rector’s affair.”
+
+“Whose else could it be?”
+
+“The lord of the manor.”
+
+“Impossible.”
+
+“Butter, Dolly?”
+
+“Thank you, Evie dear. Charles--”
+
+“Yes, dear?”
+
+“I didn’t know one could pollard elms. I thought one only pollarded
+willows.”
+
+“Oh no, one can pollard elms.”
+
+“Then why oughtn’t the elms in the churchyard to be pollarded?” Charles
+frowned a little, and turned again to his sister.
+
+“Another point. I must speak to Chalkeley.”
+
+“Yes, rather; you must complain to Chalkeley.”
+
+“It’s no good his saying he is not responsible for those men. He is
+responsible.”
+
+“Yes, rather.”
+
+Brother and sister were not callous. They spoke thus, partly because
+they desired to keep Chalkeley up to the mark--a healthy desire in its
+way--partly because they avoided the personal note in life. All Wilcoxes
+did. It did not seem to them of supreme importance. Or it may be as
+Helen supposed: they realised its importance, but were afraid of it.
+Panic and emptiness, could one glance behind. They were not callous, and
+they left the breakfast-table with aching hearts. Their mother never had
+come in to breakfast. It was in the other rooms, and especially in the
+garden, that they felt her loss most. As Charles went out to the garage,
+he was reminded at every step of the woman who had loved him and whom
+he could never replace. What battles he had fought against her gentle
+conservatism! How she had disliked improvements, yet how loyally she had
+accepted them when made! He and his father--what trouble they had had
+to get this very garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to
+yield them the paddock for it--the paddock that she loved more dearly
+than the garden itself! The vine--she had got her way about the vine. It
+still encumbered the south wall with its unproductive branches. And so
+with Evie, as she stood talking to the cook. Though she could take up
+her mother’s work inside the house, just as the man could take it up
+without, she felt that something unique had fallen out of her life.
+Their grief, though less poignant than their father’s, grew from deeper
+roots, for a wife may be replaced; a mother never. Charles would go
+back to the office. There was little at Howards End. The contents of his
+mother’s will had long been known to them. There were no legacies, no
+annuities, none of the posthumous bustle with which some of the dead
+prolong their activities. Trusting her husband, she had left him
+everything without reserve. She was quite a poor woman--the house had
+been all her dowry, and the house would come to Charles in time. Her
+watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended to reserve for Paul, while Evie would
+take the jewellery and lace. How easily she slipped out of life!
+Charles thought the habit laudable, though he did not intend to adopt
+it himself, whereas Margaret would have seen in it an almost culpable
+indifference to earthly fame. Cynicism--not the superficial cynicism
+that snarls and sneers, but the cynicism that can go with courtesy and
+tenderness--that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox’s will. She wanted not to
+vex people. That accomplished, the earth might freeze over her for ever.
+
+No, there was nothing for Charles to wait for. He could not go on
+with his honeymoon, so he would go up to London and work--he felt too
+miserable hanging about. He and Dolly would have the furnished flat
+while his father rested quietly in the country with Evie. He could
+also keep an eye on his own little house, which was being painted and
+decorated for him in one of the Surrey suburbs, and in which he hoped to
+install himself soon after Christmas. Yes, he would go up after lunch in
+his new motor, and the town servants, who had come down for the funeral,
+would go up by train.
+
+He found his father’s chauffeur in the garage, said “Morning” without
+looking at the man’s face, and bending over the car, continued: “Hullo!
+my new car’s been driven!”
+
+“Has it, sir?”
+
+“Yes,” said Charles, getting rather red; “and whoever’s driven it hasn’t
+cleaned it properly, for there’s mud on the axle. Take it off.”
+
+The man went for the cloths without a word. He was a chauffeur as ugly
+as sin--not that this did him disservice with Charles, who thought charm
+in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the little Italian beast
+with whom they had started.
+
+“Charles--” His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost, a
+dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat forming
+the capital thereof.
+
+“One minute, I’m busy. Well, Crane, who’s been driving it, do you
+suppose?”
+
+“Don’t know, I’m sure, sir. No one’s driven it since I’ve been back,
+but, of course, there’s the fortnight I’ve been away with the other car
+in Yorkshire.”
+
+The mud came off easily.
+
+“Charles, your father’s down. Something’s happened. He wants you in the
+house at once. Oh, Charles!”
+
+“Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while you were
+away, Crane?”
+
+“The gardener, sir.”
+
+“Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?”
+
+“No, sir; no one’s had the motor out, sir.”
+
+“Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?”
+
+“I can’t, of course, say for the time I’ve been in Yorkshire. No more
+mud now, sir.”
+
+Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart
+had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it
+was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after
+lunch, he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some
+incoherent story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel.
+
+“Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?”
+
+When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want
+was to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was
+correct, for his wife replied, “She wants Howards End.”
+
+“Howards End? Now, Crane, just don’t forget to put on the Stepney
+wheel.”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Now, mind you don’t forget, for I--Come, little woman.” When they were
+out of the chauffeur’s sight he put his arm round her waist and pressed
+her against him. All his affection and half his attention--it was what
+he granted her throughout their happy married life.
+
+“But you haven’t listened, Charles.”
+
+“What’s wrong?”
+
+“I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel’s got it.”
+
+“Got what?” said Charles, unclasping her. “What the dickens are you
+talking about?”
+
+“Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty--”
+
+“Look here, I’m in no mood for foolery. It’s no morning for it either.”
+
+“I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she’s got it--your
+mother’s left it to her--and you’ve all got to move out!”
+
+“HOWARDS END?”
+
+“HOWARDS END!” she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came
+dashing out of the shubbery.
+
+“Dolly, go back at once! My father’s much annoyed with you.
+Charles”--she hit herself wildly--“come in at once to father. He’s had a
+letter that’s too awful.”
+
+Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across
+the gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the
+unprolific vine. He exclaimed, “Schlegels again!” and as if to complete
+chaos, Dolly said, “Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written
+instead of her.”
+
+“Come in, all three of you!” cried his father, no longer inert.
+
+“Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Wilcox--”
+
+“I told you not to go out to the garage. I’ve heard you all shouting in
+the garden. I won’t have it. Come in.”
+
+He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand.
+
+“Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can’t discuss private
+matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read
+these. See what you make.”
+
+Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession.
+The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired
+her, when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The
+enclosed--it was from his mother herself. She had written: “To my
+husband: I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End.”
+
+“I suppose we’re going to have a talk about this?” he remarked,
+ominously calm.
+
+“Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly--”
+
+“Well, let’s sit down.”
+
+“Come, Evie, don’t waste time, sit--down.”
+
+In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of
+yesterday--indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past so
+remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings
+were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to steady
+them further, read the enclosure out loud: “A note in my mother’s
+handwriting, in an envelope addressed to my father, sealed. Inside: ‘I
+should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End.’ No date, no
+signature. Forwarded through the matron of that nursing home. Now, the
+question is--”
+
+Dolly interrupted him. “But I say that note isn’t legal. Houses ought to
+be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely.”
+
+Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in front of
+either ear--a symptom that she had not yet learnt to respect, and she
+asked whether she might see the note. Charles looked at his father for
+permission, who said abstractedly, “Give it her.” She seized it, and
+at once exclaimed: “Why, it’s only in pencil! I said so. Pencil never
+counts.”
+
+“We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly,” said Mr. Wilcox,
+speaking from out of his fortress. “We are aware of that. Legally, I
+should be justified in tearing it up and throwing it into the fire. Of
+course, my dear, we consider you as one of the family, but it will be
+better if you do not interfere with what you do not understand.”
+
+Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated: “The
+question is--” He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table from plates
+and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the tablecloth. “The
+question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the fortnight we were all
+away, whether she unduly--” He stopped.
+
+“I don’t think that,” said his father, whose nature was nobler than his
+son’s.
+
+“Don’t think what?”
+
+“That she would have--that it is a case of undue influence. No, to
+my mind the question is the--the invalid’s condition at the time she
+wrote.”
+
+“My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don’t admit it is
+my mother’s writing.”
+
+“Why, you just said it was!” cried Dolly.
+
+“Never mind if I did,” he blazed out; “and hold your tongue.”
+
+The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her handkerchief
+from her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed her. Evie was scowling
+like an angry boy. The two men were gradually assuming the manner of the
+committee-room. They were both at their best when serving on committees.
+They did not make the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but
+disposed of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before
+them now, and on it they turned their well-trained brains. Charles,
+after a little demur, accepted the writing as genuine, and they passed
+on to the next point. It is the best--perhaps the only--way of dodging
+emotion. They were the average human article, and had they considered
+the note as a whole it would have driven them miserable or mad.
+Considered item by item, the emotional content was minimised, and all
+went forward smoothly. The clock ticked, the coals blazed higher, and
+contended with the white radiance that poured in through the windows.
+Unnoticed, the sun occupied his sky, and the shadows of the tree stems,
+extraordinarily solid, fell like trenches of purple across the frosted
+lawn. It was a glorious winter morning. Evie’s fox terrier, who had
+passed for white, was only a dirty grey dog now, so intense was the
+purity that surrounded him. He was discredited, but the blackbirds that
+he was chasing glowed with Arabian darkness, for all the conventional
+colouring of life had been altered. Inside, the clock struck ten with a
+rich and confident note. Other clocks confirmed it, and the discussion
+moved towards its close.
+
+To follow it is unnecessary. It is rather a moment when the commentator
+should step forward. Ought the Wilcoxes to have offered their home to
+Margaret? I think not. The appeal was too flimsy. It was not legal; it
+had been written in illness, and under the spell of a sudden friendship;
+it was contrary to the dead woman’s intentions in the past, contrary to
+her very nature, so far as that nature was understood by them. To them
+Howards End was a house: they could not know that to her it had been
+a spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir. And--pushing one step
+farther in these mists--may they not have decided even better than
+they supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be
+bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a
+wisp of hay with dew on it--can passion for such things be transmitted
+where there is no bond of blood? No; the Wilcoxes are not to be blamed.
+The problem is too terrific, and they could not even perceive a problem.
+No; it is natural and fitting that after due debate they should tear
+the note up and throw it on to their dining-room fire. The practical
+moralist may acquit them absolutely. He who strives to look deeper
+may acquit them--almost. For one hard fact remains. They did neglect a
+personal appeal. The woman who had died did say to them, “Do this,” and
+they answered, “We will not.”
+
+The incident made a most painful impression on them. Grief mounted into
+the brain and worked there disquietingly. Yesterday they had lamented:
+“She was a dear mother, a true wife; in our absence she neglected her
+health and died.” To-day they thought: “She was not as true, as dear, as
+we supposed.” The desire for a more inward light had found expression at
+last, the unseen had impacted on the seen, and all that they could say
+was “Treachery.” Mrs. Wilcox had been treacherous to the family, to the
+laws of property, to her own written word. How did she expect Howards
+End to be conveyed to Miss Schlegel? Was her husband, to whom it legally
+belonged, to make it over to her as a free gift? Was the said Miss
+Schlegel to have a life interest in it, or to own it absolutely? Was
+there to be no compensation for the garage and other improvements that
+they had made under the assumption that all would be theirs some
+day? Treacherous! treacherous and absurd! When we think the dead both
+treacherous and absurd, we have gone far towards reconciling ourselves
+to their departure. That note, scribbled in pencil, sent through the
+matron, was unbusinesslike as well as cruel, and decreased at once the
+value of the woman who had written it.
+
+“Ah, well!” said Mr. Wilcox, rising from the table. “I shouldn’t have
+thought it possible.”
+
+“Mother couldn’t have meant it,” said Evie, still frowning.
+
+“No, my girl, of course not.”
+
+“Mother believed so in ancestors too--it isn’t like her to leave
+anything to an outsider, who’d never appreciate.”
+
+“The whole thing is unlike her,” he announced. “If Miss Schlegel had
+been poor, if she had wanted a house, I could understand it a little.
+But she has a house of her own. Why should she want another? She
+wouldn’t have any use for Howards End.”
+
+“That time may prove,” murmured Charles.
+
+“How?” asked his sister.
+
+“Presumably she knows--mother will have told her. She got twice or three
+times into the nursing home. Presumably she is awaiting developments.”
+
+“What a horrid woman!” And Dolly, who had recovered, cried, “Why, she
+may be coming down to turn us out now!”
+
+Charles put her right. “I wish she would,” he said ominously. “I could
+then deal with her.”
+
+“So could I,” echoed his father, who was feeling rather in the cold.
+Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral arrangements and in
+telling him to eat his breakfast, but the boy as he grew up was a little
+dictatorial, and assumed the post of chairman too readily. “I could deal
+with her, if she comes, but she won’t come. You’re all a bit hard on
+Miss Schlegel.”
+
+“That Paul business was pretty scandalous, though.”
+
+“I want no more of the Paul business, Charles, as I said at the time,
+and besides, it is quite apart from this business. Margaret Schlegel has
+been officious and tiresome during this terrible week, and we have
+all suffered under her, but upon my soul she’s honest. She’s NOT in
+collusion with the matron. I’m absolutely certain of it. Nor was she
+with the doctor, I’m equally certain of that. She did not hide anything
+from us, for up to that very afternoon she was as ignorant as we are.
+She, like ourselves, was a dupe--” He stopped for a moment. “You see,
+Charles, in her terrible pain your mother put us all in false positions.
+Paul would not have left England, you would not have gone to Italy, nor
+Evie and I into Yorkshire, if only we had known. Well, Miss Schlegel’s
+position has been equally false. Take all in all, she has not come out
+of it badly.”
+
+Evie said: “But those chrysanthemums--”
+
+“Or coming down to the funeral at all--” echoed Dolly.
+
+“Why shouldn’t she come down? She had the right to, and she stood far
+back among the Hilton women. The flowers--certainly we should not have
+sent such flowers, but they may have seemed the right thing to her,
+Evie, and for all you know they may be the custom in Germany.”
+
+“Oh, I forget she isn’t really English,” cried Evie. “That would explain
+a lot.”
+
+“She’s a cosmopolitan,” said Charles, looking at his watch. “I admit I’m
+rather down on cosmopolitans. My fault, doubtless. I cannot stand them,
+and a German cosmopolitan is the limit. I think that’s about all, isn’t
+it? I want to run down and see Chalkeley. A bicycle will do. And, by the
+way, I wish you’d speak to Crane some time. I’m certain he’s had my new
+car out.”
+
+“Has he done it any harm?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“In that case I shall let it pass. It’s not worth while having a row.”
+
+Charles and his father sometimes disagreed. But they always parted
+with an increased regard for one another, and each desired no doughtier
+comrade when it was necessary to voyage for a little past the emotions.
+So the sailors of Ulysses voyaged past the Sirens, having first stopped
+one another’s ears with wool.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Charles need not have been anxious. Miss Schlegel had never heard of his
+mother’s strange request. She was to hear of it in after years, when she
+had built up her life differently, and it was to fit into position as
+the headstone of the corner. Her mind was bent on other questions
+now, and by her also it would have been rejected as the fantasy of an
+invalid.
+
+She was parting from these Wilcoxes for the second time. Paul and his
+mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and ebbed out of
+it for ever. The ripple had left no traces behind; the wave had strewn
+at her feet fragments torn from the unknown. A curious seeker, she stood
+for a while at the verge of the sea that tells so little, but tells
+a little, and watched the outgoing of this last tremendous tide. Her
+friend had vanished in agony, but not, she believed, in degradation.
+Her withdrawal had hinted at other things besides disease and pain. Some
+leave our life with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox
+had taken the middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She
+had kept proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her
+friends, but not too much; she had shut up her heart--almost, but
+not entirely. It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to
+die--neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet
+with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he
+must leave.
+
+The last word--whatever it would be--had certainly not been said in
+Hilton churchyard. She had not died there. A funeral is not death, any
+more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy
+devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would
+register the quick motions of man. In Margaret’s eyes Mrs. Wilcox had
+escaped registration. She had gone out of life vividly, her own way, and
+no dust was so truly dust as the contents of that heavy coffin, lowered
+with ceremonial until it rested on the dust of the earth, no flowers so
+utterly wasted as the chrysanthemums that the frost must have withered
+before morning. Margaret had once said she “loved superstition.” It was
+not true. Few women had tried more earnestly to pierce the accretions in
+which body and soul are enwrapped. The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped
+her in her work. She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a
+human being is, and to what he may aspire. Truer relationships gleamed.
+Perhaps the last word would be hope--hope even on this side of the
+grave.
+
+Meanwhile, she could take an interest in the survivors. In spite of her
+Christmas duties, in spite of her brother, the Wilcoxes continued to
+play a considerable part in her thoughts. She had seen so much of them
+in the final week. They were not “her sort,” they were often suspicious
+and stupid, and deficient where she excelled; but collision with them
+stimulated her, and she felt an interest that verged into liking, even
+for Charles. She desired to protect them, and often felt that they could
+protect her, excelling where she was deficient. Once past the rocks of
+emotion, they knew so well what to do, whom to send for; their hands
+were on all the ropes, they had grit as well as grittiness and she
+valued grit enormously. They led a life that she could not attain
+to--the outer life of “telegrams and anger,” which had detonated when
+Helen and Paul had touched in June, and had detonated again the other
+week. To Margaret this life was to remain a real force. She could not
+despise it, as Helen and Tibby affected to do. It fostered such virtues
+as neatness, decision, and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no
+doubt, but they have formed our civilisation. They form character, too;
+Margaret could not doubt it; they keep the soul from becoming sloppy.
+How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes, when it takes all sorts to make a
+world?
+
+“Don’t brood too much,” she wrote to Helen, “on the superiority of
+the unseen to the seen. It’s true, but to brood on it is medieval. Our
+business is not to contrast the two, but to reconcile them.”
+
+Helen replied that she had no intention of brooding on such a dull
+subject. What did her sister take her for? The weather was magnificent.
+She and the Mosebachs had gone tobogganing on the only hill that
+Pomerania boasted. It was fun, but over-crowded, for the rest of
+Pomerania had gone there too. Helen loved the country, and her letter
+glowed with physical exercise and poetry. She spoke of the scenery,
+quiet, yet august; of the snow-clad fields, with their scampering herds
+of deer; of the river and its quaint entrance into the Baltic Sea; of
+the Oderberge, only three hundred feet high, from which one slid all too
+quickly back into the Pomeranian plains, and yet these Oderberge were
+real mountains, with pine-forests, streams, and views complete. “It
+isn’t size that counts so much as the way things are arranged.” In
+another paragraph she referred to Mrs. Wilcox sympathetically, but the
+news had not bitten into her. She had not realised the accessories
+of death, which are in a sense more memorable than death itself. The
+atmosphere of precautions and recriminations, and in the midst a human
+body growing more vivid because it was in pain; the end of that body in
+Hilton churchyard; the survival of something that suggested hope, vivid
+in its turn against life’s workaday cheerfulness;--all these were lost
+to Helen, who only felt that a pleasant lady could now be pleasant no
+longer. She returned to Wickham Place full of her own affairs--she had
+had another proposal--and Margaret, after a moment’s hesitation, was
+content that this should be so.
+
+The proposal had not been a serious matter. It was the work of Fraulein
+Mosebach, who had conceived the large and patriotic notion of winning
+back her cousins to the Fatherland by matrimony. England had played Paul
+Wilcox, and lost; Germany played Herr Forstmeister some one--Helen could
+not remember his name. Herr Forstmeister lived in a wood, and, standing
+on the summit of the Oderberge, he had pointed out his house to Helen,
+or rather, had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay. She had
+exclaimed, “Oh, how lovely! That’s the place for me!” and in the evening
+Frieda appeared in her bedroom. “I have a message, dear Helen,” etc.,
+and so she had, but had been very nice when Helen laughed; quite
+understood--a forest too solitary and damp--quite agreed, but Herr
+Forstmeister believed he had assurance to the contrary. Germany had
+lost, but with good-humour; holding the manhood of the world, she felt
+bound to win. “And there will even be some one for Tibby,” concluded
+Helen. “There now, Tibby, think of that; Frieda is saving up a little
+girl for you, in pig-tails and white worsted stockings but the feet
+of the stockings are pink as if the little girl had trodden in
+strawberries. I’ve talked too much. My head aches. Now you talk.”
+
+Tibby consented to talk. He too was full of his own affairs, for he had
+just been up to try for a scholarship at Oxford. The men were down, and
+the candidates had been housed in various colleges, and had dined in
+hall. Tibby was sensitive to beauty, the experience was new, and he
+gave a description of his visit that was almost glowing. The august and
+mellow University, soaked with the richness of the western counties that
+it has served for a thousand years, appealed at once to the boy’s taste;
+it was the kind of thing he could understand, and he understood it
+all the better because it was empty. Oxford is--Oxford; not a mere
+receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to
+love it rather than to love one another; such at all events was to
+be its effect on Tibby. His sisters sent him there that he might make
+friends, for they knew that his education had been cranky, and had
+severed him from other boys and men. He made no friends. His Oxford
+remained Oxford empty, and he took into life with him, not the memory of
+a radiance, but the memory of a colour scheme.
+
+It pleased Margaret to hear her brother and sister talking. They did
+not get on overwell as a rule. For a few moments she listened to them,
+feeling elderly and benign.
+
+Then something occurred to her, and she interrupted.
+
+“Helen, I told you about poor Mrs. Wilcox; that sad business?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I have had a correspondence with her son. He was winding up the estate,
+and wrote to ask me whether his mother had wanted me to have anything.
+I thought it good of him, considering I knew her so little. I said that
+she had once spoken of giving me a Christmas present, but we both forgot
+about it afterwards.”
+
+“I hope Charles took the hint.”
+
+“Yes--that is to say, her husband wrote later on, and thanked me for
+being a little kind to her, and actually gave me her silver vinaigrette.
+Don’t you think that is extraordinarily generous? It has made me
+like him very much. He hopes that this will not be the end of our
+acquaintance, but that you and I will go and stop with Evie some time in
+the future. I like Mr. Wilcox. He is taking up his work--rubber--it is
+a big business. I gather he is launching out rather. Charles is in it,
+too. Charles is married--a pretty little creature, but she doesn’t seem
+wise. They took on the flat, but now they have gone off to a house of
+their own.”
+
+Helen, after a decent pause, continued her account of Stettin. How
+quickly a situation changes! In June she had been in a crisis; even in
+November she could blush and be unnatural; now it was January and
+the whole affair lay forgotten. Looking back on the past six months,
+Margaret realised the chaotic nature of our daily life, and its
+difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by
+historians. Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead
+nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never
+comes. The most successful career must show a waste of strength that
+might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that
+of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is
+never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly
+silent. It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself a good,
+and that men, like nations, are the better for staggering through life
+fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save
+by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality
+would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of
+it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its
+essence is romantic beauty. Margaret hoped that for the future she would
+be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in the past.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to lead its
+life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming gracefully on
+the grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept past them, money had
+been spent and renewed, reputations won and lost, and the city herself,
+emblematic of their lives, rose and fell in a continual flux, while her
+shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the
+fields of Hertfordshire. This famous building had arisen, that was
+doomed. To-day Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn
+of Regent Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more
+strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings
+heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the
+air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the leaves were falling
+by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.
+
+To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an
+artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future
+will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town. One
+can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces, the public
+has heard a little too much--they seem Victorian, while London is
+Georgian--and those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long
+ere the pendulum swings back to her again. Certainly London fascinates.
+One visualises it as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without
+purpose, and excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before
+it can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no
+pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything; Nature, with all
+her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men. A friend
+explains himself; the earth is explicable--from her we came, and we must
+return to her. But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool
+Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the same thoroughfares
+in the evening--the city exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in
+desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the
+universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human
+face. London is religion’s opportunity--not the decorous religion of
+theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow
+would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not any one pompous or
+tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.
+
+The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him, too, away
+from his moorings, and Margaret’s eyes were not opened until the lease
+of Wickham Place expired. She had always known that it must expire, but
+the knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event.
+Then the house was suddenly ringed with pathos. It had seen so much
+happiness. Why had it to be swept away? In the streets of the city
+she noted for the first time the architecture of hurry and heard the
+language of hurry on the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words,
+formless sentences, potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by
+month things were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population
+still rose, but what was the quality of the men born? The particular
+millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place, and desired to
+erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he to stir so large a
+portion of the quivering jelly? He was not a fool--she had heard him
+expose Socialism--but true insight began just where his intelligence
+ended, and one gathered that this was the case with most millionaires.
+What right had such men--But Margaret checked herself. That way lies
+madness. Thank goodness, she, too, had some money, and could purchase a
+new home.
+
+Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter
+vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk
+with him. Did he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby didn’t
+know that he did know. Did he at all know what he wanted to do? He was
+equally uncertain, but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to
+be quite free of any profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went on
+sewing for a few minutes before she replied:
+
+“I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly happy.”
+
+“Ye--es.” said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious quiver,
+as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round, through, over,
+and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped him, and finally
+dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the Subject under
+discussion. That bleat of Tibby’s infuriated Helen. But Helen was now
+down in the dining room preparing a speech about political economy. At
+times her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.
+
+“But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don’t you think? Then
+there’s Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides”--shifting to the
+general--“every one is the better for some regular work.”
+
+Groans.
+
+“I shall stick to it,” she continued, smiling. “I am not saying it
+to educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in the last
+century men have developed the desire for work, and they must not starve
+it. It’s a new desire. It goes with a great deal that’s bad, but in
+itself it’s good, and I hope that for women, too, ‘not to work’ will
+soon become as shocking as ‘not to be married’ was a hundred years ago.”
+
+“I have no experience of this profound desire to which you allude,”
+ enunciated Tibby.
+
+“Then we’ll leave the subject till you do. I’m not going to rattle you
+round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of the men you like
+most, and see how they’ve arranged them.”
+
+“I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most,” said Tibby faintly, and leant so far
+back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to
+throat.
+
+“And don’t think I’m not serious because I don’t use the traditional
+arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and so on--all of which
+are, for various reasons, cant.” She sewed on. “I’m only your sister.
+I haven’t any authority over you, and I don’t want to have any. Just
+to put before you what I think the Truth. You see”--she shook off the
+pince-nez to which she had recently taken--“in a few years we shall be
+the same age practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men are so
+much nicer than women.”
+
+“Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?”
+
+“I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance.”
+
+“Has nobody arst you?”
+
+“Only ninnies.”
+
+“Do people ask Helen?”
+
+“Plentifully.”
+
+“Tell me about them.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Tell me about your ninnies, then.”
+
+“They were men who had nothing better to do,” said his sister, feeling
+that she was entitled to score this point. “So take warning; you must
+work, or else you must pretend to work, which is what I do. Work, work,
+work if you’d save your soul and your body. It is honestly a necessity,
+dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their
+defects of temper and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than
+many who are better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
+regularly and honestly.”
+
+“Spare me the Wilcoxes,” he moaned.
+
+“I shall not. They are the right sort.”
+
+“Oh, goodness me, Meg--!” he protested, suddenly sitting up, alert and
+angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine personality.
+
+“Well, they’re as near the right sort as you can imagine.”
+
+“No, no--oh, no!”
+
+“I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny,
+but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He’s gone out there again, Evie
+Wilcox tells me--out to his duty.”
+
+“Duty” always elicited a groan.
+
+“He doesn’t want the money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly
+work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh
+water and food... A nation that can produce men of that sort may well be
+proud. No wonder England has become an Empire.”
+
+“EMPIRE!”
+
+“I can’t bother over results,” said Margaret, a little sadly. “They are
+too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An Empire bores me,
+so far, but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up. London
+bores me, but what thousands of splendid people are labouring to make
+London--”
+
+“What it is,” he sneered.
+
+“What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation. How
+paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in heaven.”
+
+“And I,” said Tibby, “want civilisation without activity, which, I
+expect, is what we shall find in the other place.”
+
+“You needn’t go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you want that.
+You can find it at Oxford.”
+
+“Stupid--”
+
+“If I’m stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I’ll even live in
+Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I’ll live anywhere except Bournemouth,
+Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge
+Wells and Surbiton and Bedford. There on no account.”
+
+“London, then.”
+
+“I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London. However,
+there’s no reason we shouldn’t have a house in the country and also a
+flat in town, provided we all stick together and contribute. Though of
+course--Oh, how one does maunder on and to think, to think of the people
+who are really poor. How do they live? Not to move about the world would
+kill me.”
+
+As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a state of
+extreme excitement.
+
+“Oh, my dears, what do you think? You’ll never guess. A woman’s been
+here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?” (Helen was fond of supplying
+her own surprise.) “Yes, for her husband, and it really is so.”
+
+“Not anything to do with Bracknell?” cried Margaret, who had lately
+taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives and boots.
+
+“I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up,
+Tibby!) It’s no one we know. I said, ‘Hunt, my good woman; have a good
+look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the
+antimacassars. Husband? husband?’ Oh, and she so magnificently dressed
+and tinkling like a chandelier.”
+
+“Now, Helen, what did really happen?”
+
+“What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door
+like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open.
+Then we began--very civilly. ‘I want my husband, what I have reason to
+believe is here.’ No--how unjust one is. She said ‘whom,’ not ‘what.’
+She got it perfectly. So I said, ‘Name, please?’ and she said, ‘Lan,
+Miss,’ and there we were.”
+
+“Lan?”
+
+“Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline.”
+
+“But what an extraordinary--”
+
+“I said, ‘My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding
+here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my
+beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.’”
+
+“I hope you were pleased,” said Tibby.
+
+“Of course,” Helen squeaked. “A perfectly delightful experience.
+Oh, Mrs. Lanoline’s a dear--she asked for a husband as if he were
+an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and for a long time
+suffered no inconvenience. But all night, and all this morning her
+apprehensions grew. Breakfast didn’t seem the same--no, no more did
+lunch, and so she strolled up to 2 Wickham Place as being the most
+likely place for the missing article.”
+
+“But how on earth--”
+
+“Don’t begin how on earthing. ‘I know what I know,’ she kept repeating,
+not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked her what she did
+know. Some knew what others knew, and others didn’t, and then others
+again had better be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent! She had
+a face like a silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of orris-root. We
+chatted pleasantly a little about husbands, and I wondered where hers
+was too, and advised her to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed
+that Mr. Lanoline’s a notty, notty man, and hasn’t no business to go
+on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the last. Bags I
+writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg, remember--bags I.”
+
+“Bag it by all means,” murmured Margaret, putting down her work. “I’m
+not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible volcano
+smoking somewhere, doesn’t it?”
+
+“I don’t think so--she doesn’t really mind. The admirable creature isn’t
+capable of tragedy.”
+
+“Her husband may be, though,” said Margaret, moving to the window.
+
+“Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs.
+Lanoline.”
+
+“Was she pretty?”
+
+“Her figure may have been good once.”
+
+The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain between
+Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned sadly
+to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She feared,
+fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil
+and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes as these.
+
+“Tibby and I have again been wondering where we’ll live next September,”
+ she said at last.
+
+“Tibby had better first wonder what he’ll do,” retorted Helen; and that
+topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and after tea Helen
+went on preparing her speech, and Margaret prepared one, too, for they
+were going out to a discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts
+were poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint
+smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had
+both decayed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day, just as
+they were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called. He was a clerk
+in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company. Thus much
+from his card. He had come “about the lady yesterday.” Thus much from
+Annie, who had shown him into the dining-room.
+
+“Cheers, children!” cried Helen. “It’s Mrs. Lanoline.”
+
+Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not the
+gay dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless, who had
+already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so
+common in London, and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing
+presences. One guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the
+shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one
+of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach
+the life of the spirit. Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a
+hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might
+have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered
+whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a
+couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last
+few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide
+and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the
+philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to
+cross it. She knew this type very well--the vague aspirations, the
+mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew
+the very tones in which he would address her. She was only unprepared
+for an example of her own visiting-card.
+
+“You wouldn’t remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?” said he, uneasily
+familiar.
+
+“No; I can’t say I do.”
+
+“Well, that was how it happened, you see.”
+
+“Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don’t remember.”
+
+“It was a concert at the Queen’s Hall. I think you will recollect,” he
+added pretentiously, “when I tell you that it included a performance of
+the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven.”
+
+“We hear the Fifth practically every time it’s done, so I’m not sure--do
+you remember, Helen?”
+
+“Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?”
+
+He thought not.
+
+“Then I don’t remember. That’s the only Beethoven I ever remember
+specially.”
+
+“And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of
+course.”
+
+“Likely enough,” Helen laughed, “for I steal umbrellas even oftener than
+I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?”
+
+“Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel.”
+
+“The mistake arose out of my card, did it?” interposed Margaret.
+
+“Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake.”
+
+“The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too,
+and that she could find you?” she continued, pushing him forward, for,
+though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one.
+
+“That’s so, calling too--a mistake.”
+
+“Then why--?” began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.
+
+“I said to my wife,” he continued more rapidly “I said to Mrs. Bast, ‘I
+have to pay a call on some friends,’ and Mrs. Bast said to me, ‘Do go.’
+While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and
+thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I
+beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we
+may have inadvertently caused you.”
+
+“No inconvenience,” said Helen; “but I still don’t understand.”
+
+An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was
+obviously lying, and Helen didn’t see why he should get off. She had the
+cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister’s pressure, she said, “I still
+don’t understand. When did you say you paid this call?”
+
+“Call? What call?” said he, staring as if her question had been a
+foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream.
+
+“This afternoon call.”
+
+“In the afternoon, of course!” he replied, and looked at Tibby to see
+how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, “Saturday
+afternoon or Sunday afternoon?”
+
+“S--Saturday.”
+
+“Really!” said Helen; “and you were still calling on Sunday, when your
+wife came here. A long visit.”
+
+“I don’t call that fair,” said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome.
+There was fight in his eyes. “I know what you mean, and it isn’t so.”
+
+“Oh, don’t let us mind,” said Margaret, distressed again by odours from
+the abyss.
+
+“It was something else,” he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking
+down. “I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!”
+
+“It was good of you to come and explain,” she said. “The rest is
+naturally no concern of ours.”
+
+“Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard
+Feverel?”
+
+Margaret nodded.
+
+“It’s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don’t you
+see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson’s
+Prince Otto?”
+
+Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
+
+“That’s another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I
+wanted--” He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his culture
+came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. “I walked all the Saturday night,”
+ said Leonard. “I walked.” A thrill of approval ran through the sisters.
+But culture closed in again. He asked whether they had ever read E. V.
+Lucas’s Open Road.
+
+Said Helen, “No doubt it’s another beautiful book, but I’d rather hear
+about your road.”
+
+“Oh, I walked.”
+
+“How far?”
+
+“I don’t know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my watch.”
+
+“Were you walking alone, may I ask?”
+
+“Yes,” he said, straightening himself; “but we’d been talking it over at
+the office. There’s been a lot of talk at the office lately about these
+things. The fellows there said one steers by the Pole Star, and I looked
+it up in the celestial atlas, but once out of doors everything gets so
+mixed.”
+
+“Don’t talk to me about the Pole Star,” interrupted Helen, who was
+becoming interested. “I know its little ways. It goes round and round,
+and you go round after it.”
+
+“Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then the
+trees, and towards morning it got cloudy.”
+
+Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room. He
+knew that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did not want to
+hear him trying.
+
+Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more than
+they knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm more easily.
+
+“Where did you start from?” cried Margaret. “Do tell us more.”
+
+“I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the office I said
+to myself, ‘I must have a walk once in a way. If I don’t take this walk
+now, I shall never take it.’ I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon, and
+then--”
+
+“But not good country there, is it?”
+
+“It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and being out
+was the great thing. I did get into woods, too, presently.”
+
+“Yes, go on,” said Helen.
+
+“You’ve no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it’s dark.”
+
+“Did you actually go off the roads?”
+
+“Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it is that
+it’s more difficult to find one’s way.”
+
+“Mr. Bast, you’re a born adventurer,” laughed Margaret. “No professional
+athlete would have attempted what you’ve done. It’s a wonder your walk
+didn’t end in a broken neck. Whatever did your wife say?”
+
+“Professional athletes never move without lanterns and compasses,” said
+Helen. “Besides, they can’t walk. It tires them. Go on.”
+
+“I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus.”
+
+“Yes, but the wood. This ‘ere wood. How did you get out of it?”
+
+“I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a good
+bit uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the road went
+off into grass, and I got into another wood. That was awful, with gorse
+bushes. I did wish I’d never come, but suddenly it got light--just while
+I seemed going under one tree. Then I found a road down to a station,
+and took the first train I could back to London.”
+
+“But was the dawn wonderful?” asked Helen.
+
+With unforgettable sincerity he replied, “No.” The word flew again like
+a pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had seemed ignoble or
+literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R. L. S. and the “love of
+the earth” and his silk top-hat. In the presence of these women Leonard
+had arrived, and he spoke with a flow, an exultation, that he had seldom
+known.
+
+“The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention.”
+
+“Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know.”
+
+“--and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so cold
+too. I’m glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more than I can
+say. And besides--you can believe me or not as you choose--I was very
+hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon--I meant it to last me all night
+like other dinners. I never thought that walking would make such a
+difference. Why, when you’re walking you want, as it were, a breakfast
+and luncheon and tea during the night as well, and I’d nothing but a
+packet of Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn’t what
+you may call enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did
+stick. I--I was determined. Oh, hang it all! what’s the good--I mean,
+the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day,
+same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any
+other game. You ought to see once in a way what’s going on outside, if
+it’s only nothing particular after all.”
+
+“I should just think you ought,” said Helen, sitting on the edge of the
+table.
+
+The sound of a lady’s voice recalled him from sincerity, and he said:
+“Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard
+Jefferies.”
+
+“Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you’re wrong there. It didn’t. It came from
+something far greater.”
+
+But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies--Borrow,
+Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and the outburst
+ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault
+is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and are not
+to blame if, in our weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination.
+And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the county of
+Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its cosy villas had
+re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he
+had troubled to go and see for himself. Within his cramped little mind
+dwelt something that was greater than Jefferies’ books--the spirit that led
+Jefferies to write them; and his dawn, though revealing nothing but
+monotones, was part of the eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow
+Stonehenge.
+
+“Then you don’t think I was foolish?” he asked becoming again the naive
+and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.
+
+“Heavens, no!” replied Margaret.
+
+“Heaven help us if we do!” replied Helen.
+
+“I’m very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand--not if
+I explained for days.”
+
+“No, it wasn’t foolish!” cried Helen, her eyes aflame. “You’ve pushed
+back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you.”
+
+“You’ve not been content to dream as we have--”
+
+“Though we have walked, too--”
+
+“I must show you a picture upstairs--”
+
+Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their
+evening party.
+
+“Oh, bother, not to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out; but
+do, do, come round again and have a talk.” “Yes, you must--do,” echoed
+Margaret.
+
+Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: “No, I shall not. It’s better
+like this.”
+
+“Why better?” asked Margaret.
+
+“No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look
+back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life.
+Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and
+there we had better leave it.”
+
+“That’s rather a sad view of life, surely.”
+
+“Things so often get spoiled.”
+
+“I know,” flashed Helen, “but people don’t.”
+
+He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true
+imagination and false. What he said wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right,
+and a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument
+might be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever. He
+thanked the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a
+moment’s awkwardness, and then Helen said: “Go, then; perhaps you know
+best; but never forget you’re better than Jefferies.” And he went. Their
+hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and
+vanished with its accomplished load into the evening.
+
+London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric
+lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the
+side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson
+battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated
+the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately
+painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She had never
+known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her
+tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life,
+and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss
+Schlegels--or, to speak more accurately, his interview with them--were
+to fill such a corner, nor was it by any means the first time that
+he had talked intimately to strangers. The habit was analogous to a
+debauch, an outlet, though the worst of outlets, for instincts that
+would not be denied. Terrifying him, it would beat down his suspicions
+and prudence until he was confiding secrets to people whom he had
+scarcely seen. It brought him many fears and some pleasant memories.
+Perhaps the keenest happiness he had ever known was during a railway
+journey to Cambridge, where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken
+to him. They had got into conversation, and gradually Leonard flung
+reticence aside, told some of his domestic troubles and hinted at the
+rest. The undergraduate, supposing they could start a friendship, asked
+him to “coffee after hall,” which he accepted, but afterwards grew shy,
+and took care not to stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged.
+He did not want Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with
+Jacky, and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand
+this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an interesting
+creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they to him were denizens
+of Romance, who must keep to the corner he had assigned them, pictures
+that must not walk out of their frames.
+
+His behaviour over Margaret’s visiting-card had been typical. His
+had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no
+inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave
+his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were
+enough. Here “that card” had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was
+untidy, and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, “What’s
+that card, eh?” “Yes, don’t you wish you knew what that card was?” “Len,
+who’s Miss Schlegel?” etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke,
+now as a grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It
+followed them when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It was
+submitted to third parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it became the
+battlefield on which the souls of Leonard and his wife contended. Why
+did he not say, “A lady took my umbrella, another gave me this that I
+might call for my umbrella”? Because Jacky would have disbelieved him?
+Partly, but chiefly because he was sentimental. No affection gathered
+round the card, but it symbolised the life of culture, that Jacky should
+never spoil. At night he would say to himself, “Well, at all events, she
+doesn’t know about that card. Yah! done her there!”
+
+Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear.
+She drew her own conclusion--she was only capable of drawing one
+conclusion--and in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the Friday
+Leonard had refused to speak to her, and had spent the evening observing
+the stars. On the Saturday he went up, as usual, to town, but he came
+not back Saturday night, nor Sunday morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The
+inconvenience grew intolerable, and though she was now of a retiring
+habit, and shy of women, she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned
+in her absence. The card, the fatal card, was gone from the pages of
+Ruskin, and he guessed what had happened.
+
+“Well?” he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter. “I know
+where you’ve been, but you don’t know where I’ve been.”
+
+Jacky sighed, said, “Len, I do think you might explain,” and resumed
+domesticity.
+
+Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too silly--or
+it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt them. His reticence
+was not entirely the shoddy article that a business life promotes, the
+reticence that pretends that nothing is something, and hides behind
+the Daily Telegraph. The adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an
+adventure for a clerk to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh
+at him, you who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle
+beside you and all the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may
+laugh who think adventures silly. But do not be surprised if Leonard is
+shy whenever he meets you, and if the Schlegels rather than Jacky hear
+about the dawn.
+
+That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent
+joy. He was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as he
+journeyed home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of wealth
+had fallen, and there had been--he could not phrase it--a general
+assertion of the wonder of the world. “My conviction,” says the mystic,
+“gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it,” and they
+had agreed that there was something beyond life’s daily grey. He took
+off his top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed
+the unknown to be books, literature, clever conversation, culture. One
+raised oneself by study, and got upsides with the world. But in that
+quick interchange a new light dawned. Was that “something” walking in
+the dark among the suburban hills?
+
+He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street. London
+came back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but all whom he
+passed looked at him with a hostility that was the more impressive
+because it was unconscious. He put his hat on. It was too big; his head
+disappeared like a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at
+the touch of the curly brim. He wore it a little backwards, and its
+effect was greatly to elongate the face and to bring out the distance
+between the eyes and the moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism.
+No one felt uneasy as he titupped along the pavements, the heart of a
+man ticking fast in his chest.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they
+were both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that
+could stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies,
+had more kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at
+one part of the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast
+and of no one else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues
+collided, fell ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all.
+The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a
+paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,
+but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general
+interest. After the paper came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast
+also figured, appearing now as a bright spot in civilisation, now as a
+dark spot, according to the temperament of the speaker. The subject of
+the paper had been, “How ought I to dispose of my money?” the reader
+professing to be a millionaire on the point of death, inclined to
+bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but open
+to conviction from other sources. The various parts had been assigned
+beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing. The hostess assumed
+the ungrateful role of “the millionaire’s eldest son,” and implored her
+expiring parent not to dislocate Society by allowing such vast sums
+to pass out of the family. Money was the fruit of self-denial, and the
+second generation had a right to profit by the self-denial of the first.
+What right had “Mr. Bast” to profit? The National Gallery was good
+enough for the likes of him. After property had had its say--a saying
+that is necessarily ungracious--the various philanthropists stepped
+forward. Something must be done for “Mr. Bast”; his conditions must
+be improved without impairing his independence; he must have a free
+library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid in such a way that
+he did not know it was being paid; it must be made worth his while to
+join the Territorials; he must be forcibly parted from his uninspiring
+wife, the money going to her as compensation; he must be assigned a
+Twin Star, some member of the leisured classes who would watch over him
+ceaselessly (groans from Helen); he must be given food but no clothes,
+clothes but no food, a third-return ticket to Venice, without either
+food or clothes when he arrived there. In short, he might be given
+anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.
+
+And here Margaret interrupted.
+
+“Order, order, Miss Schlegel!” said the reader of the paper. “You are
+here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the Society for the
+Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. I cannot
+have you speaking out of your role. It makes my poor head go round, and
+I think you forget that I am very ill.”
+
+“Your head won’t go round if only you’ll listen to my argument,” said
+Margaret. “Why not give him the money itself? You’re supposed to have
+about thirty thousand a year.”
+
+“Have I? I thought I had a million.”
+
+“Wasn’t a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that.
+Still, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you’ve got, I order you to give as
+many poor men as you can three hundred a year each.”
+
+“But that would be pauperising them,” said an earnest girl, who liked
+the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.
+
+“Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise a man.
+It is these little driblets, distributed among too many, that do the
+harm. Money’s educational. It’s far more educational than the things
+it buys.” There was a protest. “In a sense,” added Margaret, but the
+protest continued. “Well, isn’t the most civilized thing going, the man
+who has learnt to wear his income properly?”
+
+“Exactly what your Mr. Basts won’t do.”
+
+“Give them a chance. Give them money. Don’t dole them out poetry-books
+and railway-tickets like babies. Give them the wherewithal to buy these
+things. When your Socialism comes it may be different, and we may think
+in terms of commodities instead of cash. Till it comes give people
+cash, for it is the warp of civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The
+imagination ought to play upon money and realise it vividly, for it’s
+the--the second most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over
+and hushed up, there is so little clear thinking--oh, political economy,
+of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes,
+and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the
+result of independent means. Money: give Mr. Bast money, and don’t
+bother about his ideals. He’ll pick up those for himself.”
+
+She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to
+misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily
+life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss
+Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what
+it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own
+soul. She answered, “Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until
+he had gained a little of the world.” Then they said, “No, we do not
+believe it,” and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul
+in the superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the
+deed, but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources
+of this world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to
+clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had attacked
+the fabric of Society--Property, Interest, etc.; she only fixed her eyes
+on a few human beings, to see how, under present conditions, they could
+be made happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the many-coloured
+efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in
+an universal grey. To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was
+the utmost she dare hope for.
+
+Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had a
+bad time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her, and
+in keeping the administration of the millionaire’s money in their
+own hands. The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of “personal
+supervision and mutual help,” the effect of which was to alter poor
+people until they became exactly like people who were not so poor. The
+hostess pertinently remarked that she, as eldest son, might surely rank
+among the millionaire’s legatees. Margaret weakly admitted the claim,
+and another claim was at once set up by Helen, who declared that she
+had been the millionaire’s housemaid for over forty years, overfed and
+underpaid; was nothing to be done for her, so corpulent and poor? The
+millionaire then read out her last will and testament, in which she left
+the whole of her fortune to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then she
+died. The serious parts of the discussion had been of higher merit than
+the playful--in a men’s debate is the reverse more general?--but the
+meeting broke up hilariously enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed
+to their homes.
+
+Helen and Margaret walked with the earnest girl as far as Battersea
+Bridge Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she had gone
+they were conscious of an alleviation, and of the great beauty of the
+evening. They turned back towards Oakley Street. The lamps and the
+plane-trees, following the line of the embankment, struck a note of
+dignity that is rare in English cities. The seats, almost deserted, were
+here and there occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled
+out from the houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the
+rising tide. There is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It
+is an open space used rightly, a blessing more frequent in Germany than
+here. As Margaret and Helen sat down, the city behind them seemed to
+be a vast theatre, an opera-house in which some endless trilogy was
+performing, and they themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers, who did
+not mind losing a little of the second act.
+
+“Cold?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Tired?”
+
+“Doesn’t matter.”
+
+The earnest girl’s train rumbled away over the bridge.
+
+“I say, Helen--”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I think we won’t.”
+
+“As you like.”
+
+“It’s no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people. The
+discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough with him in a
+spirit of excitement, but think of rational intercourse. We mustn’t play
+at friendship. No, it’s no good.”
+
+“There’s Mrs. Lanoline, too,” Helen yawned. “So dull.”
+
+“Just so, and possibly worse than dull.”
+
+“I should like to know how he got hold of your card.”
+
+“But he said--something about a concert and an umbrella.”
+
+“Then did the card see the wife--”
+
+“Helen, come to bed.”
+
+“No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes; did you
+say money is the warp of the world?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then what’s the woof?”
+
+“Very much what one chooses,” said Margaret. “It’s something that isn’t
+money--one can’t say more.”
+
+“Walking at night?”
+
+“Probably.”
+
+“For Tibby, Oxford?”
+
+“It seems so.”
+
+“For you?”
+
+“Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it’s that.
+For Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End.”
+
+One’s own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was sitting
+with friends many seats away, heard this, rose to his feet, and strolled
+along towards the speakers.
+
+“It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than
+people,” continued Margaret.
+
+“Why, Meg? They’re so much nicer generally. I’d rather think of that
+forester’s house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Forstmeister who
+lived in it.”
+
+“I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The
+more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one
+of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a
+place.”
+
+Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had met.
+
+“How do you do?” he cried. “I thought I recognised your voices. Whatever
+are you both doing down here?”
+
+His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit out
+on Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented this, but
+Margaret accepted it as part of the good man’s equipment.
+
+“What an age it is since I’ve seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in the
+Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son.”
+
+“Paul?” said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting down
+between them. “Oh, Paul’s all right. We had a line from Madeira. He’ll
+be at work again by now.”
+
+“Ugh--” said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.
+
+“I beg your pardon?”
+
+“Isn’t the climate of Nigeria too horrible?”
+
+“Some one’s got to go,” he said simply. “England will never keep her
+trade overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices. Unless we get
+firm in West Africa, Ger--untold complications may follow. Now tell me
+all your news.”
+
+“Oh, we’ve had a splendid evening,” cried Helen, who always woke up at
+the advent of a visitor. “We belong to a kind of club that reads papers,
+Margaret and I--all women, but there is a discussion after. This evening
+it was on how one ought to leave one’s money--whether to one’s family,
+or to the poor, and if so how--oh, most interesting.”
+
+The man of business smiled. Since his wife’s death he had almost doubled
+his income. He was an important figure at last, a reassuring name on
+company prospectuses, and life had treated him very well. The world
+seemed in his grasp as he listened to the River Thames, which still
+flowed inland from the sea. So wonderful to the girls, it held no
+mysteries for him. He had helped to shorten its long tidal trough by
+taking shares in the lock at Teddington, and if he and other capitalists
+thought good, some day it could be shortened again. With a good dinner
+inside him and an amiable but academic woman on either flank, he felt
+that his hands were on all the ropes of life, and that what he did not
+know could not be worth knowing.
+
+“Sounds a most original entertainment!” he exclaimed, and laughed in
+his pleasant way. “I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing. But she
+hasn’t the time. She’s taken to breeding Aberdeen terriers--jolly little
+dogs.”
+
+“I expect we’d better be doing the same, really.”
+
+“We pretend we’re improving ourselves, you see,” said Helen a little
+sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns, and she
+had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just made
+would have impressed her favourably. “We suppose it a good thing to
+waste an evening once a fortnight over a debate, but, as my sister says,
+it may be better to breed dogs.”
+
+“Not at all. I don’t agree with your sister. There’s nothing like a
+debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when
+I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end.”
+
+“Quickness--?”
+
+“Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I’ve missed scoring a point
+because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven’t. Oh, I
+believe in these discussions.”
+
+The patronising tone, thought Margaret, came well enough from a man who
+was old enough to be their father. She had always maintained that Mr.
+Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had
+pained her, but it was pleasant to listen to him now, and to watch his
+thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars. But Helen
+was nettled. The aim of their debates she implied was Truth.
+
+“Oh yes, it doesn’t much matter what subject you take,” said he.
+
+Margaret laughed and said, “But this is going to be far better than the
+debate itself.” Helen recovered herself and laughed too. “No, I won’t go
+on,” she declared. “I’ll just put our special case to Mr. Wilcox.”
+
+“About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He’ll be more lenient to a special case.”
+
+“But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It’s this. We’ve
+just come across a young fellow, who’s evidently very poor, and who
+seems interest--”
+
+“What’s his profession?”
+
+“Clerk.”
+
+“What in?”
+
+“Do you remember, Margaret?”
+
+“Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company.”
+
+“Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug. He seems
+interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could help him. He is
+married to a wife whom he doesn’t seem to care for much. He likes books,
+and what one may roughly call adventure, and if he had a chance--But he
+is so poor. He lives a life where all the money is apt to go on nonsense
+and clothes. One is so afraid that circumstances will be too strong
+for him and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our debate. He
+wasn’t the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his point. Suppose
+a millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help such a man. How
+should he be helped? Should he be given three hundred pounds a year
+direct, which was Margaret’s plan? Most of them thought this would
+pauperise him. Should he and those like him be given free libraries?
+I said ‘No!’ He doesn’t want more books to read, but to read books
+rightly. My suggestion was he should be given something every year
+towards a summer holiday, but then there is his wife, and they said she
+would have to go too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think?
+Imagine that you were a millionaire, and wanted to help the poor. What
+would you do?”
+
+Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard
+indicated, laughed exuberantly. “My dear Miss Schlegel, I will not rush
+in where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not add another plan
+to the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested. My only
+contribution is this: let your young friend clear out of the Porphyrion
+Fire Insurance Company with all possible speed.”
+
+“Why?” said Margaret.
+
+He lowered his voice. “This is between friends. It’ll be in the
+Receiver’s hands before Christmas. It’ll smash,” he added, thinking that
+she had not understood.
+
+“Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he’ll have to get another place!”
+
+“WILL have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get one
+now.”
+
+“Rather than wait, to make sure?”
+
+“Decidedly.”
+
+“Why’s that?”
+
+Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. “Naturally the man
+who’s in a situation when he applies stands a better chance, is in a
+stronger position, that the man who isn’t. It looks as if he’s worth
+something. I know by myself--(this is letting you into the State
+secrets)--it affects an employer greatly. Human nature, I’m afraid.”
+
+“I hadn’t thought of that,” murmured Margaret, while Helen said, “Our
+human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people because
+they’re unemployed. The boot man, for instance.”
+
+“And how does he clean the boots?”
+
+“Not well,” confessed Margaret.
+
+“There you are!”
+
+“Then do you really advise us to tell this youth--?”
+
+“I advise nothing,” he interrupted, glancing up and down the Embankment,
+in case his indiscretion had been overheard. “I oughtn’t to have
+spoken--but I happen to know, being more or less behind the scenes. The
+Porphyrion’s a bad, bad concern--Now, don’t say I said so. It’s outside
+the Tariff Ring.”
+
+“Certainly I won’t say. In fact, I don’t know what that means.”
+
+“I thought an insurance company never smashed,” was Helen’s
+contribution. “Don’t the others always run in and save them?”
+
+“You’re thinking of reinsurance,” said Mr. Wilcox mildly. “It is exactly
+there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to undercut, has been
+badly hit by a long series of small fires, and it hasn’t been able to
+reinsure. I’m afraid that public companies don’t save one another for
+love.”
+
+“‘Human nature,’ I suppose,” quoted Helen, and he laughed and agreed
+that it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks, like
+every one else, found it extremely difficult to get situations in these
+days, he replied, “Yes, extremely,” and rose to rejoin his friends. He
+knew by his own office--seldom a vacant post, and hundreds of applicants
+for it; at present no vacant post.
+
+“And how’s Howards End looking?” said Margaret, wishing to change the
+subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to think one
+wanted to get something out of him.
+
+“It’s let.”
+
+“Really. And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea? How strange
+are the ways of Fate!”
+
+“No; it’s let unfurnished. We’ve moved.”
+
+“Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie never told
+me.”
+
+“I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn’t settled. We only moved
+a week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place, and we held on
+for him to have his holiday there; but, really, it is impossibly small.
+Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you’ve been up to it?”
+
+“As far as the house, never.”
+
+“Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don’t really
+do, spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among
+the wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and
+attempted a rockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it
+didn’t do--no, it didn’t do. You remember, your sister will remember,
+the farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old
+woman never would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the
+bottom. And, inside the house, the beams--and the staircase through a
+door--picturesque enough, but not a place to live in.” He glanced
+over the parapet cheerfully. “Full tide. And the position wasn’t right
+either. The neighbourhood’s getting suburban. Either be in London or out
+of it, I say; so we’ve taken a house in Ducie Street, close to Sloane
+Street, and a place right down in Shropshire--Oniton Grange. Ever heard
+of Oniton? Do come and see us--right away from everywhere, up towards
+Wales.”
+
+“What a change!” said Margaret. But the change was in her own voice,
+which had become most sad. “I can’t imagine Howards End or Hilton
+without you.”
+
+“Hilton isn’t without us,” he replied. “Charles is there still.”
+
+“Still?” said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles’s. “But I
+thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that Christmas--one
+Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire Mrs. Charles from our
+windows very often. Wasn’t it Epsom?”
+
+“Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap”--his
+voice dropped--“thought I should be lonely. I didn’t want him to move,
+but he would, and took a house at the other end of Hilton, down by
+the Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they all are, a very jolly
+party--he and she and the two grandchildren.”
+
+“I manage other people’s affairs so much better than they manage them
+themselves,” said Margaret as they shook hands. “When you moved out of
+Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it. I should
+have kept so remarkable a place in the family.”
+
+“So it is,” he replied. “I haven’t sold it, and don’t mean to.”
+
+“No; but none of you are there.”
+
+“Oh, we’ve got a splendid tenant--Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If
+Charles ever wanted it--but he won’t. Dolly is so dependent on modern
+conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End. We like it in
+a way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. One
+must have one thing or the other.”
+
+“And some people are lucky enough to have both. You’re doing yourself
+proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations.”
+
+“And mine,” said Helen.
+
+“Do remind Evie to come and see us--2 Wickham Place. We shan’t be there
+very long, either.”
+
+“You, too, on the move?”
+
+“Next September,” Margaret sighed.
+
+“Every one moving! Good-bye.”
+
+The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and watched
+it sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her lover; she
+herself was probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is it worth while
+attempting the past when there is this continual flux even in the hearts
+of men?
+
+Helen roused her by saying: “What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has
+grown! I have very little use for him in these days. However, he did
+tell us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr. Bast as soon as ever
+we get home, and tell him to clear out of it at once.”
+
+“Do; yes, that’s worth doing. Let us.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Leonard accepted the invitation to tea next Saturday. But he was right;
+the visit proved a conspicuous failure.
+
+“Sugar?” said Margaret.
+
+“Cake?” said Helen. “The big cake or the little deadlies? I’m afraid
+you thought my letter rather odd, but we’ll explain--we aren’t odd,
+really--nor affected, really. We’re over-expressive--that’s all.”
+
+As a lady’s lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian,
+still less a Frenchman, in whose blood there runs the very spirit of
+persiflage and of gracious repartee. His wit was the Cockney’s; it
+opened no doors into imagination, and Helen was drawn up short by “The
+more a lady has to say, the better,” administered waggishly.
+
+“Oh yes,” she said.
+
+“Ladies brighten--”
+
+“Yes, I know. The darlings are regular sunbeams. Let me give you a
+plate.”
+
+“How do you like your work?” interposed Margaret.
+
+He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying into
+his work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he had at last
+penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing upon its walls,
+and so were the very tea-cups, with their delicate borders of wild
+strawberries. But he would not let romance interfere with his life.
+There is the devil to pay then.
+
+“Oh, well enough,” he answered.
+
+“Your company is the Porphyrion, isn’t it?”
+
+“Yes, that’s so.”--becoming rather offended. “It’s funny how things get
+round.”
+
+“Why funny?” asked Helen, who did not follow the workings of his mind.
+“It was written as large as life on your card, and considering we wrote
+to you there, and that you replied on the stamped paper--”
+
+“Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance Companies?”
+ pursued Margaret.
+
+“It depends on what you call big.”
+
+“I mean by big, a solid, well-established concern, that offers a
+reasonably good career to its employes.”
+
+“I couldn’t say--some would tell you one thing and others another,” said
+the employee uneasily. “For my own part”--he shook his head--“I only
+believe half I hear. Not that even; it’s safer. Those clever ones come
+to the worse grief, I’ve often noticed. Ah, you can’t be too careful.”
+
+He drank, and wiped his moustache, which was going to be one of those
+moustaches that always droop into tea-cups--more bother than they’re
+worth, surely, and not fashionable either.
+
+“I quite agree, and that’s why I was curious to know; is it a solid,
+well-established concern?”
+
+Leonard had no idea. He understood his own corner of the machine,
+but nothing beyond it. He desired to confess neither knowledge nor
+ignorance, and under these circumstances, another motion of the head
+seemed safest. To him, as to the British public, the Porphyrion was the
+Porphyrion of the advertisement--a giant, in the classical style, but
+draped sufficiently, who held in one hand a burning torch, and pointed
+with the other to St. Paul’s and Windsor Castle. A large sum of money
+was inscribed below, and you drew your own conclusions. This giant
+caused Leonard to do arithmetic and write letters, to explain the
+regulations to new clients, and re-explain them to old ones. A giant
+was of an impulsive morality--one knew that much. He would pay for
+Mrs. Munt’s hearthrug with ostentatious haste, a large claim he would
+repudiate quietly, and fight court by court. But his true fighting
+weight, his antecedents, his amours with other members of the commercial
+Pantheon--all these were as uncertain to ordinary mortals as were the
+escapades of Zeus. While the gods are powerful, we learn little about
+them. It is only in the days of their decadence that a strong light
+beats into heaven.
+
+“We were told the Porphyrion’s no go,” blurted Helen. “We wanted to tell
+you; that’s why we wrote.”
+
+“A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured,” said
+Margaret.
+
+Now Leonard had his clue.
+
+He must praise the Porphyrion. “You can tell your friend,” he said,
+“that he’s quite wrong.”
+
+“Oh, good!”
+
+The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was fatal.
+The Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were genuinely glad
+that they had been misinformed. To them nothing was fatal but evil.
+
+“Wrong, so to speak,” he added.
+
+“How ‘so to speak’?”
+
+“I mean I wouldn’t say he’s right altogether.”
+
+But this was a blunder. “Then he is right partly,” said the elder woman,
+quick as lightning.
+
+Leonard replied that every one was right partly, if it came to that.
+
+“Mr. Bast, I don’t understand business, and I dare say my questions are
+stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern ‘right’ or ‘wrong’?”
+
+Leonard sat back with a sigh.
+
+“Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said before
+Christmas--”
+
+“And advised you to clear out of it,” concluded Helen. “But I don’t see
+why he should know better than you do.”
+
+Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew nothing
+about the thing at all. But a commercial training was too strong for
+him. Nor could he say it was a bad thing, for this would be giving
+it away; nor yet that it was good, for this would be giving it away
+equally. He attempted to suggest that it was something between the two,
+with vast possibilities in either direction, but broke down under the
+gaze of four sincere eyes. And yet he scarcely distinguished between
+the two sisters. One was more beautiful and more lively, but “the Miss
+Schlegels” still remained a composite Indian god, whose waving arms and
+contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.
+
+“One can but see,” he remarked, adding, “as Ibsen says, ‘things
+happen.’” He was itching to talk about books and make the most of his
+romantic hour. Minute after minute slipped away, while the ladies, with
+imperfect skill, discussed the subject of reinsurance or praised their
+anonymous friend. Leonard grew annoyed--perhaps rightly. He made vague
+remarks about not being one of those who minded their affairs being
+talked over by others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have
+shown more tact. Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed
+here. They cannot see why we should shroud our incomes and our prospects
+in a veil. “How much exactly have you, and how much do you expect to
+have next June?” And these were women with a theory, who held that
+reticence about money matters is absurd, and that life would be truer
+if each would state the exact size of the golden island upon which he
+stands, the exact stretch of warp over which he throws the woof that is
+not money. How can we do justice to the pattern otherwise?
+
+And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came
+nearer. At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in, reciting
+the names of books feverishly. There was a moment of piercing joy when
+Margaret said, “So YOU like Carlyle” and then the door opened, and “Mr.
+Wilcox, Miss Wilcox” entered, preceded by two prancing puppies.
+
+“Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!” screamed Helen,
+falling on her hands and knees.
+
+“We brought the little fellows round,” said Mr. Wilcox.
+
+“I bred ’em myself.”
+
+“Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies.”
+
+“I’ve got to be going now,” said Leonard sourly.
+
+“But play with puppies a little first.”
+
+“This is Ahab, that’s Jezebel,” said Evie, who was one of those who name
+animals after the less successful characters of Old Testament history.
+
+“I’ve got to be going.”
+
+Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.
+
+“Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba--Must you be really? Good-bye!”
+
+“Come again,” said Helen from the floor.
+
+Then Leonard’s gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was the good
+of it? He said roundly: “No, I shan’t; I knew it would be a failure.”
+
+Most people would have let him go. “A little mistake. We tried knowing
+another class--impossible.”
+
+But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted
+friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted, “I
+call that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me like that
+for?” and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed to a vulgar row.
+
+“You ask me why I turn on you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What do you want to have me here for?’
+
+“To help you, you silly boy!” cried Helen. “And don’t shout.”
+
+“I don’t want your patronage. I don’t want your tea. I was quite happy.
+What do you want to unsettle me for?” He turned to Mr. Wilcox. “I put it
+to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have my brain picked?”
+
+Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength that he
+could so well command. “Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel? Can we be of
+any use, or shall we go?”
+
+But Margaret ignored him.
+
+“I’m connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive what I
+take to be an invitation from these--ladies” (he drawled the word). “I
+come, and it’s to have my brain picked. I ask you, is it fair?”
+
+“Highly unfair,” said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who knew
+that her father was becoming dangerous.
+
+“There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There! Not
+content with”--pointing at Margaret--“you can’t deny it.” His voice
+rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky. “But as
+soon as I’m useful it’s a very different thing. ‘Oh yes, send for him.
+Cross-question him. Pick his brains.’ Oh yes. Now, take me on the whole,
+I’m a quiet fellow: I’m law-abiding, I don’t wish any unpleasantness;
+but I--I--”
+
+“You,” said Margaret--“you--you--”
+
+Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.
+
+“You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star.”
+
+More laughter.
+
+“You saw the sunrise.”
+
+Laughter.
+
+“You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all--away past
+books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a real home.”
+
+“I fail to see the connection,” said Leonard, hot with stupid anger.
+
+“So do I.” There was a pause. “You were that last Sunday--you are this
+to-day. Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We wanted to
+help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did not have you here
+out of charity--which bores us--but because we hoped there would be a
+connection between last Sunday and other days. What is the good of your
+stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into
+our daily lives? They have never entered into mine, but into yours,
+we thought--Haven’t we all to struggle against life’s daily greyness,
+against pettiness, against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion?
+I struggle by remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering
+some place--some beloved place or tree--we thought you one of these.”
+
+“Of course, if there’s been any misunderstanding,” mumbled Leonard, “all
+I can do is to go. But I beg to state--” He paused. Ahab and Jezebel
+danced at his boots and made him look ridiculous. “You were picking my
+brain for official information--I can prove it--I--” He blew his nose
+and left them.
+
+“Can I help you now?” said Mr. Wilcox, turning to Margaret. “May I have
+one quiet word with him in the hall?”
+
+“Helen, go after him--do anything--anything--to make the noodle
+understand.”
+
+Helen hesitated.
+
+“But really--” said their visitor. “Ought she to?”
+
+At once she went.
+
+He resumed. “I would have chimed in, but I felt that you could polish
+him off for yourselves--I didn’t interfere. You were splendid, Miss
+Schlegel--absolutely splendid. You can take my word for it, but there
+are very few women who could have managed him.”
+
+“Oh yes,” said Margaret distractedly.
+
+“Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me,” cried
+Evie.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” chuckled her father; “all that part about ‘mechanical
+cheerfulness’--oh, fine!”
+
+“I’m very sorry,” said Margaret, collecting herself. “He’s a nice
+creature really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been most
+unpleasant for you.”
+
+“Oh, I didn’t mind.” Then he changed his mood. He asked if he might
+speak as an old friend, and, permission given, said: “Oughtn’t you
+really to be more careful?”
+
+Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen. “Do you
+realise that it’s all your fault?” she said. “You’re responsible.”
+
+“I?”
+
+“This is the young man whom we were to warn against the Porphyrion. We
+warn him, and--look!”
+
+Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. “I hardly consider that a fair deduction,” he
+said.
+
+“Obviously unfair,” said Margaret. “I was only thinking how tangled
+things are. It’s our fault mostly--neither yours nor his.”
+
+“Not his?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Miss Schlegel, you are too kind.”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.
+
+“You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you. I know
+the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered the room I saw
+you had not been treating him properly. You must keep that type at a
+distance. Otherwise they forget themselves. Sad, but true. They aren’t
+our sort, and one must face the fact.”
+
+“Ye--es.”
+
+“Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
+gentleman.”
+
+“I admit it willingly,” said Margaret, who was pacing up and down the
+room. “A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to himself.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.
+
+“What did he suspect you of?”
+
+“Of wanting to make money out of him.”
+
+“Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?”
+
+“Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One touch of
+thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just the senseless
+fear that does make men intolerable brutes.”
+
+“I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful, Miss
+Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such people in.”
+
+She turned to him frankly. “Let me explain exactly why we like this man,
+and want to see him again.”
+
+“That’s your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you like him.”
+
+“I do. Firstly, because he cares for physical adventure, just as you
+do. Yes, you go motoring and shooting; he would like to go camping out.
+Secondly, he cares for something special IN adventure. It is quickest to
+call that special something poetry--”
+
+“Oh, he’s one of that writer sort.”
+
+“No--oh no! I mean he may be, but it would be loathsome stuff. His brain
+is filled with the husks of books, culture--horrible; we want him to
+wash out his brain and go to the real thing. We want to show him how
+he may get upsides with life. As I said, either friends or the country,
+some”--she hesitated--“either some very dear person or some very dear
+place seems necessary to relieve life’s daily grey, and to show that it
+is grey. If possible, one should have both.”
+
+Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox. He let them run past. Others he
+caught and criticised with admirable lucidity.
+
+“Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This young
+bounder has a life of his own. What right have you to conclude it is an
+unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, ‘grey’?”
+
+“Because--”
+
+“One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own
+joys and interests--wife, children, snug little home. That’s where we
+practical fellows” he smiled--“are more tolerant than you intellectuals.
+We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on fairly well
+elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to look after
+his own affairs. I quite grant--I look at the faces of the clerks in my
+own office, and observe them to be dull, but I don’t know what’s going
+on beneath. So, by the way, with London. I have heard you rail against
+London, Miss Schlegel, and it seems a funny thing to say but I was very
+angry with you. What do you know about London? You only see civilisation
+from the outside. I don’t say in your case, but in too many cases that
+attitude leads to morbidity, discontent, and Socialism.”
+
+She admitted the strength of his position, though it undermined
+imagination. As he spoke, some outposts of poetry and perhaps of
+sympathy fell ruining, and she retreated to what she called her “second
+line”--to the special facts of the case.
+
+“His wife is an old bore,” she said simply. “He never came home last
+Saturday night because he wanted to be alone, and she thought he was
+with us.”
+
+“With YOU?”
+
+“Yes.” Evie tittered. “He hasn’t got the cosy home that you assumed. He
+needs outside interests.”
+
+“Naughty young man!” cried the girl.
+
+“Naughty?” said Margaret, who hated naughtiness more than sin. “When
+you’re married Miss Wilcox, won’t you want outside interests?”
+
+“He has apparently got them,” put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.
+
+“Yes, indeed, father.”
+
+“He was tramping in Surrey, if you mean that,” said Margaret, pacing
+away rather crossly.
+
+“Oh, I dare say!”
+
+“Miss Wilcox, he was!”
+
+“M--m--m--m!” from Mr. Wilcox, who thought the episode amusing, if
+risque. With most ladies he would not have discussed it, but he was
+trading on Margaret’s reputation as an emancipated woman.
+
+“He said so, and about such a thing he wouldn’t lie.”
+
+They both began to laugh.
+
+“That’s where I differ from you. Men lie about their positions and
+prospects, but not about a thing of that sort.”
+
+He shook his head. “Miss Schlegel, excuse me, but I know the type.”
+
+“I said before--he isn’t a type. He cares about adventures rightly. He’s
+certain that our smug existence isn’t all. He’s vulgar and hysterical
+and bookish, but don’t think that sums him up. There’s manhood in him as
+well. Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say. He’s a real man.”
+
+As she spoke their eyes met, and it was as if Mr. Wilcox’s defences
+fell. She saw back to the real man in him. Unwittingly she had touched
+his emotions.
+
+A woman and two men--they had formed the magic triangle of sex, and
+the male was thrilled to jealousy, in case the female was attracted by
+another male. Love, say the ascetics, reveals our shameful kinship with
+the beasts. Be it so: one can bear that; jealousy is the real shame. It
+is jealousy, not love, that connects us with the farmyard intolerably,
+and calls up visions of two angry cocks and a complacent hen. Margaret
+crushed complacency down because she was civilised. Mr. Wilcox,
+uncivilised, continued to feel anger long after he had rebuilt his
+defences, and was again presenting a bastion to the world.
+
+“Miss Schlegel, you’re a pair of dear creatures, but you really MUST be
+careful in this uncharitable world. What does your brother say?”
+
+“I forget.”
+
+“Surely he has some opinion?”
+
+“He laughs, if I remember correctly.”
+
+“He’s very clever, isn’t he?” said Evie, who had met and detested Tibby
+at Oxford.
+
+“Yes, pretty well--but I wonder what Helen’s doing.”
+
+“She is very young to undertake this sort of thing,” said Mr. Wilcox.
+
+Margaret went out to the landing. She heard no sound, and Mr. Bast’s
+topper was missing from the hall.
+
+“Helen!” she called.
+
+“Yes!” replied a voice from the library.
+
+“You in there?”
+
+“Yes--he’s gone some time.”
+
+Margaret went to her. “Why, you’re all alone,” she said.
+
+“Yes--it’s all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature--”
+
+“Come back to the Wilcoxes and tell me later--Mr. W much concerned, and
+slightly titillated.”
+
+“Oh, I’ve no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast! he
+wanted to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a muddle of
+a man, and yet so worth pulling through. I like him extraordinarily.”
+
+“Well done,” said Margaret, kissing her, “but come into the drawing-room
+now, and don’t talk about him to the Wilcoxes. Make light of the whole
+thing.”
+
+Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that reassured their
+visitor--this hen at all events was fancy-free.
+
+“He’s gone with my blessing,” she cried, “and now for puppies.”
+
+As they drove away, Mr. Wilcox said to his daughter:
+
+“I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as clever
+as you make ’em, but unpractical--God bless me! One of these days
+they’ll go too far. Girls like that oughtn’t to live alone in London.
+Until they marry, they ought to have some one to look after them. We
+must look in more often--we’re better than no one. You like them, don’t
+you, Evie?”
+
+Evie replied: “Helen’s right enough, but I can’t stand the toothy one.
+And I shouldn’t have called either of them girls.”
+
+Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth under
+sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the Wilcoxes
+could do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present, puppies and
+her father were the only things she loved, but the net of matrimony was
+being prepared for her, and a few days later she was attracted to a Mr.
+Percy Cahill, an uncle of Mrs. Charles’s, and he was attracted to her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor. When
+a move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now
+lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all
+their belongings would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables,
+pictures, books, that had rumbled down to them through the generations,
+must rumble forward again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to
+give the final push, and send toppling into the sea. But there were
+all their father’s books--they never read them, but they were
+their father’s, and must be kept. There was the marble-topped
+chiffonier--their mother had set store by it, they could not remember
+why. Round every knob and cushion in the house gathered a sentiment
+that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a
+prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
+
+It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came to think
+of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The feudal ownership
+of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables
+is reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the
+civilisation of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the
+middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth,
+and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty. The
+Schlegels were certainly the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It
+had helped to balance their lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is
+their ground-landlord spiritually the richer. He has built flats on
+its site, his motor-cars grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism more
+trenchant. But he has spilt the precious distillation of the years, and
+no chemistry of his can give it back to society again.
+
+Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house before
+they left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She enjoyed this
+visit, and wanted to have her mind at ease for it. Swanage, though dull,
+was stable, and this year she longed more than usual for its fresh air
+and for the magnificent downs that guard it on the north. But London
+thwarted her; in its atmosphere she could not concentrate. London only
+stimulates, it cannot sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface
+for a house without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying
+for many a thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break
+loose from culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it would
+be a sin to miss, and invitations which it would never do to refuse. At
+last she grew desperate; she resolved that she would go nowhere and be
+at home to no one until she found a house, and broke the resolution in
+half an hour.
+
+Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to Simpson’s
+restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss Wilcox, asking
+her to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming and the three would have such a
+jolly chat, and perhaps end up at the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong
+regard for Evie, and no desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised
+that Helen, who had been far funnier about Simpson’s, had not been asked
+instead. But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone. She
+must know Evie Wilcox better than she supposed, and declaring that she
+“simply must,” she accepted.
+
+But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring
+fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her heart
+failed her anew. Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since her
+engagement. Her voice was gruffer, her manner more downright, and she
+was inclined to patronise the more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly
+enough to be pained at this. Depressed at her isolation, she saw not
+only houses and furniture, but the vessel of life itself slipping past
+her, with people like Evie and Mr. Cahill on board.
+
+There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and one of them came
+to her at Simpson’s in the Strand. As she trod the staircase, narrow,
+but carpeted thickly, as she entered the eating-room, where saddles of
+mutton were being trundled up to expectant clergymen, she had a strong,
+if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never
+come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and
+literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in
+remaining engaged. Then came a little surprise. “Father might be of the
+party--yes, father was.” With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to
+greet him, and her feeling of loneliness vanished.
+
+“I thought I’d get round if I could,” said he. “Evie told me of her
+little plan, so I just slipped in and secured a table. Always secure
+a table first. Evie, don’t pretend you want to sit by your old father,
+because you don’t. Miss Schlegel, come in my side, out of pity. My
+goodness, but you look tired! Been worrying round after your young
+clerks?”
+
+“No, after houses,” said Margaret, edging past him into the box. “I’m
+hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps.”
+
+“That’s good. What’ll you have?”
+
+“Fish pie,” said she, with a glance at the menu.
+
+“Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson’s. It’s not a bit the
+thing to go for here.”
+
+“Go for something for me, then,” said Margaret, pulling off her gloves.
+Her spirits were rising, and his reference to Leonard Bast had warmed
+her curiously.
+
+“Saddle of mutton,” said he after profound reflection; “and cider to
+drink. That’s the type of thing. I like this place, for a joke, once in
+a way. It is so thoroughly Old English. Don’t you agree?”
+
+“Yes,” said Margaret, who didn’t. The order was given, the joint rolled
+up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilcox’s direction, cut the meat where
+it was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on
+sirloin, but admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and
+Evie soon fell into a conversation of the “No, I didn’t; yes, you did”
+ type--conversation which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in
+it, neither desires nor deserves the attention of others.
+
+“It’s a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere’s my motto.”
+
+“Perhaps it does make life more human.”
+
+“Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the East, if you tip,
+they remember you from year’s end to year’s end.”
+
+“Have you been in the East?”
+
+“Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport and business to
+Cyprus; some military society of a sort there. A few piastres, properly
+distributed, help to keep one’s memory green. But you, of course, think
+this shockingly cynical. How’s your discussion society getting on? Any
+new Utopias lately?”
+
+“No, I’m house-hunting, Mr. Wilcox, as I’ve already told you once. Do
+you know of any houses?”
+
+“Afraid I don’t.”
+
+“Well, what’s the point of being practical if you can’t find two
+distressed females a house? We merely want a small house with large
+rooms, and plenty of them.”
+
+“Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn house-agent for
+her!”
+
+“What’s that, father?”
+
+“I want a new home in September, and some one must find it. I can’t.”
+
+“Percy, do you know of anything?”
+
+“I can’t say I do,” said Mr. Cahill.
+
+“How like you! You’re never any good.”
+
+“Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good. Oh, come!”
+
+“Well, you aren’t. Miss Schlegel, is he?”
+
+The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops at Margaret,
+swept away on its habitual course. She sympathised with it now, for a
+little comfort had restored her geniality. Speech and silence pleased
+her equally, and while Mr. Wilcox made some preliminary inquiries about
+cheese, her eyes surveyed the restaurant, and aired its well-calculated
+tributes to the solidity of our past. Though no more Old English than
+the works of Kipling, it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly
+that her criticism was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing for
+imperial purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or Tom Jones.
+Scraps of their talk jarred oddly on the ear. “Right you are! I’ll cable
+out to Uganda this evening,” came from the table behind. “Their Emperor
+wants war; well, let him have it,” was the opinion of a clergyman. She
+smiled at such incongruities. “Next time,” she said to Mr. Wilcox, “you
+shall come to lunch with me at Mr. Eustace Miles’s.”
+
+“With pleasure.”
+
+“No, you’d hate it,” she said, pushing her glass towards him for some
+more cider. “It’s all proteids and body buildings, and people come up to
+you and beg your pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura.”
+
+“A what?”
+
+“Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub at mine for
+hours. Nor of an astral plane?”
+
+He had heard of astral planes, and censured them.
+
+“Just so. Luckily it was Helen’s aura, not mine, and she had to
+chaperone it and do the politenesses. I just sat with my handkerchief in
+my mouth till the man went.”
+
+“Funny experiences seem to come to you two girls. No one’s ever asked me
+about my--what d’ye call it? Perhaps I’ve not got one.”
+
+“You’re bound to have one, but it may be such a terrible colour that no
+one dares mention it.”
+
+“Tell me, though, Miss Schlegel, do you really believe in the
+supernatural and all that?”
+
+“Too difficult a question.”
+
+“Why’s that? Gruyere or Stilton?”
+
+“Gruyere, please.”
+
+“Better have Stilton.
+
+“Stilton. Because, though I don’t believe in auras, and think
+Theosophy’s only a halfway-house--”
+
+“--Yet there may be something in it all the same,” he concluded, with a
+frown.
+
+“Not even that. It may be halfway in the wrong direction. I can’t
+explain. I don’t believe in all these fads, and yet I don’t like saying
+that I don’t believe in them.”
+
+He seemed unsatisfied, and said: “So you wouldn’t give me your word that
+you DON’T hold with astral bodies and all the rest of it?”
+
+“I could,” said Margaret, surprised that the point was of any importance
+to him. “Indeed, I will. When I talked about scrubbing my aura, I was
+only trying to be funny. But why do you want this settled?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Now, Mr. Wilcox, you do know.”
+
+“Yes, I am,” “No, you’re not,” burst from the lovers opposite. Margaret
+was silent for a moment, and then changed the subject.
+
+“How’s your house?”
+
+“Much the same as when you honoured it last week.”
+
+“I don’t mean Ducie Street. Howards End, of course.”
+
+“Why ‘of course’?”
+
+“Can’t you turn out your tenant and let it to us? We’re nearly demented.”
+
+“Let me think. I wish I could help you. But I thought you wanted to be
+in town. One bit of advice: fix your district, then fix your price, and
+then don’t budge. That’s how I got both Ducie Street and Oniton. I said
+to myself, ‘I mean to be exactly here,’ and I was, and Oniton’s a place
+in a thousand.”
+
+“But I do budge. Gentlemen seem to mesmerise houses--cow them with an
+eye, and up they come, trembling. Ladies can’t. It’s the houses that are
+mesmerising me. I’ve no control over the saucy things. Houses are alive.
+No?”
+
+“I’m out of my depth,” he said, and added: “Didn’t you talk rather like
+that to your office boy?”
+
+“Did I?--I mean I did, more or less. I talk the same way to every
+one--or try to.”
+
+“Yes, I know. And how much of it do you suppose he understood?”
+
+“That’s his lookout. I don’t believe in suiting my conversation to my
+company. One can doubtless hit upon some medium of exchange that seems
+to do well enough, but it’s no more like the real thing than money
+is like food. There’s no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower
+classes, and they pass it back to you, and this you call ‘social
+intercourse’ or ‘mutual endeavour,’ when it’s mutual priggishness if
+it’s anything. Our friends at Chelsea don’t see this. They say one ought
+to be at all costs intelligible, and sacrifice--”
+
+“Lower classes,” interrupted Mr. Wilcox, as it were thrusting his hand
+into her speech. “Well, you do admit that there are rich and poor.
+That’s something.”
+
+Margaret could not reply. Was he incredibly stupid, or did he understand
+her better than she understood herself?
+
+“You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in a few years
+there would be rich and poor again just the same. The hard-working man
+would come to the top, the wastrel sink to the bottom.”
+
+“Every one admits that.”
+
+“Your Socialists don’t.”
+
+“My Socialists do. Yours mayn’t; but I strongly suspect yours of being
+not Socialists, but ninepins, which you have constructed for your own
+amusement. I can’t imagine any living creature who would bowl over quite
+so easily.”
+
+He would have resented this had she not been a woman. But women may say
+anything--it was one of his holiest beliefs--and he only retorted, with
+a gay smile: “I don’t care. You’ve made two damaging admissions, and I’m
+heartily with you in both.”
+
+In time they finished lunch, and Margaret, who had excused herself from
+the Hippodrome, took her leave. Evie had scarcely addressed her, and she
+suspected that the entertainment had been planned by the father. He
+and she were advancing out of their respective families towards a more
+intimate acquaintance. It had begun long ago. She had been his wife’s
+friend and, as such, he had given her that silver vinaigrette as a
+memento. It was pretty of him to have given that vinaigrette, and he had
+always preferred her to Helen--unlike most men. But the advance had been
+astonishing lately. They had done more in a week than in two years, and
+were really beginning to know each other.
+
+She did not forget his promise to sample Eustace Miles, and asked him as
+soon as she could secure Tibby as his chaperon. He came, and partook of
+body-building dishes with humility.
+
+Next morning the Schlegels left for Swanage. They had not succeeded in
+finding a new home.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+As they were seated at Aunt Juley’s breakfast-table at The Bays,
+parrying her excessive hospitality and enjoying the view of the bay, a
+letter came for Margaret and threw her into perturbation. It was from
+Mr. Wilcox. It announced an “important change” in his plans. Owing to
+Evie’s marriage, he had decided to give up his house in Ducie Street,
+and was willing to let it on a yearly tenancy. It was a businesslike
+letter, and stated frankly what he would do for them and what he would
+not do. Also the rent. If they approved, Margaret was to come up AT
+ONCE--the words were underlined, as is necessary when dealing with
+women--and to go over the house with him. If they disapproved, a wire
+would oblige, as he should put it into the hands of an agent.
+
+The letter perturbed, because she was not sure what it meant. If he
+liked her, if he had manoeuvred to get her to Simpson’s, might this be a
+manoeuvre to get her to London, and result in an offer of marriage?
+She put it to herself as indelicately as possible, in the hope that her
+brain would cry, “Rubbish, you’re a self-conscious fool!” But her brain
+only tingled a little and was silent, and for a time she sat gazing at
+the mincing waves, and wondering whether the news would seem strange to
+the others.
+
+As soon as she began speaking, the sound of her own voice reassured her.
+There could be nothing in it. The replies also were typical, and in the
+burr of conversation her fears vanished.
+
+“You needn’t go though--” began her hostess.
+
+“I needn’t, but hadn’t I better? It’s really getting rather serious. We
+let chance after chance slip, and the end of it is we shall be bundled
+out bag and baggage into the street. We don’t know what we WANT, that’s
+the mischief with us--”
+
+“No, we have no real ties,” said Helen, helping herself to toast.
+
+“Shan’t I go up to town to-day, take the house if it’s the least
+possible, and then come down by the afternoon train to-morrow, and start
+enjoying myself. I shall be no fun to myself or to others until this
+business is off my mind.”
+
+“But you won’t do anything rash, Margaret?”
+
+“There’s nothing rash to do.”
+
+“Who ARE the Wilcoxes?” said Tibby, a question that sounds silly, but
+was really extremely subtle as his aunt found to her cost when she tried
+to answer it. “I don’t MANAGE the Wilcoxes; I don’t see where they come
+IN.”
+
+“No more do I,” agreed Helen. “It’s funny that we just don’t lose sight
+of them. Out of all our hotel acquaintances, Mr. Wilcox is the only one
+who has stuck. It is now over three years, and we have drifted away from
+far more interesting people in that time.”
+
+“Interesting people don’t get one houses.”
+
+“Meg, if you start in your honest-English vein, I shall throw the
+treacle at you.”
+
+“It’s a better vein than the cosmopolitan,” said Margaret, getting up.
+“Now, children, which is it to be? You know the Ducie Street house.
+Shall I say yes or shall I say no? Tibby love--which? I’m specially
+anxious to pin you both.”
+
+“It all depends on what meaning you attach to the word ‘possible’”
+
+“It depends on nothing of the sort. Say ‘yes.’”
+
+“Say ‘no.’”
+
+Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. “I think,” she said, “that our
+race is degenerating. We cannot settle even this little thing; what will
+it be like when we have to settle a big one?”
+
+“It will be as easy as eating,” returned Helen.
+
+“I was thinking of father. How could he settle to leave Germany as he
+did, when he had fought for it as a young man, and all his feelings
+and friends were Prussian? How could he break loose with Patriotism and
+begin aiming at something else? It would have killed me. When he was
+nearly forty he could change countries and ideals--and we, at our age,
+can’t change houses. It’s humiliating.”
+
+“Your father may have been able to change countries,” said Mrs. Munt
+with asperity, “and that may or may not be a good thing. But he could
+change houses no better than you can, in fact, much worse. Never shall I
+forget what poor Emily suffered in the move from Manchester.”
+
+“I knew it,” cried Helen. “I told you so. It is the little things one
+bungles at. The big, real ones are nothing when they come.”
+
+“Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect--in fact, you weren’t
+there. But the furniture was actually in the vans and on the move
+before the lease for Wickham Place was signed, and Emily took train with
+baby--who was Margaret then--and the smaller luggage for London, without
+so much as knowing where her new home would be. Getting away from that
+house may be hard, but it is nothing to the misery that we all went
+through getting you into it.”
+
+Helen, with her mouth full, cried:
+
+“And that’s the man who beat the Austrians, and the Danes, and the
+French, and who beat the Germans that were inside himself. And we’re
+like him.”
+
+“Speak for yourself,” said Tibby. “Remember that I am cosmopolitan,
+please.”
+
+“Helen may be right.”
+
+“Of course she’s right,” said Helen.
+
+Helen might be right, but she did not go up to London. Margaret did
+that. An interrupted holiday is the worst of the minor worries, and one
+may be pardoned for feeling morbid when a business letter snatches one
+away from the sea and friends. She could not believe that her father had
+ever felt the same. Her eyes had been troubling her lately, so that she
+could not read in the train and it bored her to look at the landscape,
+which she had seen but yesterday. At Southampton she “waved” to Frieda;
+Frieda was on her way down to join them at Swanage, and Mrs. Munt had
+calculated that their trains would cross. But Frieda was looking the
+other way, and Margaret travelled on to town feeling solitary and
+old-maidish. How like an old maid to fancy that Mr. Wilcox was
+courting her! She had once visited a spinster--poor, silly, and
+unattractive--whose mania it was that every man who approached her fell
+in love. How Margaret’s heart had bled for the deluded thing! How she
+had lectured, reasoned, and in despair acquiesced! “I may have been
+deceived by the curate, my dear, but the young fellow who brings the
+midday post really is fond of me, and has, as a matter of fact--” It had
+always seemed to her the most hideous corner of old age, yet she might
+be driven into it herself by the mere pressure of virginity.
+
+Mr. Wilcox met her at Waterloo himself. She felt certain that he was
+not the same as usual; for one thing, he took offence at everything she
+said.
+
+“This is awfully kind of you,” she began, “but I’m afraid it’s not going
+to do. The house has not been built that suits the Schlegel family.”
+
+“What! Have you come up determined not to deal?”
+
+“Not exactly.”
+
+“Not exactly? In that case let’s be starting.”
+
+She lingered to admire the motor, which was new, and a fairer creature
+than the vermilion giant that had borne Aunt Juley to her doom three
+years before.
+
+“Presumably it’s very beautiful,” she said. “How do you like it, Crane?”
+
+“Come, let’s be starting,” repeated her host. “How on earth did you know
+that my chauffeur was called Crane?”
+
+“Why, I know Crane; I’ve been for a drive with Evie once. I know that
+you’ve got a parlourmaid called Milton. I know all sorts of things.”
+
+“Evie!” he echoed in injured tones. “You won’t see her. She’s gone out
+with Cahill. It’s no fun, I can tell you, being left so much alone. I’ve
+got my work all day--indeed, a great deal too much of it--but when I
+come home in the evening, I tell you, I can’t stand the house.”
+
+“In my absurd way, I’m lonely too,” Margaret replied. “It’s
+heart-breaking to leave one’s old home. I scarcely remember anything
+before Wickham Place, and Helen and Tibby were born there. Helen says--”
+
+“You, too, feel lonely?”
+
+“Horribly. Hullo, Parliament’s back!”
+
+Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously. The more important
+ropes of life lay elsewhere. “Yes, they are talking again,” said he.
+“But you were going to say--”
+
+“Only some rubbish about furniture. Helen says it alone endures while
+men and houses perish, and that in the end the world will be a desert of
+chairs and sofas--just imagine it!--rolling through infinity with no one
+to sit upon them.”
+
+“Your sister always likes her little joke.”
+
+“She says ‘Yes,’ my brother says `No,’ to Ducie Street. It’s no fun
+helping us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you.”
+
+“You are not as unpractical as you pretend. I shall never believe it.”
+
+Margaret laughed. But she was--quite as unpractical. She could not
+concentrate on details. Parliament, the Thames, the irresponsive
+chauffeur, would flash into the field of house-hunting, and all demand
+some comment or response. It is impossible to see modern life steadily
+and see it whole, and she had chosen to see it whole. Mr. Wilcox saw
+steadily. He never bothered over the mysterious or the private. The
+Thames might run inland from the sea, the chauffeur might conceal all
+passion and philosophy beneath his unhealthy skin. They knew their own
+business, and he knew his.
+
+Yet she liked being with him. He was not a rebuke, but a stimulus, and
+banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior, he preserved a gift
+that she supposed herself to have already lost--not youth’s creative
+power, but its self-confidence and optimism. He was so sure that it was
+a very pleasant world. His complexion was robust, his hair had receded
+but not thinned, the thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had
+compared to brandy-balls had an agreeable menace in them, whether they
+were turned towards the slums or towards the stars. Some day--in the
+millennium--there may be no need for his type. At present, homage is due
+to it from those who think themselves superior, and who possibly are.
+
+“At all events you responded to my telegram promptly,” he remarked.
+
+“Oh, even I know a good thing when I see it.”
+
+“I’m glad you don’t despise the goods of this world.”
+
+“Heavens, no! Only idiots and prigs do that.”
+
+“I am glad, very glad,” he repeated, suddenly softening and turning to
+her, as if the remark had pleased him. “There is so much cant talked in
+would-be intellectual circles. I am glad you don’t share it. Self-denial
+is all very well as a means of strengthening the character. But I can’t
+stand those people who run down comforts. They have usually some axe to
+grind. Can you?”
+
+“Comforts are of two kinds,” said Margaret, who was keeping herself in
+hand--“those we can share with others, like fire, weather, or music; and
+those we can’t--food, food, for instance. It depends.”
+
+“I mean reasonable comforts, of course. I shouldn’t like to think that
+you--” He bent nearer; the sentence died unfinished. Margaret’s head
+turned very stupid, and the inside of it seemed to revolve like the
+beacon in a lighthouse. He did not kiss her, for the hour was half-past
+twelve, and the car was passing by the stables of Buckingham Palace. But
+the atmosphere was so charged with emotion that people only seemed to
+exist on her account, and she was surprised that Crane did not realise
+this, and turn round. Idiot though she might be, surely Mr. Wilcox was
+more--how should one put it?--more psychological than usual. Always a
+good judge of character for business purposes, he seemed this afternoon
+to enlarge his field, and to note qualities outside neatness, obedience,
+and decision.
+
+“I want to go over the whole house,” she announced when they arrived.
+“As soon as I get back to Swanage, which will be to-morrow afternoon,
+I’ll talk it over once more with Helen and Tibby, and wire you ‘yes’ or
+‘no.’”
+
+“Right. The dining-room.” And they began their survey.
+
+The dining-room was big, but over-furnished. Chelsea would have moaned
+aloud. Mr. Wilcox had eschewed those decorative schemes that wince,
+and relent, and refrain, and achieve beauty by sacrificing comfort and
+pluck. After so much self-colour and self-denial, Margaret viewed with
+relief the sumptuous dado, the frieze, the gilded wall-paper, amid whose
+foliage parrots sang. It would never do with her own furniture, but
+those heavy chairs, that immense sideboard loaded with presentation
+plate, stood up against its pressure like men. The room suggested men,
+and Margaret, keen to derive the modern capitalist from the warriors and
+hunters of the past, saw it as an ancient guest-hall, where the lord sat
+at meat among his thanes. Even the Bible--the Dutch Bible that Charles
+had brought back from the Boer War--fell into position. Such a room
+admitted loot.
+
+“Now the entrance-hall.”
+
+The entrance-hall was paved.
+
+“Here we fellows smoke.”
+
+We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather. It was as if a motor-car
+had spawned. “Oh, jolly!” said Margaret, sinking into one of them.
+
+“You do like it?” he said, fixing his eyes on her upturned face, and
+surely betraying an almost intimate note. “It’s all rubbish not making
+oneself comfortable. Isn’t it?”
+
+“Ye--es. Semi-rubbish. Are those Cruikshanks?”
+
+“Gillrays. Shall we go on upstairs?”
+
+“Does all this furniture come from Howards End?”
+
+“The Howards End furniture has all gone to Oniton.”
+
+“Does--However, I’m concerned with the house, not the furniture. How big
+is this smoking-room?”
+
+“Thirty by fifteen. No, wait a minute. Fifteen and a half.”
+
+“Ah, well. Mr. Wilcox, aren’t you ever amused at the solemnity with
+which we middle classes approach the subject of houses?”
+
+They proceeded to the drawing-room. Chelsea managed better here. It was
+sallow and ineffective. One could visualise the ladies withdrawing
+to it, while their lords discussed life’s realities below, to the
+accompaniment of cigars. Had Mrs. Wilcox’s drawing-room at Howards End
+looked thus? Just as this thought entered Margaret’s brain, Mr. Wilcox
+did ask her to be his wife, and the knowledge that she had been right so
+overcame her that she nearly fainted.
+
+But the proposal was not to rank among the world’s great love scenes.
+
+“Miss Schlegel”--his voice was firm--“I have had you up on false
+pretences. I want to speak about a much more serious matter than a
+house.”
+
+Margaret almost answered: “I know--”
+
+“Could you be induced to share my--is it probable--”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Wilcox!” she interrupted, taking hold of the piano and averting
+her eyes. “I see, I see. I will write to you afterwards if I may.”
+
+He began to stammer. “Miss Schlegel--Margaret you don’t understand.”
+
+“Oh yes! Indeed, yes!” said Margaret.
+
+“I am asking you to be my wife.”
+
+So deep already was her sympathy, that when he said, “I am asking you
+to be my wife,” she made herself give a little start. She must show
+surprise if he expected it. An immense joy came over her. It was
+indescribable. It had nothing to do with humanity, and most resembled
+the all-pervading happiness of fine weather. Fine weather is due to the
+sun, but Margaret could think of no central radiance here. She stood in
+his drawing-room happy, and longing to give happiness. On leaving him
+she realised that the central radiance had been love.
+
+“You aren’t offended, Miss Schlegel?”
+
+“How could I be offended?”
+
+There was a moment’s pause. He was anxious to get rid of her, and she
+knew it. She had too much intuition to look at him as he struggled for
+possessions that money cannot buy. He desired comradeship and affection,
+but he feared them, and she, who had taught herself only to desire, and
+could have clothed the struggle with beauty, held back, and hesitated
+with him.
+
+“Good-bye,” she continued. “You will have a letter from me--I am going
+back to Swanage to-morrow.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Good-bye, and it’s you I thank.”
+
+“I may order the motor round, mayn’t I?”
+
+“That would be most kind.”
+
+“I wish I had written. Ought I to have written?”
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“There’s just one question--”
+
+She shook her head. He looked a little bewildered as they parted.
+
+They parted without shaking hands; she had kept the interview, for his
+sake, in tints of the quietest grey. She thrilled with happiness ere
+she reached her house. Others had loved her in the past, if one apply
+to their brief desires so grave a word, but the others had been
+“ninnies”--young men who had nothing to do, old men who could find
+nobody better. And she had often ‘loved,’ too, but only so far as
+the facts of sex demanded: mere yearnings for the masculine sex to be
+dismissed for what they were worth, with a sigh. Never before had her
+personality been touched. She was not young or very rich, and it amazed
+her that a man of any standing should take her seriously.  As she sat,
+trying to do accounts in her empty house, amidst beautiful pictures and
+noble books, waves of emotion broke, as if a tide of passion was flowing
+through the night air. She shook her head, tried to concentrate her
+attention, and failed. In vain did she repeat: “But I’ve been through
+this sort of thing before.” She had never been through it; the big
+machinery, as opposed to the little, had been set in motion, and the
+idea that Mr. Wilcox loved, obsessed her before she came to love him in
+return.
+
+She would come to no decision yet. “Oh, sir, this is so sudden”--that
+prudish phrase exactly expressed her when her time came. Premonitions
+are not preparation. She must examine more closely her own nature and
+his; she must talk it over judicially with Helen. It had been a strange
+love-scene--the central radiance unacknowledged from first to last. She,
+in his place, would have said Ich liebe dich, but perhaps it was not
+his habit to open the heart. He might have done it if she had pressed
+him--as a matter of duty, perhaps; England expects every man to open
+his heart once; but the effort would have jarred him, and never, if
+she could avoid it, should he lose those defences that he had chosen to
+raise against the world. He must never be bothered with emotional talk,
+or with a display of sympathy. He was an elderly man now, and it would
+be futile and impudent to correct him.
+
+Mrs. Wilcox strayed in and out, ever a welcome ghost; surveying the
+scene, thought Margaret, without one hint of bitterness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+If one wanted to show a foreigner England, perhaps the wisest course
+would be to take him to the final section of the Purbeck Hills, and
+stand him on their summit, a few miles to the east of Corfe. Then system
+after system of our island would roll together under his feet. Beneath
+him is the valley of the Frome, and all the wild lands that come tossing
+down from Dorchester, black and gold, to mirror their gorse in the
+expanses of Poole. The valley of the Stour is beyond, unaccountable
+stream, dirty at Blandford, pure at Wimborne--the Stour, sliding out of
+fat fields, to marry the Avon beneath the tower of Christ church. The
+valley of the Avon--invisible, but far to the north the trained eye may
+see Clearbury Ring that guards it, and the imagination may leap beyond
+that on to Salisbury Plain itself, and beyond the Plain to all the
+glorious downs of Central England. Nor is Suburbia absent. Bournemouth’s
+ignoble coast cowers to the right, heralding the pine-trees that mean,
+for all their beauty, red houses, and the Stock Exchange, and extend to
+the gates of London itself. So tremendous is the City’s trail! But the
+cliffs of Freshwater it shall never touch, and the island will guard the
+Island’s purity till the end of time. Seen from the west the Wight is
+beautiful beyond all laws of beauty. It is as if a fragment of England
+floated forward to greet the foreigner--chalk of our chalk, turf of
+our turf, epitome of what will follow. And behind the fragment lies
+Southampton, hostess to the nations, and Portsmouth, a latent fire, and
+all around it, with double and treble collision of tides, swirls the
+sea. How many villages appear in this view! How many castles! How many
+churches, vanished or triumphant! How many ships, railways, and roads!
+What incredible variety of men working beneath that lucent sky to what
+final end! The reason fails, like a wave on the Swanage beach; the
+imagination swells, spreads, and deepens, until it becomes geographic
+and encircles England.
+
+So Frieda Mosebach, now Frau Architect Liesecke, and mother to her
+husband’s baby, was brought up to these heights to be impressed, and,
+after a prolonged gaze, she said that the hills were more swelling
+here than in Pomerania, which was true, but did not seem to Mrs. Munt
+apposite. Poole Harbour was dry, which led her to praise the absence of
+muddy foreshore at Friedrich Wilhelms Bad, Rugen, where beech-trees hang
+over the tideless Baltic, and cows may contemplate the brine. Rather
+unhealthy Mrs. Munt thought this would be, water being safer when it
+moved about.
+
+“And your English lakes--Vindermere, Grasmere they, then, unhealthy?”
+
+“No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and
+different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great
+deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an aquarium.”
+
+“An aquarium! Oh, MEESIS Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh aquariums
+stink less than salt? Why, then Victor, my brother-in-law, collected
+many tadpoles--” “You are not to say ‘stink,’” interrupted Helen; “at
+least, you may say it, but you must pretend you are being funny while
+you say it.”
+
+“Then ‘smell.’ And the mud of your Pool down there--does it not smell,
+or may I say ‘stink,’ ha, ha?”
+
+“There always has been mud in Poole Harbour,” said Mrs. Munt, with
+a slight frown. “The rivers bring it down, and a most valuable
+oyster-fishery depends upon it.”
+
+“Yes, that is so,” conceded Frieda; and another international incident
+was closed.
+
+“‘Bournemouth is,’” resumed their hostess, quoting a local rhyme to
+which she was much attached--“‘Bournemouth is, Poole was, and Swanage
+is to be the most important town of all and biggest of the three.’ Now,
+Frau Liesecke, I have shown you Bournemouth, and I have shown you Poole,
+so let us walk backward a little, and look down again at Swanage.”
+
+“Aunt Juley, wouldn’t that be Meg’s train?”
+
+A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour, and now was bearing
+southwards towards them over the black and the gold.
+
+“Oh, dearest Margaret, I do hope she won’t be overtired.”
+
+“Oh, I do wonder--I do wonder whether she’s taken the house.”
+
+“I hope she hasn’t been hasty.”
+
+“So do I--oh, SO do I.”
+
+“Will it be as beautiful as Wickham Place?” Frieda asked.
+
+“I should think it would. Trust Mr. Wilcox for doing himself proud. All
+those Ducie Street houses are beautiful in their modern way, and I can’t
+think why he doesn’t keep on with it. But it’s really for Evie that he
+went there, and now that Evie’s going to be married--”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“You’ve never seen Miss Wilcox, Frieda. How absurdly matrimonial you
+are!”
+
+“But sister to that Paul?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And to that Charles,” said Mrs. Munt with feeling. “Oh, Helen, Helen,
+what a time that was!”
+
+Helen laughed. “Meg and I haven’t got such tender hearts. If there’s a
+chance of a cheap house, we go for it.”
+
+“Now look, Frau Liesecke, at my niece’s train. You see, it is coming
+towards us--coming, coming; and, when it gets to Corfe, it will actually
+go THROUGH the downs, on which we are standing, so that, if we walk
+over, as I suggested, and look down on Swanage, we shall see it coming
+on the other side. Shall we?”
+
+Frieda assented, and in a few minutes they had crossed the ridge and
+exchanged the greater view for the lesser. Rather a dull valley lay
+below, backed by the slope of the coastward downs. They were looking
+across the Isle of Purbeck and on to Swanage, soon to be the most
+important town of all, and ugliest of the three. Margaret’s train
+reappeared as promised, and was greeted with approval by her aunt.
+It came to a standstill in the middle distance, and there it had been
+planned that Tibby should meet her, and drive her, and a tea-basket, up
+to join them.
+
+“You see,” continued Helen to her cousin, “the Wilcoxes collect houses
+as your Victor collects tadpoles. They have, one, Ducie Street; two,
+Howards End, where my great rumpus was; three, a country seat in
+Shropshire; four, Charles has a house in Hilton; and five, another near
+Epsom; and six, Evie will have a house when she marries, and probably a
+pied-a-terre in the country--which makes seven. Oh yes, and Paul a
+hut in Africa makes eight. I wish we could get Howards End. That was
+something like a dear little house! Didn’t you think so, Aunt Juley?”
+
+“I had too much to do, dear, to look at it,” said Mrs. Munt, with a
+gracious dignity. “I had everything to settle and explain, and Charles
+Wilcox to keep in his place besides. It isn’t likely I should remember
+much. I just remember having lunch in your bedroom.”
+
+“Yes, so do I. But, oh dear, dear, how dreadful it all seems! And in the
+autumn there began that anti-Pauline movement--you, and Frieda, and
+Meg, and Mrs. Wilcox, all obsessed with the idea that I might yet marry
+Paul.”
+
+“You yet may,” said Frieda despondently.
+
+Helen shook her head. “The Great Wilcox Peril will never return. If I’m
+certain of anything it’s of that.”
+
+“One is certain of nothing but the truth of one’s own emotions.”
+
+The remark fell damply on the conversation. But Helen slipped her arm
+round her cousin, somehow liking her the better for making it. It was
+not an original remark, nor had Frieda appropriated it passionately, for
+she had a patriotic rather than a philosophic mind. Yet it betrayed that
+interest in the universal which the average Teuton possesses and the
+average Englishman does not. It was, however illogically, the good,
+the beautiful, the true, as opposed to the respectable, the pretty,
+the adequate. It was a landscape of Bocklin’s beside a landscape of
+Leader’s, strident and ill-considered, but quivering into supernatural
+life. It sharpened idealism, stirred the soul. It may have been a bad
+preparation for what followed.
+
+“Look!” cried Aunt Juley, hurrying away from generalities over the
+narrow summit of the down. “Stand where I stand, and you will see the
+pony-cart coming. I see the pony-cart coming.”
+
+They stood and saw the pony-cart coming. Margaret and Tibby were
+presently seen coming in it. Leaving the outskirts of Swanage, it drove
+for a little through the budding lanes, and then began the ascent.
+
+“Have you got the house?” they shouted, long before she could possibly
+hear.
+
+Helen ran down to meet her. The highroad passed over a saddle, and a
+track went thence at right angles alone the ridge of the down.
+
+“Have you got the house?”
+
+Margaret shook her head.
+
+“Oh, what a nuisance! So we’re as we were?”
+
+“Not exactly.”
+
+She got out, looking tired.
+
+“Some mystery,” said Tibby. “We are to be enlightened presently.”
+
+Margaret came close up to her and whispered that she had had a proposal
+of marriage from Mr. Wilcox.
+
+Helen was amused. She opened the gate on to the downs so that her
+brother might lead the pony through. “It’s just like a widower,” she
+remarked. “They’ve cheek enough for anything, and invariably select one
+of their first wife’s friends.”
+
+Margaret’s face flashed despair.
+
+“That type--” She broke off with a cry. “Meg, not anything wrong with
+you?”
+
+“Wait one minute,” said Margaret, whispering always.
+
+“But you’ve never conceivably--you’ve never--” She pulled herself
+together. “Tibby, hurry up through; I can’t hold this gate indefinitely.
+Aunt Juley! I say, Aunt Juley, make the tea, will you, and Frieda; we’ve
+got to talk houses, and will come on afterwards.” And then, turning her
+face to her sister’s, she burst into tears.
+
+Margaret was stupefied. She heard herself saying, “Oh, really--” She
+felt herself touched with a hand that trembled.
+
+“Don’t,” sobbed Helen, “don’t, don’t, Meg, don’t!” She seemed incapable
+of saying any other word. Margaret, trembling herself, led her forward
+up the road, till they strayed through another gate on to the down.
+
+“Don’t, don’t do such a thing! I tell you not to--don’t! I know--don’t!”
+
+“What do you know?”
+
+“Panic and emptiness,” sobbed Helen. “Don’t!”
+
+Then Margaret thought, “Helen is a little selfish. I have never behaved
+like this when there has seemed a chance of her marrying.” She said:
+“But we would still see each other very--often, and you--”
+
+“It’s not a thing like that,” sobbed Helen. And she broke right away and
+wandered distractedly upwards, stretching her hands towards the view and
+crying.
+
+“What’s happened to you?” called Margaret, following through the wind
+that gathers at sundown on the northern slopes of hills. “But it’s
+stupid!” And suddenly stupidity seized her, and the immense landscape
+was blurred. But Helen turned back.
+
+“I don’t know what’s happened to either of us,” said Margaret, wiping
+her eyes. “We must both have gone mad.” Then Helen wiped hers, and they
+even laughed a little.
+
+“Look here, sit down.”
+
+“All right; I’ll sit down if you’ll sit down.”
+
+“There. (One kiss.) Now, whatever, whatever is the matter?”
+
+“I do mean what I said. Don’t; it wouldn’t do.”
+
+“Oh, Helen, stop saying ‘don’t’! It’s ignorant. It’s as if your head
+wasn’t out of the slime. ‘Don’t’ is probably what Mrs. Bast says all the
+day to Mr. Bast.”
+
+Helen was silent.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Tell me about it first, and meanwhile perhaps I’ll have got my head out
+of the slime.”
+
+“That’s better. Well, where shall I begin? When I arrived at
+Waterloo--no, I’ll go back before that, because I’m anxious you should
+know everything from the first. The ‘first’ was about ten days ago. It
+was the day Mr. Bast came to tea and lost his temper. I was defending
+him, and Mr. Wilcox became jealous about me, however slightly. I thought
+it was the involuntary thing, which men can’t help any more than we can.
+You know--at least, I know in my own case--when a man has said to me,
+‘So-and-so’s a pretty girl,’ I am seized with a momentary sourness
+against So-and-so, and long to tweak her ear. It’s a tiresome feeling,
+but not an important one, and one easily manages it. But it wasn’t only
+this in Mr. Wilcox’s case, I gather now.”
+
+“Then you love him?”
+
+Margaret considered. “It is wonderful knowing that a real man cares for
+you,” she said. “The mere fact of that grows more tremendous. Remember,
+I’ve known and liked him steadily for nearly three years.”
+
+“But loved him?”
+
+Margaret peered into her past. It is pleasant to analyse feelings while
+they are still only feelings, and unembodied in the social fabric. With
+her arm round Helen, and her eyes shifting over the view, as if this
+country or that could reveal the secret of her own heart, she meditated
+honestly, and said, “No.”
+
+“But you will?”
+
+“Yes,” said Margaret, “of that I’m pretty sure. Indeed, I began the
+moment he spoke to me.”
+
+“And have settled to marry him?”
+
+“I had, but am wanting a long talk about it now. What is it against him,
+Helen? You must try and say.”
+
+Helen, in her turn, looked outwards. “It is ever since Paul,” she said
+finally.
+
+“But what has Mr. Wilcox to do with Paul?”
+
+“But he was there, they were all there that morning when I came down
+to breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened--the man who loved me
+frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I knew it was
+impossible, because personal relations are the important thing for ever
+and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.”
+
+She poured the sentence forth in one breath, but her sister understood
+it, because it touched on thoughts that were familiar between them.
+
+“That’s foolish. In the first place, I disagree about the outer life.
+Well, we’ve often argued that. The real point is that there is the
+widest gulf between my love-making and yours. Yours was romance; mine
+will be prose. I’m not running it down--a very good kind of prose, but
+well considered, well thought out. For instance, I know all Mr. Wilcox’s
+faults. He’s afraid of emotion. He cares too much about success, too
+little about the past. His sympathy lacks poetry, and so isn’t sympathy
+really. I’d even say”--she looked at the shining lagoons--“that,
+spiritually, he’s not as honest as I am. Doesn’t that satisfy you?”
+
+“No, it doesn’t,” said Helen. “It makes me feel worse and worse. You
+must be mad.”
+
+Margaret made a movement of irritation.
+
+“I don’t intend him, or any man or any woman, to be all my life--good
+heavens, no! There are heaps of things in me that he doesn’t, and shall
+never, understand.”
+
+Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical union,
+before the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between
+married couples and the world. She was to keep her independence more
+than do most women as yet. Marriage was to alter her fortunes rather
+than her character, and she was not far wrong in boasting that she
+understood her future husband. Yet he did alter her character--a little.
+There was an unforeseen surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours of
+life, a social pressure that would have her think conjugally.
+
+“So with him,” she continued. “There are heaps of things in him--more
+especially things that he does that will always be hidden from me. He
+has all those public qualities which you so despise and which enable all
+this--” She waved her hand at the landscape, which confirmed anything.
+“If Wilcoxes hadn’t worked and died in England for thousands of years,
+you and I couldn’t sit here without having our throats cut. There would
+be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields
+even. Just savagery. No--perhaps not even that. Without their spirit
+life might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse
+to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it. There are times
+when it seems to me--”
+
+“And to me, and to all women. So one kissed Paul.”
+
+“That’s brutal,” said Margaret. “Mine is an absolutely different case.
+I’ve thought things out.”
+
+“It makes no difference thinking things out. They come to the same.”
+
+“Rubbish!”
+
+There was a long silence, during which the tide returned into Poole
+Harbour. “One would lose something,” murmured Helen, apparently to
+herself. The water crept over the mud-flats towards the gorse and the
+blackened heather. Branksea Island lost its immense foreshores, and
+became a sombre episode of trees. Frome was forced inward towards
+Dorchester, Stour against Wimborne, Avon towards Salisbury, and over the
+immense displacement the sun presided, leading it to triumph ere he sank
+to rest. England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying
+for joy through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with
+contrary motion, blew stronger against her rising seas. What did it
+mean? For what end are her fair complexities, her changes of soil, her
+sinuous coast? Does she belong to those who have moulded her and made
+her feared by other lands, or to those who have added nothing to her
+power, but have somehow seen her, seen the whole island at once, lying
+as a jewel in a silver sea, sailing as a ship of souls, with all the
+brave world’s fleet accompanying her towards eternity?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the
+world’s waters, when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble, slips in. Whom
+does Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover? Yet his impact
+deluges a hundred shores. No doubt the disturbance is really the spirit
+of the generations, welcoming the new generation, and chafing against
+the ultimate Fate, who holds all the seas in the palm of her hand. But
+Love cannot understand this. He cannot comprehend another’s infinity; he
+is conscious only of his own--flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble that
+asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and
+time. He knows that he will survive at the end of things, and be
+gathered by Fate as a jewel from the slime, and be handed with
+admiration round the assembly of the gods. “Men did produce this”
+ they will say, and, saying, they will give men immortality. But
+meanwhile--what agitations meanwhile! The foundations of Property and
+Propriety are laid bare, twin rocks; Family Pride flounders to the
+surface, puffing and blowing and refusing to be comforted; Theology,
+vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty ground swell. Then the lawyers are
+aroused--cold brood--and creep out of their holes. They do what they
+can; they tidy up Property and Propriety, reassure Theology and Family
+Pride. Half-guineas are poured on the troubled waters, the lawyers creep
+back, and, if all has gone well, Love joins one man and woman together
+in Matrimony.
+
+Margaret had expected the disturbance, and was not irritated by it.
+For a sensitive woman she had steady nerves, and could bear with the
+incongruous and the grotesque; and, besides, there was nothing excessive
+about her love-affair. Good-humour was the dominant note of her
+relations with Mr. Wilcox, or, as I must now call him, Henry. Henry
+did not encourage romance, and she was no girl to fidget for it. An
+acquaintance had become a lover, might become a husband, but would
+retain all that she had noted in the acquaintance; and love must confirm
+an old relation rather than reveal a new one.
+
+In this spirit she promised to marry him.
+
+He was in Swanage on the morrow bearing the engagement ring.
+
+They greeted one another with a hearty cordiality that impressed
+Aunt Juley. Henry dined at The Bays, but had engaged a bedroom in the
+principal hotel; he was one of those men who know the principal hotel by
+instinct. After dinner he asked Margaret if she wouldn’t care for a turn
+on the Parade. She accepted, and could not repress a little tremor; it
+would be her first real love scene. But as she put on her hat she burst
+out laughing. Love was so unlike the article served up in books; the
+joy, though genuine was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery.
+For one thing, Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.
+
+For a time they talked about the ring; then she said: “Do you remember
+the Embankment at Chelsea? It can’t be ten days ago.”
+
+“Yes,” he said, laughing. “And you and your sister were head and ears
+deep in some Quixotic scheme. Ah well!”
+
+“I little thought then, certainly. Did you?”
+
+“I don’t know about that; I shouldn’t like to say.”
+
+“Why, was it earlier?” she cried. “Did you think of me this way earlier!
+How extraordinarily interesting, Henry! Tell me.”
+
+But Henry had no intention of telling. Perhaps he could not have told,
+for his mental states became obscure as soon as he had passed through
+them. He misliked the very word “interesting,” connoting it with wasted
+energy and even with morbidity. Hard facts were enough for him.
+
+“I didn’t think of it,” she pursued. “No; when you spoke to me in the
+drawing-room, that was practically the first. It was all so different
+from what it’s supposed to be. On the stage, or in books, a proposal
+is--how shall I put it?--a full-blown affair, a kind of bouquet;
+it loses its literal meaning. But in life a proposal really is a
+proposal--”
+
+“By the way--”
+
+“--a suggestion, a seed,” she concluded; and the thought flew away
+into darkness.
+
+“I was thinking, if you didn’t mind, that we ought to spend this evening
+in a business talk; there will be so much to settle.”
+
+“I think so too.  Tell me, in the first place, how did you get on with Tibby?”
+
+“With your brother?”
+
+“Yes, during cigarettes.”
+
+“Oh, very well.”
+
+“I am so glad,” she answered, a little surprised. “What did you talk
+about? Me, presumably.”
+
+“About Greece too.”
+
+“Greece was a very good card, Henry. Tibby’s only a boy still, and one
+has to pick and choose subjects a little. Well done.”
+
+“I was telling him I have shares in a currant-farm near Calamata.”
+
+“What a delightful thing to have shares in! Can’t we go there for our
+honeymoon?”
+
+“What to do?”
+
+“To eat the currants. And isn’t there marvellous scenery?”
+
+“Moderately, but it’s not the kind of place one could possibly go to
+with a lady.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“No hotels.”
+
+“Some ladies do without hotels. Are you aware that Helen and I have
+walked alone over the Apennines, with our luggage on our backs?”
+
+“I wasn’t aware, and, if I can manage it, you will never do such a thing
+again.”
+
+She said more gravely: “You haven’t found time for a talk with Helen
+yet, I suppose?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Do, before you go. I am so anxious you two should be friends.”
+
+“Your sister and I have always hit it off,” he said negligently. “But
+we’re drifting away from our business. Let me begin at the beginning.
+You know that Evie is going to marry Percy Cahill.”
+
+“Dolly’s uncle.”
+
+“Exactly. The girl’s madly in love with him. A very good sort of fellow,
+but he demands--and rightly--a suitable provision with her. And in the
+second place you will naturally understand, there is Charles. Before
+leaving town, I wrote Charles a very careful letter. You see, he has
+an increasing family and increasing expenses, and the I. and W. A. is
+nothing particular just now, though capable of development.”
+
+“Poor fellow!” murmured Margaret, looking out to sea, and not
+understanding.
+
+“Charles being the elder son, some day Charles will have Howards End;
+but I am anxious, in my own happiness, not to be unjust to others.”
+
+“Of course not,” she began, and then gave a little cry. “you mean money.
+How stupid I am! Of course not!”
+
+Oddly enough, he winced a little at the word. “Yes, Money, since you put
+it so frankly. I am determined to be just to all--just to you, just to
+them. I am determined that my children shall have me.”
+
+“Be generous to them,” she said sharply. “Bother justice!”
+
+“I am determined--and have already written to Charles to that effect--”
+
+“But how much have you got?”
+
+“What?”
+
+“How much have you a year? I’ve six hundred.”
+
+“My income?”
+
+“Yes. We must begin with how much you have, before we can settle how
+much you can give Charles. Justice, and even generosity, depend on
+that.”
+
+“I must say you’re a downright young woman,” he observed, patting her
+arm and laughing a little. “What a question to spring on a fellow!”
+
+“Don’t you know your income? Or don’t you want to tell it me?”
+
+“I--”
+
+“That’s all right”--now she patted him--“don’t tell me. I don’t want to
+know. I can do the sum just as well by proportion. Divide your income
+into ten parts. How many parts would you give to Evie, how many to
+Charles, how many to Paul?”
+
+“The fact is, my dear, I hadn’t any intention of bothering you with
+details. I only wanted to let you know that--well, that something must
+be done for the others, and you’ve understood me perfectly, so let’s
+pass on to the next point.”
+
+“Yes, we’ve settled that,” said Margaret, undisturbed by his strategic
+blunderings. “Go ahead; give away all you can, bearing in mind that I’ve
+a clear six hundred. What a mercy it is to have all this money about
+one.”
+
+“We’ve none too much, I assure you; you’re marrying a poor man.”
+
+“Helen wouldn’t agree with me here,” she continued. “Helen daren’t slang
+the rich, being rich herself, but she would like to. There’s an odd
+notion, that I haven’t yet got hold of, running about at the back of her
+brain, that poverty is somehow ‘real.’ She dislikes all organisation,
+and probably confuses wealth with the technique of wealth. Sovereigns in
+a stocking wouldn’t bother her; cheques do. Helen is too relentless. One
+can’t deal in her high-handed manner with the world.”
+
+“There’s this other point, and then I must go back to my hotel and write
+some letters. What’s to be done now about the house in Ducie Street?”
+
+“Keep it on--at least, it depends. When do you want to marry me?”
+
+She raised her voice, as too often, and some youths, who were also
+taking the evening air, overheard her. “Getting a bit hot, eh?” said
+one. Mr. Wilcox turned on them, and said sharply, “I say!” There was
+silence. “Take care I don’t report you to the police.” They moved away
+quietly enough, but were only biding their time, and the rest of the
+conversation was punctuated by peals of ungovernable laughter.
+
+Lowering his voice and infusing a hint of reproof into it, he said:
+“Evie will probably be married in September. We could scarcely think of
+anything before then.”
+
+“The earlier the nicer, Henry. Females are not supposed to say such
+things, but the earlier the nicer.”
+
+“How about September for us too?” he asked, rather dryly.
+
+“Right. Shall we go into Ducie Street ourselves in September? Or shall
+we try to bounce Helen and Tibby into it? That’s rather an idea. They
+are so unbusinesslike, we could make them do anything by judicious
+management. Look here--yes. We’ll do that. And we ourselves could live
+at Howards End or Shropshire.”
+
+He blew out his cheeks. “Heavens! how you women do fly round! My head’s
+in a whirl. Point by point, Margaret. Howards End’s impossible. I let
+it to Hamar Bryce on a three years’ agreement last March. Don’t you
+remember? Oniton. Well, that is much, much too far away to rely on
+entirely. You will be able to be down there entertaining a certain
+amount, but we must have a house within easy reach of Town. Only Ducie
+Street has huge drawbacks. There’s a mews behind.”
+
+Margaret could not help laughing. It was the first she had heard of
+the mews behind Ducie Street. When she was a possible tenant it had
+suppressed itself, not consciously, but automatically. The breezy
+Wilcox manner, though genuine, lacked the clearness of vision that is
+imperative for truth. When Henry lived in Ducie Street he remembered
+the mews; when he tried to let he forgot it; and if any one had remarked
+that the mews must be either there or not, he would have felt annoyed,
+and afterwards have found some opportunity of stigmatising the speaker
+as academic. So does my grocer stigmatise me when I complain of the
+quality of his sultanas, and he answers in one breath that they are the
+best sultanas, and how can I expect the best sultanas at that price? It
+is a flaw inherent in the business mind, and Margaret may do well to
+be tender to it, considering all that the business mind has done for
+England.
+
+“Yes, in summer especially, the mews is a serious nuisance. The
+smoking-room, too, is an abominable little den. The house opposite
+has been taken by operatic people. Ducie Street’s going down, it’s my
+private opinion.”
+
+“How sad! It’s only a few years since they built those pretty houses.”
+
+“Shows things are moving. Good for trade.”
+
+“I hate this continual flux of London. It is an epitome of us at
+our worst--eternal formlessness; all the qualities, good, bad, and
+indifferent, streaming away--streaming, streaming for ever. That’s why I
+dread it so. I mistrust rivers, even in scenery. Now, the sea--”
+
+“High tide, yes.”
+
+“Hoy toid”--from the promenading youths.
+
+“And these are the men to whom we give the vote,” observed Mr. Wilcox,
+omitting to add that they were also the men to whom he gave work as
+clerks--work that scarcely encouraged them to grow into other men.
+“However, they have their own lives and interests. Let’s get on.”
+
+He turned as he spoke, and prepared to see her back to The Bays. The
+business was over. His hotel was in the opposite direction, and if he
+accompanied her his letters would be late for the post. She implored him
+not to come, but he was obdurate.
+
+“A nice beginning, if your aunt saw you slip in alone!”
+
+“But I always do go about alone. Considering I’ve walked over the
+Apennines, it’s common sense. You will make me so angry. I don’t the
+least take it as a compliment.”
+
+He laughed, and lit a cigar. “It isn’t meant as a compliment, my dear. I
+just won’t have you going about in the dark. Such people about too! It’s
+dangerous.”
+
+“Can’t I look after myself? I do wish--”
+
+“Come along, Margaret; no wheedling.”
+
+A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret
+had too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as
+masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might
+tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal. Disdaining the heroic
+outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill,
+she misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt. He mistook her
+fertility for Weakness. He supposed her “as clever as they make them,”
+ but no more, not realising that she was penetrating to the depths of his
+soul, and approving of what she found there.
+
+And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of
+life, their happiness had been assured.
+
+They walked ahead briskly. The parade and the road after it were well
+lighted, but it was darker in Aunt Juley’s garden. As they were going
+up by the side-paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr. Wilcox, who was
+in front, said “Margaret” rather huskily, turned, dropped his cigar, and
+took her in his arms.
+
+She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at once,
+and kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own.
+It was their first kiss, and when it was over he saw her safely to the
+door and rang the bell for her but disappeared into the night before the
+maid answered it. On looking back, the incident displeased her. It was
+so isolated. Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it,
+and, worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to
+passion he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped,
+after her complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had
+hurried away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded of Helen
+and Paul.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Charles had just been scolding his Dolly. She deserved the scolding, and
+had bent before it, but her head, though bloody was unsubdued and her
+chirrupings began to mingle with his retreating thunder.
+
+“You’ve waked the baby. I knew you would. (Rum-ti-foo,
+Rackety-tackety-Tompkin!) I’m not responsible for what Uncle Percy does,
+nor for anybody else or anything, so there!”
+
+“Who asked him while I was away? Who asked my sister down to meet him?
+Who sent them out in the motor day after day?”
+
+“Charles, that reminds me of some poem.”
+
+“Does it indeed? We shall all be dancing to a very different music
+presently. Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast.”
+
+“I could simply scratch that woman’s eyes out, and to say it’s my fault
+is most unfair.”
+
+“It’s your fault, and five months ago you admitted it.”
+
+“I didn’t.”
+
+“You did.”
+
+“Tootle, tootle, playing on the pootle!” exclaimed Dolly, suddenly
+devoting herself to the child.
+
+“It’s all very well to turn the conversation, but father would
+never have dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there to make him
+comfortable. But you must needs start match-making. Besides, Cahill’s
+too old.”
+
+“Of course, if you’re going to be rude to Uncle Percy.”
+
+“Miss Schlegel always meant to get hold of Howards End, and, thanks to
+you, she’s got it.”
+
+“I call the way you twist things round and make them hang together most
+unfair. You couldn’t have been nastier if you’d caught me flirting.
+Could he, diddums?”
+
+“We’re in a bad hole, and must make the best of it. I shall answer the
+pater’s letter civilly. He’s evidently anxious to do the decent thing.
+But I do not intend to forget these Schlegels in a hurry. As long
+as they’re on their best behaviour--Dolly, are you listening?--we’ll
+behave, too. But if I find them giving themselves airs or monopolising
+my father, or at all ill-treating him, or worrying him with their
+artistic beastliness, I intend to put my foot down, yes, firmly. Taking
+my mother’s place! Heaven knows what poor old Paul will say when the
+news reaches him.”
+
+The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles’s garden at Hilton.
+He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding
+them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition
+of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is
+squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out
+Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature
+as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the
+rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion.
+Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts,
+unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is
+born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober
+against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of
+these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his
+friends shall find easy-going.
+
+It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox’s soul. From boyhood he
+had neglected them. “I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside.”
+ Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all
+had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an
+incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had
+always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is
+desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The
+words that were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men
+were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St.
+Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the
+saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a
+little ashamed of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here
+that Margaret hoped to help him.
+
+It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her
+own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own
+soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole
+of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be
+exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no
+longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation
+that is life to either, will die.
+
+Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a
+good “talking.” By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span
+their lives with beauty.
+
+But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was
+never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness.
+He simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He
+never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was
+not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and
+shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the
+milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once--on another
+occasion--she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a
+laugh: “My motto is Concentrate. I’ve no intention of frittering away
+my strength on that sort of thing.” “It isn’t frittering away the
+strength,” she protested. “It’s enlarging the space in which you may
+be strong.” He answered: “You’re a clever little woman, but my motto’s
+Concentrate.” And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.
+
+They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes
+were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was
+with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.
+“Here we all are!” she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her
+sister’s in the other.
+
+“Here we are. Good-morning, Helen.”
+
+Helen replied, “Good-morning, Mr. Wilcox.”
+
+“Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy. Do
+you remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his head was
+young.”
+
+“I have had a letter too. Not a nice one--I want to talk it over with
+you”; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had given him her
+word; the triangle of sex was broken for ever.
+
+“Thanks to your hint, he’s clearing out of the Porphyrion.”
+
+“Not a bad business that Porphyrion,” he said absently, as he took his
+own letter out of his pocket.
+
+“Not a BAD--” she exclaimed, dropping his hand. “Surely, on Chelsea
+Embankment--”
+
+“Here’s our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons.
+Good-morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don’t
+we?”
+
+“Not a BAD business?”
+
+“No. My letter’s about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered abroad, and
+wants to sublet it--I am far from sure that I shall give him permission.
+There was no clause in the agreement. In my opinion, subletting is a
+mistake. If he can find me another tenant, whom I consider suitable,
+I may cancel the agreement. Morning, Schlegel. Don’t you think that’s
+better than subletting?”
+
+Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the whole
+party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was the bourgeois
+little bay, which must have yearned all through the centuries for just
+such a watering-place as Swanage to be built on its margin.
+
+The waves were colourless, and the Bournemouth steamer gave a further
+touch of insipidity, drawn up against the pier and hooting wildly for
+excursionists.
+
+“When there is a sublet I find that damage--”
+
+“Do excuse me, but about the Porphyrion. I don’t feel easy--might I just
+bother you, Henry?”
+
+Her manner was so serious that he stopped, and asked her a little
+sharply what she wanted.
+
+“You said on Chelsea Embankment, surely, that it was a bad concern, so
+we advised this clerk to clear out. He writes this morning that he’s
+taken our advice, and now you say it’s not a bad concern.”
+
+“A clerk who clears out of any concern, good or bad, without securing a
+berth somewhere else first, is a fool, and I’ve no pity for him.”
+
+“He has not done that. He’s going into a bank in Camden Town, he says.
+The salary’s much lower, but he hopes to manage--a branch of Dempster’s
+Bank. Is that all right?”
+
+“Dempster! Why goodness me, yes.”
+
+“More right than the Porphyrion?”
+
+“Yes, yes, yes; safe as houses--safer.”
+
+“Very many thanks. I’m sorry--if you sublet--?”
+
+“If he sublets, I shan’t have the same control. In theory there should
+be no more damage done at Howards End; in practice there will be. Things
+may be done for which no money can compensate. For instance, I shouldn’t
+want that fine wych-elm spoilt. It hangs--Margaret, we must go and see
+the old place some time. It’s pretty in its way. We’ll motor down and
+have lunch with Charles.”
+
+“I should enjoy that,” said Margaret bravely.
+
+“What about next Wednesday?”
+
+“Wednesday? No, I couldn’t well do that. Aunt Juley expects us to stop
+here another week at least.”
+
+“But you can give that up now.”
+
+“Er--no,” said Margaret, after a moment’s thought.
+
+“Oh, that’ll be all right. I’ll speak to her.”
+
+“This visit is a high solemnity. My aunt counts on it year after
+year. She turns the house upside down for us; she invites our special
+friends--she scarcely knows Frieda, and we can’t leave her on her hands.
+I missed one day, and she would be so hurt if I didn’t stay the full
+ten.”
+
+“But I’ll say a word to her. Don’t you bother.”
+
+“Henry, I won’t go. Don’t bully me.”
+
+“You want to see the house, though?”
+
+“Very much--I’ve heard so much about it, one way or the other. Aren’t
+there pigs’ teeth in the wych-elm?”
+
+“PIGS TEETH?”
+
+“And you chew the bark for toothache.”
+
+“What a rum notion! Of course not!”
+
+“Perhaps I have confused it with some other tree. There are still a
+great number of sacred trees in England, it seems.”
+
+But he left her to intercept Mrs. Munt, whose voice could be heard in
+the distance; to be intercepted himself by Helen.
+
+“Oh. Mr. Wilcox, about the Porphyrion--” she began and went scarlet all
+over her face.
+
+“It’s all right,” called Margaret, catching them up. “Dempster’s Bank’s
+better.”
+
+“But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad, and would smash before
+Christmas.”
+
+“Did I? It was still outside the Tariff Ring, and had to take rotten
+policies. Lately it came in--safe as houses now.”
+
+“In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it.”
+
+“No, the fellow needn’t.”
+
+“--and needn’t have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced salary.”
+
+“He only says ‘reduced,’” corrected Margaret, seeing trouble ahead.
+
+“With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it a
+deplorable misfortune.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going steadily
+on, but the last remark made him say: “What? What’s that? Do you mean
+that I’m responsible?”
+
+“You’re ridiculous, Helen.”
+
+“You seem to think--” He looked at his watch. “Let me explain the point
+to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a business concern is
+conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought to keep the public informed
+stage by stage. The Porphyrion, according to you, was bound to say, ‘I
+am trying all I can to get into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that
+I shall succeed, but it is the only thing that will save me from
+insolvency, and I am trying.’ My dear Helen--”
+
+“Is that your point? A man who had little money has less--that’s mine.”
+
+“I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the day’s work. It’s part
+of the battle of life.”
+
+“A man who had little money--” she repeated, “has less, owing to
+us. Under these circumstances I consider ‘the battle of life’ a happy
+expression.”
+
+“Oh come, come!” he protested pleasantly, “you’re not to blame. No one’s
+to blame.”
+
+“Is no one to blame for anything?”
+
+“I wouldn’t say that, but you’re taking it far too seriously. Who is
+this fellow?”
+
+“We have told you about the fellow twice already,” said Helen. “You
+have even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an
+extravagant imbecile. He is capable of better things. We--we, the upper
+classes--thought we would help him from the height of our superior
+knowledge--and here’s the result!”
+
+He raised his finger. “Now, a word of advice.”
+
+“I require no more advice.”
+
+“A word of advice. Don’t take up that sentimental attitude over the
+poor. See that she doesn’t, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one’s sorry
+for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is
+bound to pinch in places, and it’s absurd to pretend that any one is
+responsible personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the
+man who informed him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame
+for this clerk’s loss of salary. It’s just the shoe pinching--no one can
+help it; and it might easily have been worse.”
+
+Helen quivered with indignation.
+
+“By all means subscribe to charities--subscribe to them largely--but
+don’t get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good
+deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no
+Social Question--except for a few journalists who try to get a living
+out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have
+been and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal--”
+
+“I didn’t say--”
+
+“Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No,
+no. You can’t. There always have been rich and poor. I’m no fatalist.
+Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal
+forces” (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the
+personal), “and there always will be rich and poor. You can’t deny it”
+ (and now it was a respectful voice)--“and you can’t deny that, in spite
+of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward.”
+
+“Owing to God, I suppose,” flashed Helen.
+
+He stared at her.
+
+“You grab the dollars. God does the rest.”
+
+It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God
+in that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he left her for
+the quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, “She rather reminds me of
+Dolly.”
+
+Helen looked out at the sea.
+
+“Don’t ever discuss political economy with Henry,” advised her sister.
+“It’ll only end in a cry.”
+
+“But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with
+religion,” said Helen slowly. “I don’t like those men. They are
+scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut
+down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who
+may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good--it
+is always that sloppy ‘somehow’ will be the outcome, and that in some
+mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr.
+Brits of today are in pain.”
+
+“He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!”
+
+“But oh, Meg, what a theory!”
+
+“Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?”
+
+“Because I’m an old maid,” said Helen, biting her lip. “I can’t think
+why I go on like this myself.” She shook off her sister’s hand and went
+into the house. Margaret, distressed at the day’s beginning, followed
+the Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She saw that Helen’s nerves
+were exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of
+politeness. There might at any minute be a real explosion, which even
+Henry would notice. Henry must be removed.
+
+“Margaret!” her aunt called. “Magsy! It isn’t true, surely, what Mr.
+Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?”
+
+“Not ‘want,’” was Margaret’s prompt reply; “but there is so much to be
+settled, and I do want to see the Charles’s.”
+
+“But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?”
+ said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. “Without going once more up Nine Barrows
+Down?”
+
+“I’m afraid so.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, “Good! I did the breaking of the ice.”
+
+A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either shoulder,
+and looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was behind their
+competent stare? She knew, but was not disquieted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the evening
+before she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough scolding. She
+censured her, not for disapproving of the engagement, but for throwing
+over her disapproval a veil of mystery. Helen was equally frank. “Yes,”
+ she said, with the air of one looking inwards, “there is a mystery.
+I can’t help it. It’s not my fault. It’s the way life has been made.”
+ Helen in those days was over-interested in the subconscious self. She
+exaggerated the Punch and Judy aspect of life, and spoke of mankind as
+puppets, whom an invisible showman twitches into love and war. Margaret
+pointed out that if she dwelt on this she, too, would eliminate the
+personal. Helen was silent for a minute, and then burst into a queer
+speech, which cleared the air. “Go on and marry him. I think you’re
+splendid; and if any one can pull it off, you will.” Margaret denied
+that there was anything to “pull off,” but she continued: “Yes, there
+is, and I wasn’t up to it with Paul. I can do only what’s easy. I
+can only entice and be enticed. I can’t, and won’t, attempt difficult
+relations. If I marry, it will either be a man who’s strong enough to
+boss me or whom I’m strong enough to boss. So I shan’t ever marry, for
+there aren’t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry, for I
+shall certainly run away from him before you can say ‘Jack Robinson.’
+There! Because I’m uneducated. But you, you’re different; you’re a
+heroine.”
+
+“Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?”
+
+“You mean to keep proportion, and that’s heroic, it’s Greek, and I don’t
+see why it shouldn’t succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help
+him. Don’t ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I’m going
+my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I
+mean to dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no
+concessions to Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me.
+I mean to love you more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built
+up something real, because it is purely spiritual. There’s no veil of
+mystery over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one touches the
+body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers
+are over tangible things--money, husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven
+will work of itself.”
+
+Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered,
+“Perhaps.” All vistas close in the unseen--no one doubts it--but Helen
+closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech
+one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew
+too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but
+she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that
+so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this
+life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail,
+on this side and on that, to hit the truth. “Yes, I see, dear; it’s
+about half-way between,” Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No;
+truth, being alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be
+found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion
+is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility.
+
+Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till
+midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the
+conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please
+would she always be civil to him in company? “I definitely dislike
+him, but I’ll do what I can,” promised Helen. “Do what you can with my
+friends in return.”
+
+This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe
+that they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been
+incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There
+are moments when the inner life actually “pays,” when years of
+self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of
+practical use. Such moments are still rare in the West; that they come
+at all promises a fairer future. Margaret, though unable to understand
+her sister, was assured against estrangement, and returned to London
+with a more peaceful mind.
+
+The following morning, at eleven o’clock, she presented herself at the
+offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to
+go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described
+it, and the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa
+itself had hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth.
+Not that a visit to the office cleared things up. There was just the
+ordinary surface scum of ledgers and polished counters and brass bars
+that began and stopped for no possible reason, of electric-light globes
+blossoming in triplets, of little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or
+wire, of little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the inner
+depths, she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet, and though
+the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa, it was
+a very ordinary map. Another map hung opposite, on which the whole
+continent appeared, looking like a whale marked out for a blubber,
+and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry’s voice came through it,
+dictating a “strong” letter. She might have been at the Porphyrion, or
+Dempster’s Bank, or her own wine-merchant’s. Everything seems just
+alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the
+company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always had been
+one of her difficulties.
+
+“One minute!” called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched a
+bell, the effect of which was to produce Charles.
+
+Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more adequate than
+Evie’s, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he greeted his
+future stepmother with propriety.
+
+“I hope that my wife--how do you do?--will give you a decent lunch,” was
+his opening. “I left instructions, but we live in a rough-and-ready way.
+She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had a look at Howards
+End. I wonder what you’ll think of the place. I wouldn’t touch it with
+tongs myself. Do sit down! It’s a measly little place.”
+
+“I shall enjoy seeing it,” said Margaret, feeling, for the first time,
+shy.
+
+“You’ll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad last Monday
+without even arranging for a charwoman to clear up after him. I never
+saw such a disgraceful mess. It’s unbelievable. He wasn’t in the house a
+month.”
+
+“I’ve more than a little bone to pick with Bryce,” called Henry from the
+inner chamber.
+
+“Why did he go so suddenly?”
+
+“Invalid type; couldn’t sleep.”
+
+“Poor fellow!”
+
+“Poor fiddlesticks!” said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. “He had the
+impudence to put up notice-boards without as much as saying with your
+leave or by your leave. Charles flung them down.”
+
+“Yes, I flung them down,” said Charles modestly.
+
+“I’ve sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one, too. He, and
+he in person, is responsible for the upkeep of that house for the next
+three years.”
+
+“The keys are at the farm; we wouldn’t have the keys.”
+
+“Quite right.”
+
+“Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately.”
+
+“What’s Mr. Bryce like?” asked Margaret.
+
+But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no right to sublet;
+to have defined him further was a waste of time. On his misdeeds they
+descanted profusely, until the girl who had been typing the strong
+letter came out with it. Mr. Wilcox added his signature. “Now we’ll be
+off,” said he.
+
+A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret, awaited her.
+Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in a moment the offices of
+the Imperial and West African Rubber Company faded away. But it was not
+an impressive drive. Perhaps the weather was to blame, being grey
+and banked high with weary clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely
+intended for motorists. Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly
+through Westmoreland that he missed it? and if Westmoreland can
+be missed, it will fare ill with a county whose delicate structure
+particularly needs the attentive eye. Hertfordshire is England at
+its quietest, with little emphasis of river and hill; it is England
+meditative. If Drayton were with us again to write a new edition of
+his incomparable poem, he would sing the nymphs of Hertfordshire as
+indeterminate of feature, with hair obfuscated by the London smoke.
+Their eyes would be sad, and averted from their fate towards the
+Northern flats, their leader not Isis or Sabrina, but the slowly flowing
+Lea. No glory of raiment would be theirs, no urgency of dance; but they
+would be real nymphs.
+
+The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had hoped, for the Great
+North Road was full of Easter traffic. But he went quite quick enough
+for Margaret, a poor-spirited creature, who had chickens and children on
+the brain.
+
+“They’re all right,” said Mr. Wilcox. “They’ll learn--like the swallows
+and the telegraph-wires.”
+
+“Yes, but, while they’re learning--”
+
+“The motor’s come to stay,” he answered. “One must get about. There’s a
+pretty church--oh, you aren’t sharp enough. Well, look out, if the road
+worries you--right outward at the scenery.”
+
+She looked at the scenery. It heaved and merged like porridge. Presently
+it congealed. They had arrived.
+
+Charles’s house on the left; on the right the swelling forms of the
+Six Hills. Their appearance in such a neighbourhood surprised her. They
+interrupted the stream of residences that was thickening up towards
+Hilton. Beyond them she saw meadows and a wood, and beneath them she
+settled that soldiers of the best kind lay buried. She hated war and
+liked soldiers--it was one of her amiable inconsistencies.
+
+But here was Dolly, dressed up to the nines, standing at the door to
+greet them, and here were the first drops of the rain. They ran in
+gaily, and after a long wait in the drawing-room, sat down to the
+rough-and-ready lunch, every dish of which concealed or exuded cream.
+Mr. Bryce was the chief topic of conversation. Dolly described his visit
+with the key, while her father-in-law gave satisfaction by chaffing her
+and contradicting all she said. It was evidently the custom to laugh
+at Dolly. He chaffed Margaret too, and Margaret roused from a grave
+meditation was pleased and chaffed him back. Dolly seemed surprised and
+eyed her curiously. After lunch the two children came down. Margaret
+disliked babies, but hit it off better with the two-year-old, and sent
+Dolly into fits of laughter by talking sense to him. “Kiss them now, and
+come away,” said Mr. Wilcox. She came, but refused to kiss them; it
+was such hard luck on the little things, she said, and though Dolly
+proffered Chorly-worly and Porgly-woggles in turn, she was obdurate.
+
+By this time it was raining steadily. The car came round with the
+hood up, and again she lost all sense of space. In a few minutes they
+stopped, and Crane opened the door of the car.
+
+“What’s happened?” asked Margaret.
+
+“What do you suppose?” said Henry.
+
+A little porch was close up against her face.
+
+“Are we there already?”
+
+“We are.”
+
+“Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away.”
+
+Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and her impetus
+carried her to the front-door. She was about to open it, when Henry
+said: “That’s no good; it’s locked. Who’s got the key?”
+
+As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the farm, no one
+replied. He also wanted to know who had left the front gate open, since
+a cow had strayed in from the road, and was spoiling the croquet lawn.
+Then he said rather crossly: “Margaret, you wait in the dry. I’ll go
+down for the key. It isn’t a hundred yards.”
+
+“Mayn’t I come too?”
+
+“No; I shall be back before I’m gone.”
+
+Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had risen. For the
+second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.
+
+There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described, there the
+tennis lawn, there the hedge that would be glorious with dog-roses in
+June, but the vision now was of black and palest green. Down by the
+dell-hole more vivid colours were awakening, and Lent lilies stood
+sentinel on its margin, or advanced in battalions over the grass. Tulips
+were a tray of jewels. She could not see the wych-elm tree, but a branch
+of the celebrated vine, studded with velvet knobs had covered the perch.
+She was struck by the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been in a
+garden where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds she was idly
+plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why had poor Mr. Bryce
+fled from all this beauty? For she had already decided that the place
+was beautiful.
+
+“Naughty cow! Go away!” cried Margaret to the cow, but without
+indignation.
+
+Harder came the rain, pouring out of a windless sky, and spattering up
+from the notice-boards of the house-agents, which lay in a row on the
+lawn where Charles had hurled them. She must have interviewed Charles in
+another world--where one did have interviews. How Helen would revel in
+such a notion! Charles dead, all people dead, nothing alive but houses
+and gardens. The obvious dead, the intangible alive, and no connection
+at all between them! Margaret smiled. Would that her own fancies were
+as clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly with the world!
+Smiling and sighing, she laid her hand upon the door. It opened. The
+house was not locked up at all.
+
+She hesitated. Ought she to wait for Henry? He felt strongly about
+property, and might prefer to show her over himself. On the other hand,
+he had told her to keep in the dry, and the porch was beginning to drip.
+So she went in, and the draught from inside slammed the door behind.
+
+Desolation greeted her. Dirty finger-prints were on the hall-windows,
+flue and rubbish on its unwashed boards. The civilisation of luggage
+had been here for a month, and then decamped. Dining-room and
+drawing-room--right and left--were guessed only by their wallpapers.
+They were just rooms where one could shelter from the rain. Across the
+ceiling of each ran a great beam. The dining-room and hall revealed
+theirs openly, but the drawing-room’s was match-boarded--because the
+facts of life must be concealed from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room,
+and hall--how petty the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms
+where children could play and friends shelter from the rain. Yes, and
+they were beautiful.
+
+Then she opened one of the doors opposite--there were two--and exchanged
+wall-papers for whitewash. It was the servants’ part, though she
+scarcely realised that: just rooms again, where friends might shelter.
+The garden at the back was full of flowering cherries and plums. Farther
+on were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines. Yes, the meadow
+was beautiful.
+
+Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the sense of space
+which the motor had tried to rob from her. She remembered again that ten
+square miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile, that
+a thousand square miles are not practically the same as heaven. The
+phantom of bigness, which London encourages, was laid for ever when she
+paced from the hall at Howards End to its kitchen and heard the rain run
+this way and that where the watershed of the roof divided it.
+
+Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising half Wessex from the ridge of
+the Purbeck Downs, and saying: “You will have to lose something.” She
+was not so sure. For instance she would double her kingdom by opening
+the door that concealed the stairs.
+
+Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her father; of
+the two supreme nations, streams of whose life warmed her blood, but,
+mingling, had cooled her brain. She paced back into the hall, and as she
+did so the house reverberated.
+
+“Is that you, Henry?” she called.
+
+There was no answer, but the house reverberated again.
+
+“Henry, have you got in?”
+
+But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at first, then
+loudly, martially. It dominated the rain.
+
+It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is afraid.
+Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of drums seemed
+to deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was descending, with figure erect,
+with face impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly:
+
+“Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox.”
+
+Margaret stammered: “I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?”
+
+“In fancy, of course--in fancy. You had her way of walking. Good-day.”
+ And the old woman passed out into the rain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+“It gave her quite a turn,” said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident
+to Dolly at tea-time. “None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of
+course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery--she
+frightened you, didn’t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch
+of weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the
+stairs with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough
+to make the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character;
+some old maids do.” He lit a cigarette. “It is their last resource.
+Heaven knows what she was doing in the place; but that’s Bryce’s
+business, not mine.”
+
+“I wasn’t as foolish as you suggest,” said Margaret “She only startled
+me, for the house had been silent so long.”
+
+“Did you take her for a spook?” asked Dolly, for whom “spooks”’ and
+“going to church” summarised the unseen.
+
+“Not exactly.”
+
+“She really did frighten you,” said Henry, who was far from discouraging
+timidity in females. “Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated
+classes are so stupid.”
+
+“Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?” Margaret asked, and found herself
+looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly’s drawing-room.
+
+“She’s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume
+things. She assumed you’d know who she was. She left all the Howards End
+keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you’d seen them as you came
+in, that you’d lock up the house when you’d done, and would bring them
+on down to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the
+farm. Lack of education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of
+women like Miss Avery once.”
+
+“I shouldn’t have disliked it, perhaps.”
+
+“Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,” said Dolly.
+
+Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was
+destined to learn a good deal.
+
+“But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his
+grandmother.”
+
+“As usual, you’ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea.”
+
+“I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house.
+Weren’t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a
+farm?”
+
+Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead
+wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but
+never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic
+past. Dolly was--for the following reason.
+
+“Then hadn’t Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he
+popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said ‘No.’ Just imagine, if
+she’d said ‘Yes,’ she would have been Charles’s aunt. (Oh, I say,
+that’s rather good! ‘Charlie’s Aunt’! I must chaff him about that this
+evening.) And the man went out and was killed. Yes, I’m certain I’ve
+got it right now. Tom Howard--he was the last of them.”
+
+“I believe so,” said Mr. Wilcox negligently.
+
+“I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!” cried Dolly. “I’m rather on the
+spot this evening, eh?”
+
+“I wish you’d ask whether Crane’s ended.”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?”
+
+“Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly’s a good
+little woman,” he continued, “but a little of her goes a long way. I
+couldn’t live near her if you paid me.”
+
+Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox
+could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They
+had the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the
+white man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was
+impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton.
+His objections to the house were plain as daylight now.
+
+Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car
+had been trickling muddy water over Charles’s. The downpour had
+surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless
+civilisation. “Curious mounds,” said Henry, “but in with you now;
+another time.” He had to be up in London by seven--if possible, by
+six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees,
+houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness,
+and she was at Wickham Place.
+
+Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her
+all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the
+motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little.
+She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly
+beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise
+England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may
+come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her,
+connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the
+inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard
+Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till
+this afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss
+Avery. Through them: the notion of “through” persisted; her mind
+trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words.
+Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering
+plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring.
+
+Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property,
+and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He
+had sketched the history of the little estate. “It is so unlucky,” ran
+the monologue, “that money wasn’t put into it about fifty years ago.
+Then it had four--five--times the land--thirty acres at least. One
+could have made something out of it then--a small park, or at all events
+shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road. What’s
+the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even
+that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things--yes, and
+the house too. Oh, it was no joke.” She saw two women as he spoke, one
+old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them
+greet him as a deliverer. “Mismanagement did it--besides, the days for
+small farms are over. It doesn’t pay--except with intensive cultivation.
+Small holdings, back to the land--ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a
+rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see (they
+were standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west) belongs
+to the people at the Park--they made their pile over copper--good chaps.
+Avery’s Farm, Sishe’s--what they call the Common, where you see that
+ruined oak--one after the other fell in, and so did this, as near as
+is no matter.” But Henry had saved it as near as is no matter without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved it, and she loved him for the deed. “When I had more control I did what I could--sold off the two and a half
+animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down
+the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don’t know how many guelder-roses
+and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the old kitchen into a
+hall, and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was. Garage and so on
+came later. But one could still tell it’s been an old farm. And yet
+it isn’t the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew.” No, it
+wasn’t; and if he did not quite understand it, the artistic crew would
+still less; it was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the
+window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar
+glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these
+roles do the English excel. It was a comrade bending over the house,
+strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers
+tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned,
+became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float
+in the air. It was a comrade. House and tree transcended any similes of
+sex. Margaret thought of them now, and was to think of them through many
+a windy night and London day, but to compare either to man, to woman,
+always dwarfed the vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human.
+Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of the
+grave. As she stood in the one, gazing at the other, truer relationship
+had gleamed.
+
+Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They entered the
+garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox’s surprise she was right. Teeth,
+pigs’ teeth, could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree--just the
+white tips of them showing. “Extraordinary!” he cried. “Who told you?”
+
+“I heard of it one winter in London,” was her answer, for she, too,
+avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Evie heard of her father’s engagement when she was in for a tennis
+tournament, and her play went simply to pot. That she should marry and
+leave him had seemed natural enough; that he, left alone, should do the
+same was deceitful; and now Charles and Dolly said that it was all her
+fault. “But I never dreamt of such a thing,” she grumbled. “Dad took
+me to call now and then, and made me ask her to Simpson’s. Well, I’m
+altogether off dad.” It was also an insult to their mother’s memory;
+there they were agreed, and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox’s
+lace and jewellery “as a protest.” Against what it would protest she was
+not clear; but being only eighteen, the idea of renunciation appealed
+to her, the more as she did not care for jewellery or lace. Dolly then
+suggested that she and Uncle Percy should pretend to break off their
+engagement, and then perhaps Mr. Wilcox would quarrel with Miss
+Schlegel, and break off his; or Paul might be cabled for. But at this
+point Charles told them not to talk nonsense. So Evie settled to marry
+as soon as possible; it was no good hanging about with these Schlegels
+eyeing her. The date of her wedding was consequently put forward from
+September to August, and in the intoxication of presents she recovered
+much of her good-humour.
+
+Margaret found that she was expected to figure at this function, and to
+figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said Henry, for her
+to get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be there, and all the
+Cahills and the Fussells, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox,
+had fortunately got back from her tour round the world. Henry she loved,
+but his set promised to be another matter. He had not the knack of
+surrounding himself with nice people--indeed, for a man of ability and
+virtue his choice had been singularly unfortunate; he had no guiding
+principle beyond a certain preference for mediocrity; he was content to
+settle one of the greatest things in life haphazard, and so, while his
+investments went right, his friends generally went wrong. She would be
+told, “Oh, So-and-so’s a good sort--a thundering good sort,” and find,
+on meeting him, that he was a brute or a bore. If Henry had shown real
+affection, she would have understood, for affection explains everything.
+But he seemed without sentiment. The “thundering good sort” might at
+any moment become “a fellow for whom I never did have much use, and have
+less now,” and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion. Margaret had done
+the same as a schoolgirl. Now she never forgot any one for whom she had
+once cared; she connected, though the connection might be bitter, and
+she hoped that some day Henry would do the same.
+
+Evie was not to be married from Ducie Street. She had a fancy for
+something rural, and, besides, no one would be in London then, so she
+left her boxes for a few weeks at Oniton Grange, and her banns were
+duly published in the parish church, and for a couple of days the little
+town, dreaming between the ruddy hills, was roused by the clang of our
+civilisation, and drew up by the roadside to let the motors pass. Oniton
+had been a discovery of Mr. Wilcox’s--a discovery of which he was not
+altogether proud. It was up towards the Welsh border, and so difficult
+of access that he had concluded it must be something special. A ruined
+castle stood in the grounds. But having got there, what was one to do?
+The shooting was bad, the fishing indifferent, and womenfolk reported
+the scenery as nothing much. The place turned out to be in the wrong
+part of Shropshire, and though he never ran down his own property to
+others, he was only waiting to get it off his hands, and then to let
+fly. Evie’s marriage was its last appearance in public. As soon as a
+tenant was found, it became a house for which he never had had much use,
+and had less now, and, like Howards End, faded into Limbo.
+
+But on Margaret Oniton was destined to make a lasting impression. She
+regarded it as her future home, and was anxious to start straight with
+the clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see something of the local life.
+It was a market-town--as tiny a one as England possesses--and had for
+ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the
+Celt. In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that
+greeted her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington,
+her senses were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one
+of her innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, or the things that
+happened there.
+
+The London party only numbered eight--the Fussells, father and son,
+two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady Edser, Mrs.
+Warrington Wilcox and her daughter, and, lastly, the little girl,
+very smart and quiet, who figures at so many weddings, and who kept a
+watchful eye on Margaret, the bride-elect. Dolly was absent--a domestic
+event detained her at Hilton; Paul had cabled a humorous message;
+Charles was to meet them with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury; Helen had
+refused her invitation; Tibby had never answered his. The management was
+excellent, as was to be expected with anything that Henry undertook; one
+was conscious of his sensible and generous brain in the background. They
+were his guests as soon as they reached the train; a special label
+for their luggage; a courier; a special lunch; they had only to look
+pleasant and, where possible, pretty. Margaret thought with dismay
+of her own nuptials--presumably under the management of Tibby. “Mr.
+Theobald Schlegel and Miss Helen Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs.
+Plynlimmon’s company on the occasion of the marriage of their sister
+Margaret.” The formula was incredible, but it must soon be printed and
+sent, and though Wickham Place need not compete with Oniton, it must
+feed its guests properly, and provide them with sufficient chairs. Her
+wedding would either be ramshackly or bourgeois--she hoped the latter.
+Such an affair as the present, staged with a deftness that was almost
+beautiful, lay beyond her powers and those of her friends.
+
+The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background
+for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing
+could have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows
+for some ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the
+servant, they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford,
+they caught books or bag-purses in the act of tumbling on to the floor.
+Yet there was nothing finicking about their politeness--it had the
+public-school touch, and, though sedulous, was virile. More battles than
+Waterloo have been won on our playing-fields, and Margaret bowed to a
+charm of which she did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the
+Oxford colleges were identified wrongly. “Male and female created He
+them”; the journey to Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement,
+and the long glass saloon, that moved so easily and felt so comfortable,
+became a forcing-house for the idea of sex.
+
+At Shrewsbury came fresh air. Margaret was all for sight-seeing, and
+while the others were finishing their tea at the Raven, she annexed a
+motor and hurried over the astonishing city. Her chauffeur was not
+the faithful Crane, but an Italian, who dearly loved making her late.
+Charles, watch in hand, though with a level brow, was standing in front
+of the hotel when they returned. It was perfectly all right, he
+told her; she was by no means the last. And then he dived into the
+coffee-room, and she heard him say, “For God’s sake, hurry the women up;
+we shall never be off,” and Albert Fussell reply, “Not I; I’ve done
+my share,” and Colonel Fussell opine that the ladies were getting
+themselves up to kill. Presently Myra (Mrs. Warrington’s daughter)
+appeared, and as she was his cousin, Charles blew her up a little; she
+had been changing her smart travelling hat for a smart motor hat. Then
+Mrs. Warrington herself, leading the quiet child; the two Anglo-Indian
+ladies were always last. Maids, courier, heavy luggage, had already
+gone on by a branch-line to a station nearer Oniton, but there were five
+hat-boxes and four dressing-bags to be packed, and five dust-cloaks
+to be put on, and to be put off at the last moment, because Charles
+declared them not necessary. The men presided over everything with
+unfailing good-humour. By half-past five the party was ready, and went
+out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.
+
+Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire. Though robbed of half
+its magic by swift movement, it still conveyed the sense of hills. They
+were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn eastward and make it
+an English stream, and the sun, sinking over the Sentinels of Wales,
+was straight in their eyes. Having picked up another guest, they
+turned southward, avoiding the greater mountains, but conscious of an
+occasional summit, rounded and mild, whose colouring differed in quality
+from that of the lower earth, and whose contours altered more slowly.
+Quiet mysteries were in progress behind those tossing horizons: the
+West, as ever, was retreating with some secret which may not be worth
+the discovery, but which no practical man will ever discover.
+
+They spoke of Tariff Reform.
+
+Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies. Like many other critics
+of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only
+exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn
+the Mother Country against trifling with young Titans. “They threaten to
+cut the painter,” she cried, “and where shall we be then? Miss Schlegel,
+you’ll undertake to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform? It is our last
+hope.”
+
+Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side, and they began
+to quote from their respective handbooks while the motor carried them
+deep into the hills. Curious these were rather than impressive, for
+their outlines lacked beauty, and the pink fields on their summits
+suggested the handkerchiefs of a giant spread out to dry. An occasional
+outcrop of rock, an occasional wood, an occasional “forest,” treeless
+and brown, all hinted at wildness to follow, but the main colour was an
+agricultural green. The air grew cooler; they had surmounted the last
+gradient, and Oniton lay below them with its church, its radiating
+houses, its castle, its river-girt peninsula. Close to the castle was
+a grey mansion unintellectual but kindly, stretching with its grounds
+across the peninsula’s neck--the sort of mansion that was built all over
+England in the beginning of the last century, while architecture was
+still an expression of the national character. That was the Grange,
+remarked Albert, over his shoulder, and then he jammed the brake on, and
+the motor slowed down and stopped. “I’m sorry,” said he, turning round.
+“Do you mind getting out--by the door on the right. Steady on.”
+
+“What’s happened?” asked Mrs. Warrington.
+
+Then the car behind them drew up, and the voice of Charles was heard
+saying: “Get the women out at once.” There was a concourse of males,
+and Margaret and her companions were hustled out and received into the
+second car. What had happened? As it started off again, the door of a
+cottage opened, and a girl screamed wildly at them.
+
+“What is it?” the ladies cried.
+
+Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking. Then he said: “It’s
+all right. Your car just touched a dog.”
+
+“But stop!” cried Margaret, horrified.
+
+“It didn’t hurt him.”
+
+“Didn’t really hurt him?” asked Myra.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Do PLEASE stop!” said Margaret, leaning forward. She was standing up in
+the car, the other occupants holding her knees to steady her. “I want to
+go back, please.”
+
+Charles took no notice.
+
+“We’ve left Mr. Fussell behind,” said another; “and Angelo, and Crane.”
+
+“Yes, but no woman.”
+
+“I expect a little of”--Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm--“will be
+more to the point than one of us!”
+
+“The insurance company see to that,” remarked Charles, “and Albert will
+do the talking.”
+
+“I want to go back, though, I say!” repeated Margaret, getting angry.
+
+Charles took no notice. The motor, loaded with refugees, continued to
+travel very slowly down the hill. “The men are there,” chorused the
+others. “They will see to it.”
+
+“The men CAN’T see to it. Oh, this is ridiculous! Charles, I ask you to
+stop.”
+
+“Stopping’s no good,” drawled Charles.
+
+“Isn’t it?” said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car. She fell
+on her knees, cut her gloves, shook her hat over her ear. Cries of alarm
+followed her. “You’ve hurt yourself,” exclaimed Charles, jumping after
+her.
+
+“Of course I’ve hurt myself!” she retorted.
+
+“May I ask what--”
+
+“There’s nothing to ask,” said Margaret.
+
+“Your hand’s bleeding.”
+
+“I know.”
+
+“I’m in for a frightful row from the pater.”
+
+“You should have thought of that sooner, Charles.”
+
+Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman in
+revolt who was hobbling away from him--and the sight was too strange to
+leave any room for anger. He recovered himself when the others caught
+them up: their sort he understood. He commanded them to go back.
+
+Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.
+
+“It’s all right!” he called. “It was a cat.”
+
+“There!” exclaimed Charles triumphantly. “It’s only a rotten cat.”
+
+“Got room in your car for a little un? I cut as soon as I saw it wasn’t
+a dog; the chauffeurs are tackling the girl.” But Margaret walked
+forward steadily. Why should the chauffeurs tackle the girl? Ladies
+sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind servants--the whole
+system’s wrong, and she must challenge it.
+
+“Miss Schlegel! ’Pon my word, you’ve hurt your hand.”
+
+“I’m just going to see,” said Margaret. “Don’t you wait, Mr. Fussell.”
+
+The second motor came round the corner. “It is all right, madam,” said
+Crane in his turn. He had taken to calling her madam.
+
+“What’s all right? The cat?”
+
+“Yes, madam. The girl will receive compensation for it.”
+
+“She was a very ruda girla,” said Angelo from the third motor
+thoughtfully.
+
+“Wouldn’t you have been rude?”
+
+The Italian spread out his hands, implying that he had not thought of
+rudeness, but would produce it if it pleased her. The situation became
+absurd. The gentlemen were again buzzing round Miss Schlegel with offers
+of assistance, and Lady Edser began to bind up her hand. She yielded,
+apologising slightly, and was led back to the car, and soon the
+landscape resumed its motion, the lonely cottage disappeared, the castle
+swelled on its cushion of turf, and they had arrived. No doubt she had
+disgraced herself. But she felt their whole journey from London had
+been unreal. They had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were
+dust, and a stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had
+been killed had lived more deeply than they.
+
+“Oh, Henry,” she exclaimed, “I have been so naughty,” for she had
+decided to take up this line. “We ran over a cat. Charles told me not to
+jump out, but I would, and look!” She held out her bandaged hand. “Your
+poor Meg went such a flop.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered. In evening dress, he was standing to
+welcome his guests in the hall.
+
+“Thinking it was a dog,” added Mrs. Warrington.
+
+“Ah, a dog’s a companion!” said Colonel Fussell. “A dog’ll remember you.”
+
+“Have you hurt yourself, Margaret?”
+
+“Not to speak about; and it’s my left hand.”
+
+“Well, hurry up and change.”
+
+She obeyed, as did the others. Mr. Wilcox then turned to his son.
+
+“Now, Charles, what’s happened?”
+
+Charles was absolutely honest. He described what he believed to have
+happened. Albert had flattened out a cat, and Miss Schlegel had lost her
+nerve, as any woman might. She had been got safely into the other car,
+but when it was in motion had leapt out again, in spite of all that they
+could say. After walking a little on the road, she had calmed down and
+had said that she was sorry. His father accepted this explanation, and
+neither knew that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it.
+It fitted in too well with their view of feminine nature. In the
+smoking-room, after dinner, the Colonel put forward the view that Miss
+Schlegel had jumped it out of devilry. Well he remembered as a young
+man, in the harbour of Gibraltar once, how a girl--a handsome girl,
+too--had jumped overboard for a bet. He could see her now, and all the
+lads overboard after her. But Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much
+more probably nerves in Miss Schlegel’s case. Charles was depressed.
+That woman had a tongue. She would bring worse disgrace on his father
+before she had done with them. He strolled out on to the castle mound to
+think the matter over. The evening was exquisite. On three sides of him
+a little river whispered, full of messages from the West; above his head
+the ruins made patterns against the sky. He carefully reviewed their
+dealings with this family, until he fitted Helen, and Margaret, and Aunt
+Juley into an orderly conspiracy. Paternity had made him suspicious.
+He had two children to look after, and more coming, and day by day
+they seemed less likely to grow up rich men. “It is all very well,”
+ he reflected, “the pater’s saying that he will be just to all, but one
+can’t be just indefinitely. Money isn’t elastic. What’s to happen if
+Evie has a family? And, come to that, so may the pater. There’ll not be
+enough to go round, for there’s none coming in, either through Dolly or
+Percy. It’s damnable!” He looked enviously at the Grange, whose windows
+poured light and laughter. First and last, this wedding would cost a
+pretty penny. Two ladies were strolling up and down the garden terrace,
+and as the syllables “Imperialism” were wafted to his ears, he guessed
+that one of them was his aunt. She might have helped him, if she too had
+not had a family to provide for. “Every one for himself,” he repeated--a
+maxim which had cheered him in the past, but which rang grimly enough
+among the ruins of Oniton. He lacked his father’s ability in business,
+and so had an ever higher regard for money; unless he could inherit
+plenty, he feared to leave his children poor.
+
+As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into
+the meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that
+gleamed on her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the gleam should betray
+him. She climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as
+if she was stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for
+a moment Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out
+to tempt him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong
+man’s necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not
+purge himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to
+his father, and his sister’s wedding-guest, kept on her way without
+noticing him, and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point. But
+what was she doing? Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and
+catching her dress in brambles and burrs? As she edged round the
+keep, she must have got to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she
+exclaimed, “Hullo! Who’s that?”
+
+Charles made no answer.
+
+“Saxon or Celt?” she continued, laughing in the darkness. “But it
+doesn’t matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me. I love
+this place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad that this will
+be my home. Ah, dear”--she was now moving back towards the house--“what
+a comfort to have arrived!”
+
+“That woman means mischief,” thought Charles, and compressed his lips.
+In a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was getting
+damp. Mists were rising from the river, and presently it became
+invisible, though it whispered more loudly. There had been a heavy
+downpour in the Welsh hills.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather promised
+well, and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that
+Margaret watched it. Presently she saw the keep, and the sun painted
+the rubble gold, and charged the white sky with blue. The shadow of the
+house gathered itself together, and fell over the garden. A cat looked
+up at her window and mewed. Lastly the river appeared, still holding the
+mists between its banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as
+far as a hill, which cut off its upper reaches.
+
+Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved it, but
+it was rather its romantic tension that held her. The rounded Druids of
+whom she had caught glimpses in her drive, the rivers hurrying down
+from them to England, the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills,
+thrilled her with poetry. The house was insignificant, but the prospect
+from it would be an eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she
+would have to stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a
+rural life. Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish
+had dined with them last night, and she found that he was a friend of
+her father’s, and so knew what to find in her. She liked him. He would
+introduce her to the town. While, on her other side, Sir James Bidder
+sat, repeating that she only had to give the word, and he would whip up
+the county families for twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was
+Garden Seeds, had promised what he could perform, she doubted, but so
+long as Henry mistook them for the county families when they did call,
+she was content.
+
+Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were going
+for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their bathing-suits.
+She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that
+the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their
+contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be
+found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while
+the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the
+garden. Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three
+people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders
+and counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret wanted
+to jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought paddling would
+benefit his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired adventure, he took
+a walk in the dark. But these athletes seemed paralysed. They could not
+bathe without their appliances, though the morning sun was calling and
+the last mists were rising from the dimpling stream. Had they found
+the life of the body after all? Could not the men whom they despised as
+milksops beat them, even on their own ground?
+
+She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day--no
+worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense. Her reflections
+were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come out to speak to the
+cat, but was now watching her watch the men. She called, “Good-morning,
+dear,” a little sharply. Her voice spread consternation. Charles looked
+round, and though completely attired in indigo blue, vanished into the
+shed, and was seen no more.
+
+“Miss Wilcox is up--” the child whispered, and then became
+unintelligible.
+
+“What is that?” it sounded like, “--cut-yoke--sack-back--”
+
+“I can’t hear.”
+
+“--On the bed--tissue-paper--”
+
+Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit would
+be seemly, she went to Evie’s room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a
+petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the
+other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed,
+they sang, and the dog barked.
+
+Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could not
+feel that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was missing in her
+equipment.
+
+Evie gasped: “Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag just
+then!” Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
+
+Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and was,
+in Margaret’s eyes, the only member of their party who dodged emotion
+successfully. She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss
+of his daughter or to the presence of his future wife. Yet he dwelt
+intact, only issuing orders occasionally--orders that promoted the
+comfort of his guests. He inquired after her hand; he set her to pour
+out the coffee and Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came
+down there was a moment’s awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate
+their places. “Burton,” called Henry, “serve tea and coffee from the
+sideboard!” It wasn’t genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort--the
+sort that is as useful as the genuine, and saves even more situations at
+Board meetings. Henry treated a marriage like a funeral, item by item,
+never raising his eyes to the whole, and “Death, where is thy sting?
+Love, where is thy victory?” one would exclaim at the close.
+
+After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was always
+best to approach him formally. She asked for the interview, because he
+was going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and she was returning to Helen
+in town.
+
+“Certainly, dear,” said he. “Of course, I have the time. What do you
+want?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“I was afraid something had gone wrong.”
+
+“No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk.”
+
+Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate.
+She heard him with interest. Her surface could always respond to his
+without contempt, though all her deeper being might be yearning to help
+him. She had abandoned any plan of action. Love is the best, and the
+more she let herself love him, the more chance was there that he would
+set his soul in order. Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair
+weather by the walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that
+its sweetness would surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each
+parting of the thatched lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude
+the tenderness that kills the Monk and the Beast at a single blow.
+Disappointed a hundred times, she still hoped. She loved him with too
+clear a vision to fear his cloudiness. Whether he droned trivialities,
+as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the twilight, she could pardon
+him, she could respond.
+
+“If there is this nasty curve,” she suggested, “couldn’t we walk to the
+church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us might very well
+go on first, and that would mean fewer carriages.”
+
+“One can’t have ladies walking through the Market Square. The Fussells
+wouldn’t like it; they were awfully particular at Charles’s wedding.
+My--she--our party was anxious to walk, and certainly the church was
+just round the corner, and I shouldn’t have minded; but the Colonel made
+a great point of it.”
+
+“You men shouldn’t be so chivalrous,” said Margaret thoughtfully.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then announced
+that, unless she had anything special to say, he must visit the
+wine-cellar, and they went off together in search of Burton. Though
+clumsy and a little inconvenient, Oniton was a genuine country-house.
+They clattered down flagged passages, looking into room after room,
+and scaring unknown maids from the performance of obscure duties. The
+wedding-breakfast must be in readiness when they come back from church,
+and tea would be served in the garden. The sight of so many agitated
+and serious people made Margaret smile, but she reflected that they
+were paid to be serious, and enjoyed being agitated. Here were the lower
+wheels of the machine that was tossing Evie up into nuptial glory. A
+little boy blocked their way with pig-pails. His mind could not grasp
+their greatness, and he said: “By your leave; let me pass, please.”
+ Henry asked him where Burton was. But the servants were so new that they
+did not know one another’s names. In the still-room sat the band, who
+had stipulated for champagne as part of their fee, and who were already
+drinking beer. Scents of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled with
+cries. Margaret knew what had happened there, for it happened at Wickham
+Place. One of the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was
+throwing cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon
+the butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the
+cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her wine at
+the bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the sight. “We shall
+never get through it!” she cried, and the two men were suddenly drawn
+into brotherhood, and exchanged smiles. She felt as if she had again
+jumped out of the car while it was moving.
+
+Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small
+business to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an establishment.
+She must remain herself, for his sake as well as her own, since a
+shadowy wife degrades the husband whom she accompanies; and she must
+assimilate for reasons of common honesty, since she had no right to
+marry a man and make him uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of
+Home. The loss of Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession.
+Howards End had repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new
+sanctities among these hills.
+
+After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the wedding,
+which seemed a small affair when compared with the preparations for it.
+Everything went like one o’clock. Mr. Cahill materialised out of space,
+and was waiting for his bride at the church door. No one dropped the
+ring or mispronounced the responses, or trod on Evie’s train, or cried.
+In a few minutes the clergymen performed their duty, the register was
+signed, and they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous
+curve by the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not been
+married at all, and that the Norman church had been intent all the time
+on other business.
+
+There were more documents to sign at the house, and the breakfast to
+eat, and then a few more people dropped in for the garden party. There
+had been a great many refusals, and after all it was not a very big
+affair--not as big as Margaret’s would be. She noted the dishes and
+the strips of red carpet, that outwardly she might give Henry what was
+proper. But inwardly she hoped for something better than this blend of
+Sunday church and fox-hunting. If only some one had been upset! But this
+wedding had gone off so particularly well--“quite like a durbar” in the
+opinion of Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed with her.
+
+So the wasted day lumbered forward, the bride and bridegroom drove off,
+yelling with laughter, and for the second time the sun retreated towards
+the hills of Wales. Henry, who was more tired than he owned, came up to
+her in the castle meadow, and, in tones of unusual softness, said that
+he was pleased. Everything had gone off so well. She felt that he was
+praising her, too, and blushed; certainly she had done all she could
+with his intractable friends, and had made a special point of kotowing
+to the men. They were breaking camp this evening; only the Warringtons
+and quiet child would stay the night, and the others were already moving
+towards the house to finish their packing. “I think it did go off
+well,” she agreed. “Since I had to jump out of the motor, I’m thankful I
+lighted on my left hand. I am so very glad about it, Henry dear; I only
+hope that the guests at ours may be half as comfortable. You must all
+remember that we have no practical person among us, except my aunt, and
+she is not used to entertainments on a large scale.”
+
+“I know,” he said gravely. “Under the circumstances, it would be better
+to put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley’s, or even to go
+to some hotel.”
+
+“You desire a hotel?”
+
+“Yes, because--well, I mustn’t interfere with you. No doubt you want to
+be married from your old home.”
+
+“My old home’s falling into pieces, Henry. I only want my new. Isn’t it
+a perfect evening--”
+
+“The Alexandrina isn’t bad--”
+
+“The Alexandrina,” she echoed, more occupied with the threads of smoke
+that were issuing from their chimneys, and ruling the sunlit slopes with
+parallels of grey.
+
+“It’s off Curzon Street.”
+
+“Is it? Let’s be married from off Curzon Street.”
+
+Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just where the
+river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland must lie above the
+bend, and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles’s
+bathing-shed. She gazed so long that her eyes were dazzled, and when
+they moved back to the house, she could not recognise the faces of
+people who were coming out of it. A parlour-maid was preceding them.
+
+“Who are those people?” she asked.
+
+“They’re callers!” exclaimed Henry. “It’s too late for callers.”
+
+“Perhaps they’re town people who want to see the wedding presents.”
+
+“I’m not at home yet to townees.”
+
+“Well, hide among the ruins, and if I can stop them, I will.”
+
+He thanked her.
+
+Margaret went forward, smiling socially. She supposed that these were
+unpunctual guests, who would have to be content with vicarious civility,
+since Evie and Charles were gone, Henry tired, and the others in their
+rooms. She assumed the airs of a hostess; not for long. For one of the
+group was Helen--Helen in her oldest clothes, and dominated by that
+tense, wounding excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery
+days.
+
+“What is it?” she called. “Oh, what’s wrong? Is Tibby ill?”
+
+Helen spoke to her two companions, who fell back. Then she bore forward
+furiously.
+
+“They’re starving!” she shouted. “I found them starving!”
+
+“Who? Why have you come?”
+
+“The Basts.”
+
+“Oh, Helen!” moaned Margaret. “Whatever have you done now?”
+
+“He has lost his place. He has been turned out of his bank. Yes, he’s
+done for. We upper classes have ruined him, and I suppose you’ll tell
+me it’s the battle of life. Starving. His wife is ill. Starving. She
+fainted in the train.”
+
+“Helen, are you mad?”
+
+“Perhaps. Yes. If you like, I’m mad. But I’ve brought them. I’ll stand
+injustice no longer. I’ll show up the wretchedness that lies under this
+luxury, this talk of impersonal forces, this cant about God doing what
+we’re too slack to do ourselves.”
+
+“Have you actually brought two starving people from London to
+Shropshire, Helen?”
+
+Helen was checked. She had not thought of this, and her hysteria abated.
+“There was a restaurant car on the train,” she said.
+
+“Don’t be absurd. They aren’t starving, and you know it. Now, begin from
+the beginning. I won’t have such theatrical nonsense. How dare you! Yes,
+how dare you!” she repeated, as anger filled her, “bursting in to Evie’s
+wedding in this heartless way. My goodness! but you’ve a perverted
+notion of philanthropy. Look”--she indicated the house--“servants,
+people out of the windows. They think it’s some vulgar scandal, and
+I must explain, ‘Oh no, it’s only my sister screaming, and only two
+hangers-on of ours, whom she has brought here for no conceivable
+reason.’”
+
+“Kindly take back that word ‘hangers-on,’” said Helen, ominously calm.
+
+“Very well,” conceded Margaret, who for all her wrath was determined to
+avoid a real quarrel. “I, too, am sorry about them, but it beats me why
+you’ve brought them here, or why you’re here yourself.”
+
+“It’s our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox.”
+
+Margaret moved towards the house at this. She was determined not to
+worry Henry.
+
+“He’s going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him.”
+
+“Yes, to-morrow.”
+
+“I knew it was our last chance.”
+
+“How do you do, Mr. Bast?” said Margaret, trying to control her voice.
+“This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?”
+
+“There is Mrs. Bast, too,” prompted Helen.
+
+Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and,
+furthermore, ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she could
+not grasp what was happening. She only knew that the lady had swept down
+like a whirlwind last night, had paid the rent, redeemed the furniture,
+provided them with a dinner and a breakfast, and ordered them to meet
+her at Paddington next morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when
+the morning came, had suggested that they shouldn’t go. But she, half
+mesmerised, had obeyed. The lady had told them to, and they must, and
+their bed-sitting-room had accordingly changed into Paddington, and
+Paddington into a railway carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and grew
+cold, and vanished entirely, and reappeared amid torrents of expensive
+scent. “You have fainted,” said the lady in an awe-struck voice.
+“Perhaps the air will do you good.” And perhaps it had, for here she
+was, feeling rather better among a lot of flowers.
+
+“I’m sure I don’t want to intrude,” began Leonard, in answer to
+Margaret’s question. “But you have been so kind to me in the past
+in warning me about the Porphyrion that I wondered--why, I wondered
+whether--”
+
+“Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,” supplied
+Helen. “Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A bright evening’s work
+that was on Chelsea Embankment.”
+
+Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.
+
+“I don’t understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was
+a bad concern, didn’t you?”
+
+“That’s right.”
+
+“And went into a bank instead?”
+
+“I told you all that,” said Helen; “and they reduced their staff after
+he had been in a month, and now he’s penniless, and I consider that we
+and our informant are directly to blame.”
+
+“I hate all this,” Leonard muttered.
+
+“I hope you do, Mr. Bast. But it’s no good mincing matters. You have
+done yourself no good by coming here. If you intend to confront Mr.
+Wilcox, and to call him to account for a chance remark, you will make a
+very great mistake.”
+
+“I brought them. I did it all,” cried Helen.
+
+“I can only advise you to go at once. My sister has put you in a false
+position, and it is kindest to tell you so. It’s too late to get to
+town, but you’ll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton, where Mrs. Bast can
+rest, and I hope you’ll be my guests there.”
+
+“That isn’t what I want, Miss Schlegel,” said Leonard. “You’re very
+kind, and no doubt it’s a false position, but you make me miserable. I
+seem no good at all.”
+
+“It’s work he wants,” interpreted Helen. “Can’t you see?”
+
+Then he said: “Jacky, let’s go. We’re more bother than we’re worth.
+We’re costing these ladies pounds and pounds already to get work for us,
+and they never will. There’s nothing we’re good enough to do.”
+
+“We would like to find you work,” said Margaret rather conventionally.
+“We want to--I, like my sister. You’re only down in your luck. Go to the
+hotel, have a good night’s rest, and some day you shall pay me back the
+bill, if you prefer it.”
+
+But Leonard was near the abyss, and at such moments men see clearly.
+“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I shall never get
+work now. If rich people fail at one profession, they can try another.
+Not I. I had my groove, and I’ve got out of it. I could do one
+particular branch of insurance in one particular office well enough to
+command a salary, but that’s all. Poetry’s nothing, Miss Schlegel. One’s
+thoughts about this and that are nothing. Your money, too, is nothing,
+if you’ll understand me. I mean if a man over twenty once loses his own
+particular job, it’s all over with him. I have seen it happen to others.
+Their friends gave them money for a little, but in the end they fall
+over the edge. It’s no good. It’s the whole world pulling. There always
+will be rich and poor.”
+
+He ceased. “Won’t you have something to eat?” said Margaret. “I don’t
+know what to do. It isn’t my house, and though Mr. Wilcox would have
+been glad to see you at any other time--as I say, I don’t know what
+to do, but I undertake to do what I can for you. Helen, offer them
+something. Do try a sandwich, Mrs. Bast.”
+
+They moved to a long table behind which a servant was still standing.
+Iced cakes, sandwiches innumerable, coffee, claret-cup, champagne,
+remained almost intact; their overfed guests could do no more. Leonard
+refused. Jacky thought she could manage a little. Margaret left them
+whispering together, and had a few more words with Helen.
+
+She said: “Helen, I like Mr. Bast. I agree that he’s worth helping. I
+agree that we are directly responsible.”
+
+“No, indirectly. Via Mr. Wilcox.”
+
+“Let me tell you once for all that if you take up that attitude, I’ll
+do nothing. No doubt you’re right logically, and are entitled to say
+a great many scathing things about Henry. Only, I won’t have it. So
+choose.”
+
+Helen looked at the sunset.
+
+“If you promise to take them quietly to the George I will speak to Henry
+about them--in my own way, mind; there is to be none of this absurd
+screaming about justice. I have no use for justice. If it was only a
+question of money, we could do it ourselves. But he wants work, and that
+we can’t give him, but possibly Henry can.”
+
+“It’s his duty to,” grumbled Helen.
+
+“Nor am I concerned with duty. I’m concerned with the characters of
+various people whom we know, and how, things being as they are, things
+may be made a little better. Mr. Wilcox hates being asked favours; all
+business men do. But I am going to ask him, at the risk of a rebuff,
+because I want to make things a little better.”
+
+“Very well. I promise. You take it very calmly.”
+
+“Take them off to the George, then, and I’ll try. Poor creatures! but
+they look tired.” As they parted, she added: “I haven’t nearly done with
+you, though, Helen. You have been most self-indulgent. I can’t get over
+it. You have less restraint rather than more as you grow older. Think it
+over and alter yourself, or we shan’t have happy lives.”
+
+She rejoined Henry. Fortunately he had been sitting down: these physical
+matters were important. “Was it townees?” he asked, greeting her with a
+pleasant smile.
+
+“You’ll never believe me,” said Margaret, sitting down beside him. “It’s
+all right now, but it was my sister.”
+
+“Helen here?” he cried, preparing to rise. “But she refused the
+invitation. I thought hated weddings.”
+
+“Don’t get up. She has not come to the wedding. I’ve bundled her off to
+the George.”
+
+Inherently hospitable, he protested.
+
+“No; she has two of her proteges with her and must keep with them.”
+
+“Let ’em all come.”
+
+“My dear Henry, did you see them?”
+
+“I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman, certainly.”
+
+“The brown bunch was Helen, but did you catch sight of a sea-green and
+salmon bunch?”
+
+“What! are they out bean-feasting?”
+
+“No; business. They wanted to see me, and later on I want to talk to you
+about them.”
+
+She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how
+tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of
+woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: “Why later
+on? Tell me now. No time like the present.”
+
+“Shall I?”
+
+“If it isn’t a long story.”
+
+“Oh, not five minutes; but there’s a sting at the end of it, for I want
+you to find the man some work in your office.”
+
+“What are his qualifications?”
+
+“I don’t know. He’s a clerk.”
+
+“How old?”
+
+“Twenty-five, perhaps.”
+
+“What’s his name?”
+
+“Bast,” said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had met
+at Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a successful
+meeting.
+
+“Where was he before?”
+
+“Dempster’s Bank.”
+
+“Why did he leave?” he asked, still remembering nothing.
+
+“They reduced their staff.”
+
+“All right; I’ll see him.”
+
+It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now she
+understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon,
+when condemning suffragettes, had said: “The woman who can’t influence
+her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.”
+ Margaret had winced, but she was influencing Henry now, and though
+pleased at her little victory, she knew that she had won it by the
+methods of the harem.
+
+“I should be glad if you took him,” she said, “but I don’t know whether
+he’s qualified.”
+
+“I’ll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn’t be taken as a
+precedent.”
+
+“No, of course--of course--”
+
+“I can’t fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer.”
+
+“I can promise you he’s the last. He--he’s rather a special case.”
+
+“Proteges always are.”
+
+She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of
+complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the gulf
+between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And
+she herself--hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as
+they are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth--their
+warfare seems eternal. Perhaps the whole visible world rests on it,
+and if they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was
+reconciled to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.
+
+“Your protege has made us late,” said he. “The Fussells--will just be
+starting.”
+
+On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the Basts
+as he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends were discussing
+the ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash method, but the world has
+been built slap-dash, and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset
+may be but the varnish with which the unskilled artificer hides his
+joins. Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were
+stunted, its castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare
+between the Anglo-Saxon and the Celt, between things as they are and
+as they ought to be. Once more the west was retreating, once again the
+orderly stars were dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no rest
+for us on the earth. But there is happiness, and as Margaret descended
+the mound on her lover’s arm, she felt that she was having her share.
+
+To her annoyance, Mrs. Bast was still in the garden; the husband and
+Helen had left her there to finish her meal while they went to engage
+rooms. Margaret found this woman repellent. She had felt, when shaking
+her hand, an overpowering shame. She remembered the motive of her call
+at Wickham Place, and smelt again odours from the abyss--odours the more
+disturbing because they were involuntary. For there was no malice in
+Jacky. There she sat, a piece of cake in one hand, an empty champagne
+glass in the other, doing no harm to anybody.
+
+“She’s overtired,” Margaret whispered.
+
+“She’s something else,” said Henry. “This won’t do. I can’t have her in
+my garden in this state.”
+
+“Is she--” Margaret hesitated to add “drunk.” Now that she was going
+to marry him, he had grown particular. He discountenanced risque
+conversations now.
+
+Henry went up to the woman. She raised her face, which gleamed in the
+twilight like a puff-ball.
+
+“Madam, you will be more comfortable at the hotel,” he said sharply.
+
+Jacky replied: “If it isn’t Hen!”
+
+“Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble,” apologised Margaret. “Il est
+tout à fait différent.”
+
+“Henry!” she repeated, quite distinctly.
+
+Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed. “I congratulate you on your proteges,” he
+remarked.
+
+“Hen, don’t go. You do love me, dear, don’t you?”
+
+“Bless us, what a person!” sighed Margaret, gathering up her skirts.
+
+Jacky pointed with her cake. “You’re a nice boy, you are.” She yawned.
+“There now, I love you.”
+
+“Henry, I am awfully sorry.”
+
+“And pray why?” he asked, and looked at her so sternly that she feared
+he was ill. He seemed more scandalised than the facts demanded.
+
+“To have brought this down on you.”
+
+“Pray don’t apologise.”
+
+The voice continued.
+
+“Why does she call you ‘Hen’?” said Margaret innocently. “Has she ever
+seen you before?”
+
+“Seen Hen before!” said Jacky. “Who hasn’t seen Hen? He’s serving you
+like me, my boys! You wait--Still we love ’em.”
+
+“Are you now satisfied?” Henry asked.
+
+Margaret began to grow frightened. “I don’t know what it is all about,”
+ she said. “Let’s come in.”
+
+But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw his
+whole life crumbling. “Don’t you indeed?” he said bitingly. “I do. Allow
+me to congratulate you on the success of your plan.”
+
+“This is Helen’s plan, not mine.”
+
+“I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought out.
+I am amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right--it was
+necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man’s past. I have the honour to
+release you from your engagement.”
+
+Still she could not understand. She knew of life’s seamy side as a
+theory; she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were
+necessary--words unequivocal, undenied.
+
+“So that--” burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped herself
+from saying more.
+
+“So what?” asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start in the
+hall.
+
+“We were saying--Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument, my
+point being--” Seizing his fur coat from a footman, she offered to help
+him on. He protested, and there was a playful little scene.
+
+“No, let me do that,” said Henry, following.
+
+“Thanks so much! You see--he has forgiven me!”
+
+The Colonel said gallantly: “I don’t expect there’s much to forgive.”
+
+He got into the car. The ladies followed him after an interval.
+Maids, courier, and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by the
+branch-line. Still chattering, still thanking their host and patronising
+their future hostess, the guests were borne away.
+
+Then Margaret continued: “So that woman has been your mistress?”
+
+“You put it with your usual delicacy,” he replied.
+
+“When, please?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“When, please?”
+
+“Ten years ago.”
+
+She left him without a word. For it was not her tragedy; it was Mrs.
+Wilcox’s.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Helen began to wonder why she had spent a matter of eight pounds in
+making some people ill and others angry. Now that the wave of excitement
+was ebbing, and had left her, Mr. Bast, and Mrs. Bast stranded for the
+night in a Shropshire hotel, she asked herself what forces had made the
+wave flow. At all events, no harm was done. Margaret would play the game
+properly now, and though Helen disapproved of her sister’s methods, she
+knew that the Basts would benefit by them in the long-run.
+
+“Mr. Wilcox is so illogical,” she explained to Leonard, who had put his
+wife to bed, and was sitting with her in the empty coffee-room. “If we
+told him it was his duty to take you on, he might refuse to do it. The
+fact is, he isn’t properly educated. I don’t want to set you against
+him, but you’ll find him a trial.”
+
+“I can never thank you sufficiently, Miss Schlegel,” was all that
+Leonard felt equal to.
+
+“I believe in personal responsibility. Don’t you? And in personal
+everything. I hate--I suppose I oughtn’t to say that--but the Wilcoxes
+are on the wrong tack surely. Or perhaps it isn’t their fault. Perhaps
+the little thing that says ‘I’ is missing out of the middle of their
+heads, and then it’s a waste of time to blame them. There’s a nightmare
+of a theory that says a special race is being born which will rule the
+rest of us in the future just because it lacks the little thing that
+says ‘I.’ Had you heard that?”
+
+“I get no time for reading.”
+
+“Had you thought it, then? That there are two kinds of people--our kind,
+who live straight from the middle of their heads, and the other kind
+who can’t, because their heads have no middle? They can’t say ‘I.’ They
+AREN’T in fact, and so they’re supermen. Pierpont Morgan has never said
+‘I’ in his life.”
+
+Leonard roused himself. If his benefactress wanted intellectual
+conversation, she must have it. She was more important than his ruined
+past. “I never got on to Nietzsche,” he said. “But I always understood
+that those supermen were rather what you may call egoists.”
+
+“Oh no, that’s wrong,” replied Helen. “No superman ever said ‘I want,’
+because ‘I want’ must lead to the question, ‘Who am I?’ and so to Pity
+and to Justice. He only says ‘want.’ ‘Want Europe,’ if he’s Napoleon;
+‘want wives,’ if he’s Bluebeard; ‘want Botticelli,’ if he’s Pierpont
+Morgan. Never the ‘I’; and if you could pierce through the superman,
+you’d find panic and emptiness in the middle.”
+
+Leonard was silent for a moment. Then he said: “May I take it, Miss
+Schlegel, that you and I are both the sort that say ‘I’?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“And your sister, too?”
+
+“Of course,” repeated Helen, a little sharply. She was annoyed with
+Margaret, but did not want her discussed. “All presentable people say
+‘I.’”
+
+“But Mr. Wilcox--he is not perhaps--”
+
+“I don’t know that it’s any good discussing Mr. Wilcox either.”
+
+“Quite so, quite so,” he agreed. Helen asked herself why she had snubbed
+him. Once or twice during the day she had encouraged him to criticise,
+and then had pulled him up short. Was she afraid of him presuming? If
+so, it was disgusting of her.
+
+But he was thinking the snub quite natural. Everything she did was
+natural, and incapable of causing offence. While the Miss Schlegels
+were together he had felt them scarcely human--a sort of admonitory
+whirligig. But a Miss Schlegel alone was different. She was in Helen’s
+case unmarried, in Margaret’s about to be married, in neither case an
+echo of her sister. A light had fallen at last into this rich upper
+world, and he saw that it was full of men and women, some of whom were
+more friendly to him than others. Helen had become “his” Miss Schlegel,
+who scolded him and corresponded with him, and had swept down yesterday
+with grateful vehemence. Margaret, though not unkind, was severe and
+remote. He would not presume to help her, for instance. He had never
+liked her, and began to think that his original impression was true,
+and that her sister did not like her either. Helen was certainly lonely.
+She, who gave away so much, was receiving too little. Leonard was
+pleased to think that he could spare her vexation by holding his tongue
+and concealing what he knew about Mr. Wilcox. Jacky had announced her
+discovery when he fetched her from the lawn. After the first shock, he
+did not mind for himself. By now he had no illusions about his wife, and
+this was only one new stain on the face of a love that had never been
+pure. To keep perfection perfect, that should be his ideal, if the
+future gave him time to have ideals. Helen, and Margaret for Helen’s
+sake, must not know.
+
+Helen disconcerted him by turning the conversation to his wife. “Mrs.
+Bast--does she ever say ‘I’?” she asked, half mischievously, and then,
+“Is she very tired?”
+
+“It’s better she stops in her room,” said Leonard.
+
+“Shall I sit up with her?”
+
+“No, thank you; she does not need company.”
+
+“Mr. Bast, what kind of woman is your wife?”
+
+Leonard blushed up to his eyes.
+
+“You ought to know my ways by now. Does that question offend you?”
+
+“No, oh no, Miss Schlegel, no.”
+
+“Because I love honesty. Don’t pretend your marriage has been a happy
+one. You and she can have nothing in common.”
+
+He did not deny it, but said shyly: “I suppose that’s pretty obvious;
+but Jacky never meant to do anybody any harm. When things went wrong,
+or I heard things, I used to think it was her fault, but, looking back,
+it’s more mine. I needn’t have married her, but as I have I must stick
+to her and keep her.”
+
+“How long have you been married?”
+
+“Nearly three years.”
+
+“What did your people say?”
+
+“They will not have anything to do with us. They had a sort of family
+council when they heard I was married, and cut us off altogether.”
+
+Helen began to pace up and down the room. “My good boy, what a mess!”
+ she said gently. “Who are your people?”
+
+He could answer this. His parents, who were dead, had been in trade; his
+sisters had married commercial travellers; his brother was a lay-reader.
+
+“And your grandparents?”
+
+Leonard told her a secret that he had held shameful up to now. “They
+were just nothing at all,” he said “agricultural labourers and that
+sort.”
+
+“So! From which part?”
+
+“Lincolnshire mostly, but my mother’s father--he, oddly enough, came
+from these parts round here.”
+
+“From this very Shropshire. Yes, that is odd. My mother’s people were
+Lancashire. But why do your brother and your sisters object to Mrs.
+Bast?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know.”
+
+“Excuse me, you do know. I am not a baby. I can bear anything you tell
+me, and the more you tell the more I shall be able to help. Have they
+heard anything against her?”
+
+He was silent.
+
+“I think I have guessed now,” said Helen very gravely.
+
+“I don’t think so, Miss Schlegel; I hope not.”
+
+“We must be honest, even over these things. I have guessed. I am
+frightfully, dreadfully sorry, but it does not make the least difference
+to me. I shall feel just the same to both of you. I blame, not your wife
+for these things, but men.”
+
+Leonard left it at that--so long as she did not guess the man. She stood
+at the window and slowly pulled up the blinds. The hotel looked over a
+dark square. The mists had begun. When she turned back to him her eyes
+were shining. “Don’t you worry,” he pleaded. “I can’t bear that. We
+shall be all right if I get work. If I could only get work--something
+regular to do. Then it wouldn’t be so bad again. I don’t trouble after
+books as I used. I can imagine that with regular work we should settle
+down again. It stops one thinking.”
+
+“Settle down to what?”
+
+“Oh, just settle down.”
+
+“And that’s to be life!” said Helen, with a catch in her throat. “How
+can you, with all the beautiful things to see and do--with music--with
+walking at night--”
+
+“Walking is well enough when a man’s in work,” he answered. “Oh, I did
+talk a lot of nonsense once, but there’s nothing like a bailiff in the
+house to drive it out of you. When I saw him fingering my Ruskins and
+Stevensons, I seemed to see life straight and real, and it isn’t a
+pretty sight. My books are back again, thanks to you, but they’ll never
+be the same to me again, and I shan’t ever again think night in the
+woods is wonderful.”
+
+“Why not?” asked Helen, throwing up the window.
+
+“Because I see one must have money.”
+
+“Well, you’re wrong.”
+
+“I wish I was wrong, but--the clergyman--he has money of his own, or
+else he’s paid; the poet or the musician--just the same; the tramp--he’s
+no different. The tramp goes to the workhouse in the end, and is paid
+for with other people’s money. Miss Schlegel, the real thing’s money, and
+all the rest is a dream.”
+
+“You’re still wrong. You’ve forgotten Death.”
+
+Leonard could not understand.
+
+“If we lived forever, what you say would be true. But we have to die,
+we have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would be the real
+thing if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to other things,
+because Death is coming. I love Death--not morbidly, but because He
+explains. He shows me the emptiness of Money. Death and Money are the
+eternal foes. Not Death and Life. Never mind what lies behind Death, Mr.
+Bast, but be sure that the poet and the musician and the tramp will be
+happier in it than the man who has never learnt to say, ‘I am I.’”
+
+“I wonder.”
+
+“We are all in a mist--I know, but I can help you this far--men like
+the Wilcoxes are deeper in the mist than any. Sane, sound Englishmen!
+building up empires, levelling all the world into what they call common
+sense. But mention Death to them and they’re offended, because Death’s
+really Imperial, and He cries out against them for ever.”
+
+“I am as afraid of Death as any one.”
+
+“But not of the idea of Death.”
+
+“But what is the difference?”
+
+“Infinite difference,” said Helen, more gravely than before.
+
+Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great things
+sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not receive them,
+because his heart was still full of little things. As the lost umbrella
+had spoilt the concert at Queen’s Hall, so the lost situation was
+obscuring the diviner harmonies now. Death, Life, and Materialism were
+fine words, but would Mr. Wilcox take him on as a clerk? Talk as one
+would, Mr. Wilcox was king of this world, the superman, with his own
+morality, whose head remained in the clouds.
+
+“I must be stupid,” he said apologetically.
+
+While to Helen the paradox became clearer and clearer. “Death destroys a
+man: the idea of Death saves him.” Behind the coffins and the skeletons
+that stay the vulgar mind lies something so immense that all that
+is great in us responds to it. Men of the world may recoil from the
+charnel-house that they will one day enter, but Love knows better. Death
+is his foe, but his peer, and in their age-long struggle the thews of
+Love have been strengthened, and his vision cleared, until there is no
+one who can stand against him.
+
+“So never give in,” continued the girl, and restated again and again the
+vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges against the Visible.
+Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the rope that fastened Leonard
+to the earth. Woven of bitter experience, it resisted her. Presently
+the waitress entered and gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note,
+addressed to Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the
+murmurings of the river.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlled herself, and
+wrote some letters. She was too bruised to speak to Henry; she could
+pity him, and even determine to marry him, but as yet all lay too deep
+in her heart for speech. On the surface the sense of his degradation was
+too strong. She could not command voice or look, and the gentle words
+that she forced out through her pen seemed to proceed from some other
+person.
+
+“My dearest boy,” she began, “this is not to part us. It is everything
+or nothing, and I mean it to be nothing. It happened long before we ever
+met, and even if it had happened since, I should be writing the same, I
+hope. I do understand.”
+
+But she crossed out “I do understand”; it struck a false note. Henry
+could not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, “It is everything
+or nothing.” Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She
+must not comment; comment is unfeminine.
+
+“I think that’ll about do,” she thought.
+
+Then the sense of his degradation choked her. Was he worth all this
+bother? To have yielded to a woman of that sort was everything, yes,
+it was, and she could not be his wife. She tried to translate his
+temptation into her own language, and her brain reeled. Men must be
+different even to want to yield to such a temptation. Her belief in
+comradeship was stifled, and she saw life as from that glass saloon on
+the Great Western which sheltered male and female alike from the fresh
+air. Are the sexes really races, each with its own code of morality, and
+their mutual love a mere device of Nature to keep things going? Strip
+human intercourse of the proprieties, and is it reduced to this? Her
+judgment told her no. She knew that out of Nature’s device we have built
+a magic that will win us immortality. Far more mysterious than the call
+of sex to sex is the tenderness that we throw into that call; far wider
+is the gulf between us and the farmyard than between the farmyard and
+the garbage that nourishes it. We are evolving, in ways that Science
+cannot measure, to ends that Theology dares not contemplate. “Men
+did produce one jewel,” the gods will say, and, saying, will give us
+immortality. Margaret knew all this, but for the moment she could not
+feel it, and transformed the marriage of Evie and Mr. Cahill into a
+carnival of fools, and her own marriage--too miserable to think of that,
+she tore up the letter, and then wrote another:
+
+
+“DEAR MR. BAST,
+
+“I have spoken to Mr. Wilcox about you, as I promised, and am sorry to
+say that he has no vacancy for you.
+
+“Yours truly,
+
+“M. J. SCHLEGEL.”
+
+
+She enclosed this in a note to Helen, over which she took less trouble
+than she might have done; but her head was aching, and she could not
+stop to pick her words:
+
+
+“DEAR HELEN,
+
+“Give him this. The Basts are no good. Henry found the woman drunk on
+the lawn. I am having a room got ready for you here, and will you please
+come round at once on getting this? The Basts are not at all the type we
+should trouble about. I may go round to them myself in the morning, and
+do anything that is fair.
+
+“M.”
+
+
+In writing this, Margaret felt that she was being practical. Something
+might be arranged for the Basts later on, but they must be silenced
+for the moment. She hoped to avoid a conversation between the woman
+and Helen. She rang the bell for a servant, but no one answered it;
+Mr. Wilcox and the Warringtons were gone to bed, and the kitchen was
+abandoned to Saturnalia. Consequently she went over to the George
+herself. She did not enter the hotel, for discussion would have been
+perilous, and, saying that the letter was important, she gave it to the
+waitress. As she recrossed the square she saw Helen and Mr. Bast looking
+out of the window of the coffee-room, and feared she was already too
+late. Her task was not yet over; she ought to tell Henry what she had
+done.
+
+This came easily, for she saw him in the hall. The night wind had been
+rattling the pictures against the wall, and the noise had disturbed him.
+
+“Who’s there?” he called, quite the householder.
+
+Margaret walked in and past him.
+
+“I have asked Helen to sleep,” she said. “She is best here; so don’t
+lock the front-door.”
+
+“I thought some one had got in,” said Henry.
+
+“At the same time I told the man that we could do nothing for him. I
+don’t know about later, but now the Basts must clearly go.”
+
+“Did you say that your sister is sleeping here, after all?”
+
+“Probably.”
+
+“Is she to be shown up to your room?”
+
+“I have naturally nothing to say to her; I am going to bed. Will you
+tell the servants about Helen? Could some one go to carry her bag?”
+
+He tapped a little gong, which had been bought to summon the servants.
+
+“You must make more noise than that if you want them to hear.”
+
+Henry opened a door, and down the corridor came shouts of laughter. “Far
+too much screaming there,” he said, and strode towards it. Margaret went
+upstairs, uncertain whether to be glad that they had met, or sorry. They
+had behaved as if nothing had happened, and her deepest instincts told
+her that this was wrong. For his own sake, some explanation was due.
+
+And yet--what could an explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few
+details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first
+shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs.
+Bast. Henry’s inner life had long laid open to her--his intellectual
+confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive
+passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded?
+Perhaps. Perhaps, if the dishonour had been done to her, but it was done
+long before her day. She struggled against the feeling. She told herself
+that Mrs. Wilcox’s wrong was her own. But she was not a barren theorist.
+As she undressed, her anger, her regard for the dead, her desire for a
+scene, all grew weak. Henry must have it as he liked, for she loved him,
+and some day she would use her love to make him a better man.
+
+Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through this crisis. Pity, if
+one may generalise, is at the bottom of woman. When men like us, it is
+for our better qualities, and however tender their liking, we dare not
+be unworthy of it, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthiness
+stimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for good or for evil.
+
+Here was the core of the question. Henry must be forgiven, and made
+better by love; nothing else mattered. Mrs. Wilcox, that unquiet yet
+kindly ghost, must be left to her own wrong. To her everything was in
+proportion now, and she, too, would pity the man who was blundering
+up and down their lives. Had Mrs. Wilcox known of his trespass? An
+interesting question, but Margaret fell asleep, tethered by affection,
+and lulled by the murmurs of the river that descended all the night from
+Wales. She felt herself at one with her future home, colouring it and
+coloured by it, and awoke to see, for the second time, Oniton Castle
+conquering the morning mists.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+“Henry dear--” was her greeting.
+
+He had finished his breakfast, and was beginning the Times. His
+sister-in-law was packing. Margaret knelt by him and took the paper from
+him, feeling that it was unusually heavy and thick. Then, putting her
+face where it had been, she looked up in his eyes.
+
+“Henry dear, look at me. No, I won’t have you shirking. Look at me.
+There. That’s all.”
+
+“You’re referring to last evening,” he said huskily. “I have released
+you from your engagement. I could find excuses, but I won’t. No, I
+won’t. A thousand times no. I’m a bad lot, and must be left at that.”
+
+Expelled from his old fortress, Mr. Wilcox was building a new one.
+He could no longer appear respectable to her, so he defended himself
+instead in a lurid past. It was not true repentance.
+
+“Leave it where you will, boy. It’s not going to trouble us; I know what
+I’m talking about, and it will make no difference.”
+
+“No difference?” he inquired. “No difference, when you find that I am
+not the fellow you thought?” He was annoyed with Miss Schlegel here. He
+would have preferred her to be prostrated by the blow, or even to
+rage. Against the tide of his sin flowed the feeling that she was not
+altogether womanly. Her eyes gazed too straight; they had read books
+that are suitable for men only. And though he had dreaded a scene, and
+though she had determined against one, there was a scene, all the same.
+It was somehow imperative.
+
+“I am unworthy of you,” he began. “Had I been worthy, I should not have
+released you from your engagement. I know what I am talking about. I
+can’t bear to talk of such things. We had better leave it.”
+
+She kissed his hand. He jerked it from her, and, rising to his feet,
+went on: “You, with your sheltered life, and refined pursuits, and
+friends, and books, you and your sister, and women like you--I say, how
+can you guess the temptations that lie round a man?”
+
+“It is difficult for us,” said Margaret; “but if we are worth marrying,
+we do guess.”
+
+“Cut off from decent society and family ties, what do you suppose
+happens to thousands of young fellows overseas? Isolated. No one near. I
+know by bitter experience, and yet you say it makes ‘no difference.’”
+
+“Not to me.”
+
+He laughed bitterly. Margaret went to the sideboard and helped herself
+to one of the breakfast dishes. Being the last down, she turned out the
+spirit-lamp that kept them warm. She was tender, but grave. She knew
+that Henry was not so much confessing his soul as pointing out the gulf
+between the male soul and the female, and she did not desire to hear him
+on this point.
+
+“Did Helen come?” she asked.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“But that won’t do at all, at all! We don’t want her gossiping with Mrs.
+Bast.”
+
+“Good God! no!” he exclaimed, suddenly natural. Then he caught himself
+up. “Let them gossip, my game’s up, though I thank you for your
+unselfishness--little as my thanks are worth.”
+
+“Didn’t she send me a message or anything?”
+
+“I heard of none.”
+
+“Would you ring the bell, please?”
+
+“What to do?”
+
+“Why, to inquire.”
+
+He swaggered up to it tragically, and sounded a peal. Margaret poured
+herself out some coffee. The butler came, and said that Miss Schlegel
+had slept at the George, so far as he had heard. Should he go round to
+the George?
+
+“I’ll go, thank you,” said Margaret, and dismissed him.
+
+“It is no good,” said Henry. “Those things leak out; you cannot stop a
+story once it has started. I have known cases of other men--I despised
+them once, I thought that I’m different, I shall never be tempted. Oh,
+Margaret--” He came and sat down near her, improvising emotion. She
+could not bear to listen to him. “We fellows all come to grief once in
+our time. Will you believe that? There are moments when the strongest
+man--‘Let him who standeth, take heed lest he fall.’ That’s true,
+isn’t it? If you knew all, you would excuse me. I was far from good
+influences--far even from England. I was very, very lonely, and longed
+for a woman’s voice. That’s enough. I have told you too much already for
+you to forgive me now.”
+
+“Yes, that’s enough, dear.”
+
+“I have”--he lowered his voice--“I have been through hell.”
+
+Gravely she considered this claim. Had he? Had he suffered tortures of
+remorse, or had it been, “There! that’s over. Now for respectable life
+again”? The latter, if she read him rightly. A man who has been through
+hell does not boast of his virility. He is humble and hides it, if,
+indeed, it still exists. Only in legend does the sinner come forth
+penitent, but terrible, to conquer pure woman by his resistless power.
+Henry was anxious to be terrible, but had not got it in him. He was a
+good average Englishman, who had slipped. The really culpable point--his
+faithlessness to Mrs. Wilcox--never seemed to strike him. She longed to
+mention Mrs. Wilcox.
+
+And bit by bit the story was told her. It was a very simple story. Ten
+years ago was the time, a garrison town in Cyprus the place. Now and
+then he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him, and she
+answered, “I have already forgiven you, Henry.” She chose her words
+carefully, and so saved him from panic. She played the girl, until he
+could rebuild his fortress and hide his soul from the world. When the
+butler came to clear away, Henry was in a very different mood--asked
+the fellow what he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last
+night in the servants’ hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He,
+as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman--an
+attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would
+have fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry.
+
+On her return from the George the building operations were complete, and
+the old Henry fronted her, competent, cynical, and kind. He had made a
+clean breast, had been forgiven, and the great thing now was to forget
+his failure, and to send it the way of other unsuccessful investments.
+Jacky rejoined Howards End and Dude Street, and the vermilion motor-car,
+and the Argentine Hard Dollars, and all the things and people for whom
+he had never had much use and had less now. Their memory hampered him.
+He could scarcely attend to Margaret, who brought back disquieting news
+from the George. Helen and her clients had gone.
+
+“Well, let them go--the man and his wife, I mean, for the more we see of
+your sister the better.”
+
+“But they have gone separately--Helen very early, the Basts just before
+I arrived. They have left no message. They have answered neither of my
+notes. I don’t like to think what it all means.”
+
+“What did you say in the notes?”
+
+“I told you last night.”
+
+“Oh--ah--yes! Dear, would you like one turn in the garden?”
+
+Margaret took his arm. The beautiful weather soothed her. But the wheels
+of Evie’s wedding were still at work, tossing the guests outwards as
+deftly as they had drawn them in, and she could not be with him long. It
+had been arranged that they should motor to Shrewsbury, whence he would
+go north, and she back to London with the Warringtons. For a fraction of
+time she was happy. Then her brain recommenced.
+
+“I am afraid there has been gossiping of some kind at the George. Helen
+would not have left unless she had heard something. I mismanaged that.
+It is wretched. I ought to have parted her from that woman at once.”
+
+“Margaret!” he exclaimed, loosing her arm impressively.
+
+“Yes--yes, Henry?”
+
+“I am far from a saint--in fact, the reverse--but you have taken me, for
+better or worse. Bygones must be bygones. You have promised to forgive
+me. Margaret, a promise is a promise. Never mention that woman again.”
+
+“Except for some practical reason--never.”
+
+“Practical! You practical!”
+
+“Yes, I’m practical,” she murmured, stooping over the mowing-machine and
+playing with the grass which trickled through her fingers like sand.
+
+He had silenced her, but her fears made him uneasy. Not for the first
+time, he was threatened with blackmail. He was rich and supposed to be
+moral; the Basts knew that he was not, and might find it profitable to
+hint as much.
+
+“At all events, you mustn’t worry,” he said. “This is a man’s business.”
+ He thought intently. “On no account mention it to anybody.”
+
+Margaret flushed at advice so elementary, but he was really paving the
+way for a lie. If necessary he would deny that he had ever known Mrs.
+Bast, and prosecute her for libel. Perhaps he never had known her. Here
+was Margaret, who behaved as if he had not. There the house. Round them
+were half a dozen gardeners, clearing up after his daughter’s wedding.
+All was so solid and spruce, that the past flew up out of sight like a
+spring-blind, leaving only the last five minutes unrolled.
+
+Glancing at these, he saw that the car would be round during the
+next five, and plunged into action. Gongs were tapped, orders issued,
+Margaret was sent to dress, and the housemaid to sweep up the long
+trickle of grass that she had left across the hall. As is Man to the
+Universe, so was the mind of Mr. Wilcox to the minds of some men--a
+concentrated light upon a tiny spot, a little Ten Minutes moving
+self-contained through its appointed years. No Pagan he, who lives for
+the Now, and may be wiser than all philosophers. He lived for the five
+minutes that have past, and the five to come; he had the business mind.
+
+How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and breasted
+the great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain rumour, but was all
+right. She had forgiven him, God bless her, and he felt the manlier for
+it. Charles and Evie had not heard it, and never must hear. No more must
+Paul. Over his children he felt great tenderness, which he did not try
+to track to a cause; Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did
+not connect her with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor
+little Evie! he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.
+
+And Margaret? How did she stand?
+
+She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard something.
+She dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious about Leonard, for
+whom they certainly were responsible. Nor ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But
+the main situation had not altered. She still loved Henry. His actions,
+not his disposition, had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And
+she loved her future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had
+leapt from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon
+Oniton. Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now pick out
+the church and the black-and-white gables of the George. There was the
+bridge, and the river nibbling its green peninsula. She could even
+see the bathing-shed, but while she was looking for Charles’s new
+spring-board, the forehead of the hill rose and hid the whole scene.
+
+She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into England,
+day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains, and the tower
+chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes have no part in the
+place, nor in any place. It is not their names that recur in the parish
+register. It is not their ghosts that sigh among the alders at evening.
+They have swept into the valley and swept out of it, leaving a little
+dust and a little money behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford. He had moved out of
+college, and was contemplating the Universe, or such portions of it as
+concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings in Long Wall. He was not
+concerned with much. When a young man is untroubled by passions and
+sincerely indifferent to public opinion his outlook is necessarily
+limited. Tibby wished neither to strengthen the position of the rich nor
+to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms
+nodding behind the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen. There are
+worse lives. Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected
+in manner, he never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained the heroic
+equipment, and it was only after many visits that men discovered
+Schlegel to possess a character and a brain. He had done well in Mods,
+much to the surprise of those who attended lectures and took proper
+exercise, and was now glancing disdainfully at Chinese in case he
+should some day consent to qualify as a Student Interpreter. To him thus
+employed Helen entered. A telegram had preceded her.
+
+He noticed, in a distant way, that his sister had altered.
+
+As a rule he found her too pronounced, and had never come across this
+look of appeal, pathetic yet dignified--the look of a sailor who has
+lost everything at sea.
+
+“I have come from Oniton,” she began. “There has been a great deal of
+trouble there.”
+
+“Who’s for lunch?” said Tibby, picking up the claret, which was warming
+in the hearth. Helen sat down submissively at the table. “Why such an
+early start?” he asked.
+
+“Sunrise or something--when I could get away.”
+
+“So I surmise. Why?”
+
+“I don’t know what’s to be done, Tibby. I am very much upset at a piece
+of news that concerns Meg, and do not want to face her, and I am not
+going back to Wickham Place. I stopped here to tell you this.”
+
+The landlady came in with the cutlets. Tibby put a marker in the leaves
+of his Chinese Grammar and helped them. Oxford--the Oxford of the
+vacation--dreamed and rustled outside, and indoors the little fire was
+coated with grey where the sunshine touched it. Helen continued her odd
+story.
+
+“Give Meg my love and say that I want to be alone. I mean to go to
+Munich or else Bonn.”
+
+“Such a message is easily given,” said her brother.
+
+“As regards Wickham Place and my share of the furniture, you and she are
+to do exactly as you like. My own feeling is that everything may just as
+well be sold. What does one want with dusty economic books, which have
+made the world no better, or with mother’s hideous chiffoniers? I have
+also another commission for you. I want you to deliver a letter.” She
+got up. “I haven’t written it yet. Why shouldn’t I post it, though?” She
+sat down again. “My head is rather wretched. I hope that none of your
+friends are likely to come in.”
+
+Tibby locked the door. His friends often found it in this condition.
+Then he asked whether anything had gone wrong at Evie’s wedding.
+
+“Not there,” said Helen, and burst into tears.
+
+He had known her hysterical--it was one of her aspects with which he had
+no concern--and yet these tears touched him as something unusual. They
+were nearer the things that did concern him, such as music. He laid down
+his knife and looked at her curiously. Then, as she continued to sob, he
+went on with his lunch.
+
+The time came for the second course, and she was still crying. Apple
+Charlotte was to follow, which spoils by waiting. “Do you mind Mrs.
+Martlett coming in?” he asked, “or shall I take it from her at the
+door?”
+
+“Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?”
+
+He took her to his bedroom, and introduced the pudding in her absence.
+Having helped himself, he put it down to warm in the hearth. His hand
+stretched towards the Grammar, and soon he was turning over the pages,
+raising his eyebrows scornfully, perhaps at human nature, perhaps at
+Chinese. To him thus employed Helen returned. She had pulled herself
+together, but the grave appeal had not vanished from her eyes.
+
+“Now for the explanation,” she said. “Why didn’t I begin with it? I
+have found out something about Mr. Wilcox. He has behaved very wrongly
+indeed, and ruined two people’s lives. It all came on me very suddenly
+last night; I am very much upset, and I do not know what to do. Mrs.
+Bast--”
+
+“Oh, those people!”
+
+Helen seemed silenced.
+
+“Shall I lock the door again?”
+
+“No thanks, Tibbikins. You’re being very good to me. I want to tell you
+the story before I go abroad, you must do exactly what you like--treat
+it as part of the furniture. Meg cannot have heard it yet, I think. But
+I cannot face her and tell her that the man she is going to marry has
+misconducted himself. I don’t even know whether she ought to be told.
+Knowing as she does that I dislike him, she will suspect me, and think
+that I want to ruin her match. I simply don’t know what to make of such
+a thing. I trust your judgment. What would you do?”
+
+“I gather he has had a mistress,” said Tibby.
+
+Helen flushed with shame and anger. “And ruined two people’s lives. And
+goes about saying that personal actions count for nothing, and there
+always will be rich and poor. He met her when he was trying to get rich
+out in Cyprus--I don’t wish to make him worse than he is, and no doubt
+she was ready enough to meet him. But there it is. They met. He goes his
+way and she goes hers. What do you suppose is the end of such women?”
+
+He conceded that it was a bad business.
+
+“They end in two ways: Either they sink till the lunatic asylums and the
+workhouses are full of them, and cause Mr. Wilcox to write letters to
+the papers complaining of our national degeneracy, or else they entrap a
+boy into marriage before it is too late. She--I can’t blame her.”
+
+“But this isn’t all,” she continued after a long pause, during which the
+landlady served them with coffee. “I come now to the business that took
+us to Oniton. We went all three. Acting on Mr. Wilcox’s advice, the man
+throws up a secure situation and takes an insecure one, from which he is
+dismissed. There are certain excuses, but in the main Mr. Wilcox is to
+blame, as Meg herself admitted. It is only common justice that he should
+employ the man himself. But he meets the woman, and, like the cur that
+he is, he refuses, and tries to get rid of them. He makes Meg write.
+Two notes came from her late that evening--one for me, one for Leonard,
+dismissing him with barely a reason. I couldn’t understand. Then it
+comes out that Mrs. Bast had spoken to Mr. Wilcox on the lawn while we
+left her to get rooms, and was still speaking about him when Leonard
+came back to her. This Leonard knew all along. He thought it natural he
+should be ruined twice. Natural! Could you have contained yourself?”
+
+“It is certainly a very bad business,” said Tibby.
+
+His reply seemed to calm his sister. “I was afraid that I saw it out of
+proportion. But you are right outside it, and you must know. In a day or
+two--or perhaps a week--take whatever steps you think fit. I leave it in
+your hands.”
+
+She concluded her charge.
+
+“The facts as they touch Meg are all before you,” she added; and Tibby
+sighed and felt it rather hard that, because of his open mind, he should
+be empanelled to serve as a juror. He had never been interested in human
+beings, for which one must blame him, but he had had rather too much of
+them at Wickham Place. Just as some people cease to attend when books
+are mentioned, so Tibby’s attention wandered when “personal relations”
+ came under discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts
+to know? Similar questions had vexed him from infancy, and at Oxford he
+had learned to say that the importance of human beings has been vastly
+overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint whiff of the
+eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it off now if his sister
+had not been ceaselessly beautiful.
+
+“You see, Helen--have a cigarette--I don’t see what I’m to do.”
+
+“Then there’s nothing to be done. I dare say you are right. Let them
+marry. There remains the question of compensation.”
+
+“Do you want me to adjudicate that too? Had you not better consult an
+expert?”
+
+“This part is in confidence,” said Helen. “It has nothing to do with
+Meg, and do not mention it to her. The compensation--I do not see who is
+to pay it if I don’t, and I have already decided on the minimum sum.
+As soon as possible I am placing it to your account, and when I am in
+Germany you will pay it over for me. I shall never forget your kindness,
+Tibbikins, if you do this.”
+
+“What is the sum?”
+
+“Five thousand.”
+
+“Good God alive!” said Tibby, and went crimson.
+
+“Now, what is the good of driblets? To go through life having done one
+thing--to have raised one person from the abyss; not these puny gifts of
+shillings and blankets--making the grey more grey. No doubt people will
+think me extraordinary.”
+
+“I don’t care an iota what people think!” cried he, heated to unusual
+manliness of diction. “But it’s half what you have.”
+
+“Not nearly half.” She spread out her hands over her soiled skirt. “I
+have far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last spring that three
+hundred a year is necessary to set a man on his feet. What I give will
+bring in a hundred and fifty between two. It isn’t enough.” He could not
+recover. He was not angry or even shocked, and he saw that Helen would
+still have plenty to live on. But it amazed him to think what haycocks
+people can make of their lives. His delicate intonations would not work,
+and he could only blurt out that the five thousand pounds would mean a
+great deal of bother for him personally.
+
+“I didn’t expect you to understand me.”
+
+“I? I understand nobody.”
+
+“But you’ll do it?”
+
+“Apparently.”
+
+“I leave you two commissions, then. The first concerns Mr. Wilcox, and
+you are to use your discretion. The second concerns the money, and is
+to be mentioned to no one, and carried out literally. You will send a
+hundred pounds on account to-morrow.”
+
+He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets whose
+serried beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued. The lovely
+creature raised domes and spires into the cloudless blue, and only
+the ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how evanescent was the
+phantom, how faint its claim to represent England. Helen, rehearsing her
+commission, noticed nothing; the Basts were in her brain, and she retold
+the crisis in a meditative way, which might have made other men curious.
+She was seeing whether it would hold. He asked her once why she had
+taken the Basts right into the heart of Evie’s wedding. She stopped like
+a frightened animal and said, “Does that seem to you so odd?” Her eyes,
+the hand laid on the mouth, quite haunted him, until they were absorbed
+into the figure of St. Mary the Virgin, before whom he paused for a
+moment on the walk home.
+
+It is convenient to follow him in the discharge of his duties. Margaret
+summoned him the next day. She was terrified at Helen’s flight, and he
+had to say that she had called in at Oxford. Then she said: “Did she
+seem worried at any rumour about Henry?” He answered, “Yes.” “I knew it
+was that!” she exclaimed. “I’ll write to her.” Tibby was relieved.
+
+He then sent the cheque to the address that Helen gave him, and stated
+that he was instructed to forward later on five thousand pounds. An
+answer came back very civil and quiet in tone--such an answer as Tibby
+himself would have given. The cheque was returned, the legacy refused,
+the writer being in no need of money. Tibby forwarded this to Helen,
+adding in the fulness of his heart that Leonard Bast seemed somewhat a
+monumental person after all. Helen’s reply was frantic. He was to
+take no notice. He was to go down at once and say that she commanded
+acceptance. He went. A scurf of books and china ornaments awaited him.
+The Basts had just been evicted for not paying their rent, and had
+wandered no one knew whither. Helen had begun bungling with her money by
+this time, and had even sold out her shares in the Nottingham and Derby
+Railway. For some weeks she did nothing. Then she reinvested, and, owing
+to the good advice of her stockbrokers, became rather richer than she
+had been before.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the
+generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to an
+after-life in the city of ghosts, while from others--and thus was the
+death of Wickham Place--the spirit slips before the body perishes. It
+had decayed in the spring, disintegrating the girls more than they knew,
+and causing either to accost unfamiliar regions. By September it was a
+corpse, void of emotion, and scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty
+years of happiness. Through its round-topped doorway passed furniture,
+and pictures, and books, until the last room was gutted and the last van
+had rumbled away. It stood for a week or two longer, open-eyed, as if
+astonished at its own emptiness. Then it fell. Navvies came, and spilt
+it back into the grey. With their muscles and their beery good temper,
+they were not the worst of undertakers for a house which had always been
+human, and had not mistaken culture for an end.
+
+The furniture, with a few exceptions, went down into Hertfordshire, Mr.
+Wilcox having most kindly offered Howards End as a warehouse. Mr. Bryce
+had died abroad--an unsatisfactory affair--and as there seemed little
+guarantee that the rent would be paid regularly, he cancelled the
+agreement, and resumed possession himself. Until he relet the house, the
+Schlegels were welcome to stack their furniture in the garage and lower
+rooms. Margaret demurred, but Tibby accepted the offer gladly; it saved
+him from coming to any decision about the future. The plate and the
+more valuable pictures found a safer home in London, but the bulk of the
+things went country-ways, and were entrusted to the guardianship of Miss
+Avery.
+
+Shortly before the move, our hero and heroine were married. They
+have weathered the storm, and may reasonably expect peace. To have no
+illusions and yet to love--what stronger surety can a woman find? She
+had seen her husband’s past as well as his heart. She knew her own heart
+with a thoroughness that commonplace people believe impossible. The
+heart of Mrs. Wilcox was alone hidden, and perhaps it is superstitious
+to speculate on the feelings of the dead. They were married
+quietly--really quietly, for as the day approached she refused to go
+through another Oniton. Her brother gave her away, her aunt, who was
+out of health, presided over a few colourless refreshments. The Wilcoxes
+were represented by Charles, who witnessed the marriage settlement, and
+by Mr. Cahill. Paul did send a cablegram. In a few minutes, and without
+the aid of music, the clergyman made them man and wife, and soon the
+glass shade had fallen that cuts off married couples from the world.
+She, a monogamist, regretted the cessation of some of life’s innocent
+odours; he, whose instincts were polygamous, felt morally braced by the
+change and less liable to the temptations that had assailed him in the
+past.
+
+They spent their honeymoon near Innsbruck. Henry knew of a reliable
+hotel there, and Margaret hoped for a meeting with her sister. In this
+she was disappointed. As they came south, Helen retreated over the
+Brenner, and wrote an unsatisfactory post-card from the shores of the
+Lake of Garda, saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be
+ignored. Evidently she disliked meeting Henry. Two months are surely
+enough to accustom an outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted
+in two days, and Margaret had again to regret her sister’s lack of
+self-control. In a long letter she pointed out the need of charity in
+sexual matters; so little is known about them; it is hard enough for
+those who are personally touched to judge; then how futile must be the
+verdict of Society. “I don’t say there is no standard, for that would
+destroy morality; only that there can be no standard until our impulses
+are classified and better understood.” Helen thanked her for her kind
+letter--rather a curious reply. She moved south again, and spoke of
+wintering in Naples.
+
+Mr. Wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed. Helen left him time to
+grow skin over his wound. There were still moments when it pained him.
+Had he only known that Margaret was awaiting him--Margaret, so lively
+and intelligent, and yet so submissive--he would have kept himself
+worthier of her. Incapable of grouping the past, he confused the episode
+of Jacky with another episode that had taken place in the days of his
+bachelorhood. The two made one crop of wild oats, for which he was
+heartily sorry, and he could not see that those oats are of a darker
+stock which are rooted in another’s dishonour. Unchastity and infidelity
+were as confused to him as to the Middle Ages, his only moral teacher.
+Ruth (poor old Ruth!) did not enter into his calculations at all, for
+poor old Ruth had never found him out.
+
+His affection for his present wife grew steadily. Her cleverness gave
+him no trouble, and, indeed, he liked to see her reading poetry or
+something about social questions; it distinguished her from the wives
+of other men. He had only to call, and she clapped the book up and was
+ready to do what he wished. Then they would argue so jollily, and once
+or twice she had him in quite a tight corner, but as soon as he grew
+really serious, she gave in. Man is for war, woman for the recreation
+of the warrior, but he does not dislike it if she makes a show of fight.
+She cannot win in a real battle, having no muscles, only nerves.
+Nerves make her jump out of a moving motor-car, or refuse to be
+married fashionably. The warrior may well allow her to triumph on such
+occasions; they move not the imperishable plinth of things that touch
+his peace.
+
+Margaret had a bad attack of these nerves during the honeymoon. He told
+her--casually, as was his habit--that Oniton Grange was let. She showed
+her annoyance, and asked rather crossly why she had not been consulted.
+
+“I didn’t want to bother you,” he replied. “Besides, I have only heard
+for certain this morning.”
+
+“Where are we to live?” said Margaret, trying to laugh. “I loved the
+place extraordinarily. Don’t you believe in having a permanent home,
+Henry?”
+
+He assured her that she misunderstood him. It is home life that
+distinguishes us from the foreigner. But he did not believe in a damp
+home.
+
+“This is news. I never heard till this minute that Oniton was damp.”
+
+“My dear girl!”--he flung out his hand--“have you eyes? have you a skin?
+How could it be anything but damp in such a situation? In the first
+place, the Grange is on clay, and built where the castle moat must have
+been; then there’s that detestable little river, steaming all night like
+a kettle. Feel the cellar walls; look up under the eaves. Ask Sir James
+or any one. Those Shropshire valleys are notorious. The only possible
+place for a house in Shropshire is on a hill; but, for my part, I think
+the country is too far from London, and the scenery nothing special.”
+
+Margaret could not resist saying, “Why did you go there, then?”
+
+“I--because--” He drew his head back and grew rather angry. “Why have
+we come to the Tyrol, if it comes to that? One might go on asking such
+questions indefinitely.”
+
+One might; but he was only gaining time for a plausible answer. Out it
+came, and he believed it as soon as it was spoken.
+
+“The truth is, I took Oniton on account of Evie. Don’t let this go any
+further.”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“I shouldn’t like her to know that she nearly let me in for a very bad
+bargain. No sooner did I sign the agreement than she got engaged. Poor
+little girl! She was so keen on it all, and wouldn’t even wait to
+make proper inquiries about the shooting. Afraid it would get snapped
+up--just like all of your sex. Well, no harm’s done. She has had her
+country wedding, and I’ve got rid of my goose to some fellows who are
+starting a preparatory school.”
+
+“Where shall we live, then, Henry? I should enjoy living somewhere.”
+
+“I have not yet decided. What about Norfolk?”
+
+Margaret was silent. Marriage had not saved her from the sense of
+flux. London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilisation which is
+altering human nature so profoundly, and throws upon personal
+relations a stress greater than they have ever borne before. Under
+cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no help from the earth.
+Trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle, and the
+binding force that they once exercised on character must be entrusted to
+Love alone. May Love be equal to the task!
+
+“It is now what?” continued Henry. “Nearly October. Let us camp for the
+winter at Ducie Street, and look out for something in the spring.”
+
+“If possible, something permanent. I can’t be as young as I was, for
+these alterations don’t suit me.”
+
+“But, my dear, which would you rather have--alterations or rheumatism?”
+
+“I see your point,” said Margaret, getting up. “If Oniton is really
+damp, it is impossible, and must be inhabited by little boys. Only, in
+the spring, let us look before we leap. I will take warning by Evie,
+and not hurry you. Remember that you have a free hand this time.
+These endless moves must be bad for the furniture, and are certainly
+expensive.”
+
+“What a practical little woman it is! What’s it been reading?
+Theo--theo--how much?”
+
+“Theosophy.”
+
+So Ducie Street was her first fate--a pleasant enough fate. The house,
+being only a little larger than Wickham Place, trained her for the
+immense establishment that was promised in the spring. They were
+frequently away, but at home life ran fairly regularly. In the
+morning Henry went to business, and his sandwich--a relic this of some
+prehistoric craving--was always cut by her own hand. He did not rely
+upon the sandwich for lunch, but liked to have it by him in case he grew
+hungry at eleven. When he had gone, there was the house to look after,
+and the servants to humanise, and several kettles of Helen’s to keep on
+the boil. Her conscience pricked her a little about the Basts; she
+was not sorry to have lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth
+helping, but being Henry’s wife, she preferred to help some one else. As
+for theatres and discussion societies, they attracted her less and
+less. She began to “miss” new movements, and to spend her spare time
+re-reading or thinking, rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends.
+They attributed the change to her marriage, and perhaps some deep
+instinct did warn her not to travel further from her husband than
+was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay deeper still; she had outgrown
+stimulants, and was passing from words to things. It was doubtless a
+pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but some closing of the gates
+is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself is to become a creative
+power.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+She was looking at plans one day in the following spring--they had
+finally decided to go down into Sussex and build--when Mrs. Charles
+Wilcox was announced.
+
+“Have you heard the news?” Dolly cried, as soon as she entered the room.
+“Charles is so ang--I mean he is sure you know about it, or, rather, that
+you don’t know.”
+
+“Why, Dolly!” said Margaret, placidly kissing her. “Here’s a surprise!
+How are the boys and the baby?”
+
+Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that there
+had been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news. The wrong
+people had tried to get in. The rector, as representing the older
+inhabitants, had said--Charles had said--the tax-collector had
+said--Charles had regretted not saying--and she closed the description
+with, “But lucky you, with four courts of your own at Midhurst.”
+
+“It will be very jolly,” replied Margaret.
+
+“Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?”
+
+“Of course not.”
+
+“Charles has never seen the plans.”
+
+“They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor--no, that’s
+rather difficult. Try the elevation. We are to have a good many gables
+and a picturesque sky-line.”
+
+“What makes it smell so funny?” said Dolly, after a moment’s inspection.
+She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.
+
+“I suppose the paper.”
+
+“And WHICH way up is it?”
+
+“Just the ordinary way up. That’s the sky-line and the part that smells
+strongest is the sky.”
+
+“Well, ask me another. Margaret--oh--what was I going to say? How’s
+Helen?”
+
+“Quite well.”
+
+“Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it’s awfully odd
+she doesn’t.”
+
+“So it is,” said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was
+getting rather sore on this point. “Helen is odd, awfully. She has now
+been away eight months.”
+
+“But hasn’t she any address?”
+
+“A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write her a
+line. I will look it up for you.”
+
+“No, don’t bother. That’s eight months she has been away, surely?”
+
+“Exactly. She left just after Evie’s wedding. It would be eight months.”
+
+“Just when baby was born, then?”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was
+beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles’s were not
+well off, for Mr. Wilcox, having brought up his children with expensive
+tastes, believed in letting them shift for themselves. After all, he
+had not treated them generously. Yet another baby was expected, she
+told Margaret, and they would have to give up the motor. Margaret
+sympathised, but in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the
+stepmother was urging Mr. Wilcox to make them a more liberal allowance.
+She sighed again, and at last the particular grievance was remembered.
+“Oh, yes,” she cried, “that is it: Miss Avery has been unpacking your
+packing-cases.”
+
+“Why has she done that? How unnecessary!”
+
+“Ask another. I suppose you ordered her to.”
+
+“I gave no such orders. Perhaps she was airing the things. She did
+undertake to light an occasional fire.”
+
+“It was far more than an air,” said Dolly solemnly. “The floor sounds
+covered with books. Charles sent me to know what is to be done, for he
+feels certain you don’t know.”
+
+“Books!” cried Margaret, moved by the holy word. “Dolly, are you
+serious? Has she been touching our books?”
+
+“Hasn’t she, though! What used to be the hall’s full of them. Charles
+thought for certain you knew of it.”
+
+“I am very much obliged to you, Dolly. What can have come over Miss
+Avery? I must go down about it at once. Some of the books are my
+brother’s, and are quite valuable. She had no right to open any of the
+cases.”
+
+“I say she’s dotty. She was the one that never got married, you know.
+Oh, I say, perhaps, she thinks your books are wedding-presents to
+herself. Old maids are taken that way sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all
+like poison ever since her frightful dust-up with Evie.”
+
+“I hadn’t heard of that,” said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had its
+compensations.
+
+“Didn’t you know she gave Evie a present last August, and Evie returned
+it, and then--oh, goloshes! You never read such a letter as Miss Avery
+wrote.”
+
+“But it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn’t like her to do such a
+heartless thing.”
+
+“But the present was so expensive.”
+
+“Why does that make any difference, Dolly?”
+
+“Still, when it costs over five pounds--I didn’t see it, but it was
+a lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop. You can’t very well
+accept that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can you?”
+
+“You accepted a present from Miss Avery when you were married.”
+
+“Oh, mine was old earthenware stuff--not worth a halfpenny. Evie’s was
+quite different. You’d have to ask any one to the wedding who gave you
+a pendant like that. Uncle Percy and Albert and father and Charles all
+said it was quite impossible, and when four men agree, what is a girl to
+do? Evie didn’t want to upset the old thing, so thought a sort of joking
+letter best, and returned the pendant straight to the shop to save Miss
+Avery trouble.”
+
+“But Miss Avery said--”
+
+Dolly’s eyes grew round. “It was a perfectly awful letter. Charles said
+it was the letter of a madman. In the end she had the pendant back again
+from the shop and threw it into the duck-pond.”
+
+“Did she give any reasons?”
+
+“We think she meant to be invited to Oniton, and so climb into society.”
+
+“She’s rather old for that,” said Margaret pensively. “May she not have
+given the present to Evie in remembrance of her mother?”
+
+“That’s a notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I ought
+to be toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff--you want a new coat, but I don’t
+know who’ll give it you, I’m sure;” and addressing her apparel with
+mournful humour, Dolly moved from the room.
+
+Margaret followed her to ask whether Henry knew about Miss Avery’s
+rudeness.
+
+“Oh yes.”
+
+“I wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the house.”
+
+“But she’s only a farm woman,” said Dolly, and her explanation proved
+correct. Henry only censured the lower classes when it suited him. He
+bore with Miss Avery as with Crane--because he could get good value out
+of them. “I have patience with a man who knows his job,” he would say,
+really having patience with the job, and not the man. Paradoxical as it
+may sound, he had something of the artist about him; he would pass over
+an insult to his daughter sooner than lose a good charwoman for his
+wife.
+
+Margaret judged it better to settle the little trouble herself. Parties
+were evidently ruffled. With Henry’s permission, she wrote a pleasant
+note to Miss Avery, asking her to leave the cases untouched. Then, at
+the first convenient opportunity, she went down herself, intending to
+repack her belongings and store them properly in the local warehouse;
+the plan had been amateurish and a failure. Tibby promised to accompany
+her, but at the last moment begged to be excused. So, for the second
+time in her life, she entered the house alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The day of her visit was exquisite, and the last of unclouded happiness
+that she was to have for many months. Her anxiety about Helen’s
+extraordinary absence was still dormant, and as for a possible brush
+with Miss Avery--that only gave zest to the expedition. She had also
+eluded Dolly’s invitation to luncheon. Walking straight up from the
+station, she crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut
+avenue that connects it with the church. The church itself stood in the
+village once. But it there attracted so many worshippers that the
+devil, in a pet, snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on
+an inconvenient knoll, three quarters of a mile away. If this story is
+true, the chestnut avenue must have been planted by the angels. No more
+tempting approach could be imagined for the lukewarm Christian, and if
+he still finds the walk too long, the devil is defeated all the same,
+Science having built Holy Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles’s
+and roofed it with tin.
+
+Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that
+gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the
+little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great
+mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the
+greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the
+pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it
+seems to have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the
+fairies. It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names
+to half a dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her
+literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for
+the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.
+
+At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened into
+a road, smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched country. She
+followed it for over a mile. Its little hesitations pleased her. Having
+no urgent destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking
+no trouble about the gradients, or about the view, which nevertheless
+expanded. The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire
+were less obtrusive here, and the appearance of the land was neither
+aristocratic nor suburban. To define it was difficult, but Margaret knew
+what it was not: it was not snobbish. Though its contours were slight,
+there was a touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never
+attain, and the distant brow of the Chilterns towered like a mountain.
+“Left to itself,” was Margaret’s opinion, “this county would vote
+Liberal.” The comradeship, not passionate, that is our highest gift as
+a nation, was promised by it, as by the low brick farm where she called
+for the key.
+
+But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished young
+person received her. “Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh yes, Mrs.
+Wilcox, auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie has gone up to
+your little place at the present moment. Shall I send the servant to
+direct you?” Followed by: “Of course, auntie does not generally look
+after your place; she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something
+exceptional. It gives her something to do. She spends quite a lot of her
+time there. My husband says to me sometimes, ‘Where’s auntie?’ I say,
+‘Need you ask? She’s at Howards End.’ Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox,
+could I prevail upon you to accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for
+you?”
+
+Margaret refused the cake, but unfortunately this gave her gentility in
+the eyes of Miss Avery’s niece.
+
+“I cannot let you go on alone. Now don’t. You really mustn’t. I
+will direct you myself if it comes to that. I must get my hat.
+Now”--roguishly--“Mrs. Wilcox, don’t you move while I’m gone.”
+
+Stunned, Margaret did not move from the best parlour, over which the
+touch of art nouveau had fallen. But the other rooms looked in keeping,
+though they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural interior. Here had
+lived an elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country
+which we visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver
+sides of life, the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love,
+have their deepest expression in the heart of the fields. All was not
+sadness. The sun was shining without. The thrush sang his two syllables
+on the budding guelder-rose. Some children were playing uproariously
+in heaps of golden straw. It was the presence of sadness at all that
+surprised Margaret, and ended by giving her a feeling of completeness.
+In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see life steadily and see
+it whole, group in one vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth,
+connect--connect without bitterness until all men are brothers. But her
+thoughts were interrupted by the return of Miss Avery’s niece, and were
+so tranquillising that she suffered the interruption gladly.
+
+It was quicker to go out by the back door, and, after due explanations,
+they went out by it. The niece was now mortified by innumerable
+chickens, who rushed up to her feet for food, and by a shameless and
+maternal sow. She did not know what animals were coming to. But her
+gentility withered at the touch of the sweet air. The wind was rising,
+scattering the straw and ruffling the tails of the ducks as they floated
+in families over Evie’s pendant. One of those delicious gales of spring,
+in which leaves still in bud seem to rustle, swept over the land and
+then fell silent. “Georgie,” sang the thrush. “Cuckoo,” came furtively
+from the cliff of pine-trees. “Georgie, pretty Georgie,” and the other
+birds joined in with nonsense. The hedge was a half-painted picture
+which would be finished in a few days. Celandines grew on its banks,
+lords and ladies and primroses in the defended hollows; the wild
+rose-bushes, still bearing their withered hips, showed also the promise
+of blossom. Spring had come, clad in no classical garb, yet fairer
+than all springs; fairer even than she who walks through the myrtles of
+Tuscany with the graces before her and the zephyr behind.
+
+The two women walked up the lane full of outward civility. But Margaret
+was thinking how difficult it was to be earnest about furniture on such
+a day, and the niece was thinking about hats. Thus engaged, they reached
+Howards End. Petulant cries of “Auntie!” severed the air. There was no
+reply, and the front door was locked.
+
+“Are you sure that Miss Avery is up here?” asked Margaret.
+
+“Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilcox, quite sure. She is here daily.”
+
+Margaret tried to look in through the dining-room window, but the
+curtain inside was drawn tightly. So with the drawing-room and the hall.
+The appearance of these curtains was familiar, yet she did not remember
+their being there on her other visit; her impression was that Mr. Bryce
+had taken everything away. They tried the back. Here again they received
+no answer, and could see nothing; the kitchen-window was fitted with
+a blind, while the pantry and scullery had pieces of wood propped up
+against them, which looked ominously like the lids of packing-cases.
+Margaret thought of her books, and she lifted up her voice also. At the
+first cry she succeeded.
+
+“Well, well!” replied some one inside the house. “If it isn’t Mrs.
+Wilcox come at last!”
+
+“Have you got the key, auntie?”
+
+“Madge, go away,” said Miss Avery, still invisible.
+
+“Auntie, it’s Mrs. Wilcox--”
+
+Margaret supported her. “Your niece and I have come together.”
+
+“Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat.”
+
+The poor woman went red. “Auntie gets more eccentric lately,” she said
+nervously.
+
+“Miss Avery!” called Margaret. “I have come about the furniture. Could
+you kindly let me in?”
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Wilcox,” said the voice, “of course.” But after that came
+silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house
+disconsolately.
+
+“I hope Miss Avery is not ill,” hazarded Margaret.
+
+“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” said Madge, “perhaps I ought to be leaving
+you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at
+times.” Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if
+her departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once.
+
+Miss Avery said, “Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!” quite pleasantly
+and calmly.
+
+“Thank you so much,” began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an
+umbrella-stand. It was her own.
+
+“Come right into the hall first,” said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain,
+and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had
+happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from
+Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up
+near the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace,
+and her father’s sword--this is what bewildered her particularly--had
+been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes.
+Miss Avery must have worked for days.
+
+“I’m afraid this isn’t what we meant,” she began. “Mr. Wilcox and I
+never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my
+brother’s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad.
+When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to
+do so much.”
+
+“The house has been empty long enough,” said the old woman.
+
+Margaret refused to argue. “I dare say we didn’t explain,” she said
+civilly. “It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake.”
+
+“Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The
+house is Mrs. Wilcox’s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any
+longer.”
+
+To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:
+
+“Yes, Mrs. Wilcox’s house, the mother of Mr. Charles.”
+
+“Mistake upon mistake,” said Miss Avery. “Mistake upon mistake.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know,” said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own
+chairs. “I really don’t know what’s to be done.” She could not help
+laughing.
+
+The other said: “Yes, it should be a merry house enough.”
+
+“I don’t know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery. Yes,
+that’s all right. Delightful.”
+
+“There is still the parlour.” She went through the door opposite and
+drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham
+Place. “And the dining-room.” More curtains were drawn, more windows
+were flung open to the spring. “Then through here--” Miss Avery
+continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost,
+but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. “I’ve not finished
+here yet,” she announced, returning. “There’s still a deal to do. The
+farm lads will carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need
+to go into expense at Hilton.”
+
+“It is all a mistake,” repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her
+foot down. “A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live
+at Howards End.”
+
+“Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?”
+
+“We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part
+of this furniture--my part--will go down there presently.” She looked at
+Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain.
+
+Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous.
+She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious
+nobility. “You think that you won’t come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox,
+but you will.”
+
+“That remains to be seen,” said Margaret, smiling. “We have no intention
+of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house.
+Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day--one
+never knows, does one?”
+
+Miss Avery retorted: “Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don’t talk about some day.
+You are living here now.”
+
+“Am I?”
+
+“You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask
+me.”
+
+It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty
+Margaret rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely
+censured. They went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in
+upon her mother’s chiffonier, and upstairs, where many an old god peeped
+from a new niche. The furniture fitted extraordinarily well. In the
+central room--over the hall, the room that Helen had slept in four years
+ago--Miss Avery had placed Tibby’s old bassinette.
+
+“The nursery,” she said.
+
+Margaret turned away without speaking.
+
+At last everything was seen. The kitchen and lobby were still stacked
+with furniture and straw, but, as far as she could make out, nothing
+had been broken or scratched. A pathetic display of ingenuity! Then they
+took a friendly stroll in the garden. It had gone wild since her last
+visit. The gravel sweep was weedy, and grass had sprung up at the very
+jaws of the garage. And Evie’s rockery was only bumps. Perhaps Evie was
+responsible for Miss Avery’s oddness. But Margaret suspected that the
+cause lay deeper, and that the girl’s silly letter had but loosed the
+irritation of years.
+
+“It’s a beautiful meadow,” she remarked. It was one of those open-air
+drawing-rooms that have been formed, hundreds of years ago, out of the
+smaller fields. So the boundary hedge zigzagged down the hill at right
+angles, and at the bottom there was a little green annex--a sort of
+powder-closet for the cows.
+
+“Yes, the maidy’s well enough,” said Miss Avery, “for those, that is,
+who don’t suffer from sneezing.” And she cackled maliciously. “I’ve
+seen Charlie Wilcox go out to my lads in hay time--oh, they ought to do
+this--they mustn’t do that--he’d learn them to be lads. And just then
+the tickling took him. He has it from his father, with other things.
+There’s not one Wilcox that can stand up against a field in June--I
+laughed fit to burst while he was courting Ruth.”
+
+“My brother gets hay fever too,” said Margaret.
+
+“This house lies too much on the land for them. Naturally, they were
+glad enough to slip in at first. But Wilcoxes are better than nothing,
+as I see you’ve found.”
+
+Margaret laughed.
+
+“They keep a place going, don’t they? Yes, it is just that.”
+
+“They keep England going, it is my opinion.”
+
+But Miss Avery upset her by replying: “Ay, they breed like rabbits.
+Well, well, it’s a funny world. But He who made it knows what He wants
+in it, I suppose. If Mrs. Charlie is expecting her fourth, it isn’t for
+us to repine.”
+
+“They breed and they also work,” said Margaret, conscious of some
+invitation to disloyalty, which was echoed by the very breeze and by the
+songs of the birds. “It certainly is a funny world, but so long as men
+like my husband and his sons govern it, I think it’ll never be a bad
+one--never really bad.”
+
+“No, better’n nothing,” said Miss Avery, and turned to the wych-elm.
+
+On their way back to the farm she spoke of her old friend much more
+clearly than before. In the house Margaret had wondered whether she
+quite distinguished the first wife from the second. Now she said: “I
+never saw much of Ruth after her grandmother died, but we stayed civil.
+It was a very civil family. Old Mrs. Howard never spoke against
+anybody, nor let any one be turned away without food. Then it was never
+‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’ in their land, but would people please
+not come in? Mrs. Howard was never created to run a farm.”
+
+“Had they no men to help them?” Margaret asked.
+
+Miss Avery replied: “Things went on until there were no men.”
+
+“Until Mr. Wilcox came along,” corrected Margaret, anxious that her
+husband should receive his dues.
+
+“I suppose so; but Ruth should have married a--no disrespect to you to
+say this, for I take it you were intended to get Wilcox any way, whether
+she got him first or no.”
+
+“Whom should she have married?”
+
+“A soldier!” exclaimed the old woman. “Some real soldier.”
+
+Margaret was silent. It was a criticism of Henry’s character far more
+trenchant than any of her own. She felt dissatisfied.
+
+“But that’s all over,” she went on. “A better time is coming now, though
+you’ve kept me long enough waiting. In a couple of weeks I’ll see your
+light shining through the hedge of an evening. Have you ordered in
+coals?”
+
+“We are not coming,” said Margaret firmly. She respected Miss Avery too
+much to humour her. “No. Not coming. Never coming. It has all been a
+mistake. The furniture must be repacked at once, and I am very sorry,
+but I am making other arrangements, and must ask you to give me the
+keys.”
+
+“Certainly, Mrs. Wilcox,” said Miss Avery, and resigned her duties with
+a smile.
+
+Relieved at this conclusion, and having sent her compliments to Madge,
+Margaret walked back to the station. She had intended to go to the
+furniture warehouse and give directions for removal, but the muddle had
+turned out more extensive than she expected, so she decided to consult
+Henry. It was as well that she did this. He was strongly against
+employing the local man whom he had previously recommended, and advised
+her to store in London after all.
+
+But before this could be done an unexpected trouble fell upon her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+It was not unexpected entirely. Aunt Juley’s health had been bad all
+winter. She had had a long series of colds and coughs, and had been too
+busy to get rid of them. She had scarcely promised her niece “to really
+take my tiresome chest in hand,” when she caught a chill and developed
+acute pneumonia. Margaret and Tibby went down to Swanage. Helen was
+telegraphed for, and that spring party that after all gathered in that
+hospitable house had all the pathos of fair memories. On a perfect day,
+when the sky seemed blue porcelain, and the waves of the discreet little
+bay beat gentlest of tattoos upon the sand, Margaret hurried up through
+the rhododendrons, confronted again by the senselessness of Death.
+One death may explain itself, but it throws no light upon another; the
+groping inquiry must begin anew. Preachers or scientists may generalise,
+but we know that no generality is possible about those whom we love; not
+one heaven awaits them, not even one oblivion. Aunt Juley, incapable of
+tragedy, slipped out of life with odd little laughs and apologies for
+having stopped in it so long. She was very weak; she could not rise to
+the occasion, or realise the great mystery which all agree must await
+her; it only seemed to her that she was quite done up--more done up
+than ever before; that she saw and heard and felt less every moment; and
+that, unless something changed, she would soon feel nothing. Her spare
+strength she devoted to plans: could not Margaret take some steamer
+expeditions? were mackerel cooked as Tibby liked them? She worried
+herself about Helen’s absence, and also that she should be the cause of
+Helen’s return. The nurses seemed to think such interests quite natural,
+and perhaps hers was an average approach to the Great Gate. But Margaret
+saw Death stripped of any false romance; whatever the idea of Death may
+contain, the process can be trivial and hideous.
+
+“Important--Margaret dear, take the Lulworth when Helen comes.”
+
+“Helen won’t be able to stop, Aunt Juley. She has telegraphed that she
+can only get away just to see you. She must go back to Germany as soon
+as you are well.”
+
+“How very odd of Helen! Mr. Wilcox--”
+
+“Yes, dear?”
+
+“Can he spare you?”
+
+Henry wished her to come, and had been very kind. Yet again Margaret
+said so.
+
+Mrs. Munt did not die. Quite outside her will, a more dignified power
+took hold of her and checked her on the downward slope. She returned,
+without emotion, as fidgety as ever. On the fourth day she was out of
+danger.
+
+“Margaret--important,” it went on: “I should like you to have some
+companion to take walks with. Do try Miss Conder.”
+
+“I have been for a little walk with Miss Conder.”
+
+“But she is not really interesting. If only you had Helen.”
+
+“I have Tibby, Aunt Juley.”
+
+“No, but he has to do his Chinese. Some real companion is what you need.
+Really, Helen is odd.”
+
+“Helen is odd, very,” agreed Margaret.
+
+“Not content with going abroad, why does she want to go back there at
+once?”
+
+“No doubt she will change her mind when she sees us. She has not the
+least balance.”
+
+That was the stock criticism about Helen, but Margaret’s voice trembled
+as she made it. By now she was deeply pained at her sister’s behaviour.
+It may be unbalanced to fly out of England, but to stay away eight
+months argues that the heart is awry as well as the head. A sick-bed
+could recall Helen, but she was deaf to more human calls; after a
+glimpse at her aunt, she would retire into her nebulous life behind some
+poste restante. She scarcely existed; her letters had become dull and
+infrequent; she had no wants and no curiosity. And it was all put down
+to poor Henry’s account! Henry, long pardoned by his wife, was still too
+infamous to be greeted by his sister-in-law. It was morbid, and, to her
+alarm, Margaret fancied that she could trace the growth of morbidity
+back in Helen’s life for nearly four years. The flight from Oniton;
+the unbalanced patronage of the Basts; the explosion of grief up on
+the Downs--all connected with Paul, an insignificant boy whose lips had
+kissed hers for a fraction of time. Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox had feared
+that they might kiss again. Foolishly--the real danger was reaction.
+Reaction against the Wilcoxes had eaten into her life until she was
+scarcely sane. At twenty-five she had an idee fixe. What hope was there
+for her as an old woman?
+
+The more Margaret thought about it the more alarmed she became. For many
+months she had put the subject away, but it was too big to be slighted
+now. There was almost a taint of madness. Were all Helen’s actions to be
+governed by a tiny mishap, such as may happen to any young man or
+woman? Can human nature be constructed on lines so insignificant? The
+blundering little encounter at Howards End was vital. It propagated
+itself where graver intercourse lay barren; it was stronger than
+sisterly intimacy, stronger than reason or books. In one of her moods
+Helen had confessed that she still “enjoyed” it in a certain sense.
+Paul had faded, but the magic of his caress endured. And where there is
+enjoyment of the past there may also be reaction--propagation at both
+ends.
+
+Well, it is odd and sad that our minds should be such seed-beds, and
+we without power to choose the seed. But man is an odd, sad creature as
+yet, intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of the growths within
+himself. He cannot be bored about psychology. He leaves it to the
+specialist, which is as if he should leave his dinner to be eaten by a
+steam-engine. He cannot be bothered to digest his own soul. Margaret
+and Helen have been more patient, and it is suggested that Margaret
+has succeeded--so far as success is yet possible. She does understand
+herself, she has some rudimentary control over her own growth. Whether
+Helen has succeeded one cannot say.
+
+The day that Mrs. Munt rallied Helen’s letter arrived. She had posted
+it at Munich, and would be in London herself on the morrow. It was a
+disquieting letter, though the opening was affectionate and sane.
+
+
+“DEAREST MEG,
+
+“Give Helen’s love to Aunt Juley. Tell her that I love, and have loved
+her ever since I can remember. I shall be in London Thursday.
+
+“My address will be care of the bankers. I have not yet settled on a
+hotel, so write or wire to me there and give me detailed news. If Aunt
+Juley is much better, or if, for a terrible reason, it would be no good
+my coming down to Swanage, you must not think it odd if I do not come.
+I have all sorts of plans in my head. I am living abroad at present, and
+want to get back as quickly as possible. Will you please tell me where
+our furniture is? I should like to take out one or two books; the rest
+are for you.
+
+“Forgive me, dearest Meg. This must read like rather a tiresome letter,
+but all letters are from your loving
+
+“HELEN.”
+
+
+It was a tiresome letter, for it tempted Margaret to tell a lie. If
+she wrote that Aunt Juley was still in danger her sister would come.
+Unhealthiness is contagious. We cannot be in contact with those who are
+in a morbid state without ourselves deteriorating. To “act for the best”
+ might do Helen good, but would do herself harm, and, at the risk of
+disaster, she kept her colours flying a little longer. She replied that
+their aunt was much better, and awaited developments.
+
+Tibby approved of her reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a pleasanter
+companion than before. Oxford had done much for him. He had lost his
+peevishness, and could hide his indifference to people and his interest
+in food. But he had not grown more human. The years between eighteen and
+twenty-two, so magical for most, were leading him gently from boyhood to
+middle age. He had never known young-manliness, that quality which warms
+the heart till death, and gives Mr. Wilcox an imperishable charm. He
+was frigid, through no fault of his own, and without cruelty. He thought
+Helen wrong and Margaret right, but the family trouble was for him what
+a scene behind footlights is for most people. He had only one suggestion
+to make, and that was characteristic.
+
+“Why don’t you tell Mr. Wilcox?”
+
+“About Helen?”
+
+“Perhaps he has come across that sort of thing.”
+
+“He would do all he could, but--”
+
+“Oh, you know best. But he is practical.”
+
+It was the student’s belief in experts. Margaret demurred for one or two
+reasons. Presently Helen’s answer came. She sent a telegram requesting
+the address of the furniture, as she would now return at once. Margaret
+replied, “Certainly not; meet me at the bankers’ at four.” She and Tibby
+went up to London. Helen was not at the bankers’, and they were refused
+her address. Helen had passed into chaos.
+
+Margaret put her arm round her brother. He was all that she had left,
+and never had he seemed more unsubstantial.
+
+“Tibby love, what next?”
+
+He replied: “It is extraordinary.”
+
+“Dear, your judgment’s often clearer than mine. Have you any notion
+what’s at the back?”
+
+“None, unless it’s something mental.”
+
+“Oh--that!” said Margaret. “Quite impossible.” But the suggestion had
+been uttered, and in a few minutes she took it up herself. Nothing else
+explained. And London agreed with Tibby. The mask fell off the city, and
+she saw it for what it really is--a caricature of infinity. The familiar
+barriers, the streets along which she moved, the houses between which
+she had made her little journeys for so many years, became negligible
+suddenly. Helen seemed one with grimy trees and the traffic and the
+slowly-flowing slabs of mud. She had accomplished a hideous act of
+renunciation and returned to the One. Margaret’s own faith held firm.
+She knew the human soul will be merged, if it be merged at all, with the
+stars and the sea. Yet she felt that her sister had been going amiss for
+many years. It was symbolic the catastrophe should come now, on a London
+afternoon, while rain fell slowly.
+
+Henry was the only hope. Henry was definite. He might know of some paths
+in the chaos that were hidden from them, and she determined to take
+Tibby’s advice and lay the whole matter in his hands. They must call at
+his office. He could not well make it worse. She went for a few moments
+into St. Paul’s, whose dome stands out of the welter so bravely, as
+if preaching the gospel of form. But within, St. Paul’s is as its
+surroundings--echoes and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible mosaics,
+wet footmarks, crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum
+requiris, circumspice; it points us back to London. There was no hope of
+Helen here.
+
+Henry was unsatisfactory at first. That she had expected. He was
+overjoyed to see her back from Swanage, and slow to admit the growth of
+a new trouble. When they told him of their search, he only chaffed Tibby
+and the Schlegels generally, and declared that it was “just like Helen”
+ to lead her relatives a dance.
+
+“That is what we all say,” replied Margaret. “But why should it be
+just like Helen? Why should she be allowed to be so queer, and to grow
+queerer?”
+
+“Don’t ask me. I’m a plain man of business. I live and let live. My
+advice to you both is, don’t worry. Margaret, you’ve got black marks
+again under your eyes. You know that’s strictly forbidden. First
+your aunt--then your sister. No, we aren’t going to have it. Are we,
+Theobald?” He rang the bell. “I’ll give you some tea, and then you go
+straight to Ducie Street. I can’t have my girl looking as old as her
+husband.”
+
+“All the same, you have not quite seen our point,” said Tibby.
+
+Mr. Wilcox, who was in good spirits, retorted, “I don’t suppose I ever
+shall.” He leant back, laughing at the gifted but ridiculous family,
+while the fire flickered over the map of Africa. Margaret motioned to
+her brother to go on. Rather diffident, he obeyed her.
+
+“Margaret’s point is this,” he said. “Our sister may be mad.”
+
+Charles, who was working in the inner room, looked round.
+
+“Come in, Charles,” said Margaret kindly. “Could you help us at all? We
+are again in trouble.”
+
+“I’m afraid I cannot. What are the facts? We are all mad more or less,
+you know, in these days.”
+
+“The facts are as follows,” replied Tibby, who had at times a pedantic
+lucidity. “The facts are that she has been in England for three days and
+will not see us. She has forbidden the bankers to give us her address.
+She refuses to answer questions. Margaret finds her letters colourless.
+There are other facts, but these are the most striking.”
+
+“She has never behaved like this before, then?” asked Henry.
+
+“Of course not!” said his wife, with a frown.
+
+“Well, my dear, how am I to know?”
+
+A senseless spasm of annoyance came over her. “You know quite well that
+Helen never sins against affection,” she said. “You must have noticed
+that much in her, surely.”
+
+“Oh yes; she and I have always hit it off together.”
+
+“No, Henry--can’t you see?--I don’t mean that.”
+
+She recovered herself, but not before Charles had observed her. Stupid
+and attentive, he was watching the scene.
+
+“I was meaning that when she was eccentric in the past, one could trace
+it back to the heart in the long-run. She behaved oddly because she
+cared for some one, or wanted to help them. There’s no possible excuse
+for her now. She is grieving us deeply, and that is why I am sure that
+she is not well. ‘Mad’ is too terrible a word, but she is not well.
+I shall never believe it. I shouldn’t discuss my sister with you if I
+thought she was well--trouble you about her, I mean.”
+
+Henry began to grow serious. Ill-health was to him something perfectly
+definite. Generally well himself, he could not realise that we sink to
+it by slow gradations. The sick had no rights; they were outside the
+pale; one could lie to them remorselessly. When his first wife was
+seized, he had promised to take her down into Hertfordshire, but
+meanwhile arranged with a nursing-home instead. Helen, too, was ill. And
+the plan that he sketched out for her capture, clever and well-meaning
+as it was, drew its ethics from the wolf-pack.
+
+“You want to get hold of her?” he said. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?
+She has got to see a doctor.”
+
+“For all I know she has seen one already.”
+
+“Yes, yes; don’t interrupt.” He rose to his feet and thought intently.
+The genial, tentative host disappeared, and they saw instead the man who
+had carved money out of Greece and Africa, and bought forests from the
+natives for a few bottles of gin. “I’ve got it,” he said at last. “It’s
+perfectly easy. Leave it to me. We’ll send her down to Howards End.”
+
+“How will you do that?”
+
+“After her books. Tell her that she must unpack them herself. Then you
+can meet her there.”
+
+“But, Henry, that’s just what she won’t let me do. It’s part of
+her--whatever it is--never to see me.”
+
+“Of course you won’t tell her you’re going. When she is there, looking
+at the cases, you’ll just stroll in. If nothing is wrong with her, so
+much the better. But there’ll be the motor round the corner, and we can
+run her to a specialist in no time.”
+
+Margaret shook her head. “It’s quite impossible.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“It doesn’t seem impossible to me,” said Tibby; “it is surely a very
+tippy plan.”
+
+“It is impossible, because--” She looked at her husband sadly. “It’s not
+the particular language that Helen and I talk, if you see my meaning. It
+would do splendidly for other people, whom I don’t blame.”
+
+“But Helen doesn’t talk,” said Tibby. “That’s our whole difficulty. She
+won’t talk your particular language, and on that account you think she’s
+ill.”
+
+“No, Henry; it’s sweet of you, but I couldn’t.”
+
+“I see,” he said; “you have scruples.”
+
+“I suppose so.”
+
+“And sooner than go against them you would have your sister suffer. You
+could have got her down to Swanage by a word, but you had scruples. And
+scruples are all very well. I am as scrupulous as any man alive, I hope;
+but when it is a case like this, when there is a question of madness--”
+
+“I deny it’s madness.”
+
+“You said just now--”
+
+“It’s madness when I say it, but not when you say it.”
+
+Henry shrugged his shoulders. “Margaret! Margaret!” he groaned. “No
+education can teach a woman logic. Now, my dear, my time is valuable. Do
+you want me to help you or not?”
+
+“Not in that way.”
+
+“Answer my question. Plain question, plain answer. Do--”
+
+Charles surprised them by interrupting. “Pater, we may as well keep
+Howards End out of it,” he said.
+
+“Why, Charles?”
+
+Charles could give no reason; but Margaret felt as if, over tremendous
+distance, a salutation had passed between them.
+
+“The whole house is at sixes and sevens,” he said crossly. “We don’t
+want any more mess.”
+
+“Who’s ‘we’?” asked his father. “My boy, pray who’s ‘we’?”
+
+“I am sure I beg your pardon,” said Charles. “I appear always to be
+intruding.”
+
+By now Margaret wished she had never mentioned her trouble to her
+husband. Retreat was impossible. He was determined to push the matter
+to a satisfactory conclusion, and Helen faded as he talked. Her fair,
+flying hair and eager eyes counted for nothing, for she was ill, without
+rights, and any of her friends might hunt her. Sick at heart, Margaret
+joined in the chase. She wrote her sister a lying letter, at her
+husband’s dictation; she said the furniture was all at Howards End, but
+could be seen on Monday next at 3 P.M., when a charwoman would be in
+attendance. It was a cold letter, and the more plausible for that. Helen
+would think she was offended. And on Monday next she and Henry were to
+lunch with Dolly, and then ambush themselves in the garden.
+
+After they had gone, Mr. Wilcox said to his son: “I can’t have this sort
+of behaviour, my boy. Margaret’s too sweet-natured to mind, but I mind
+for her.”
+
+Charles made no answer.
+
+“Is anything wrong with you, Charles, this afternoon?”
+
+“No, pater; but you may be taking on a bigger business than you reckon.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Don’t ask me.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+One speaks of the moods of spring, but the days that are her true
+children have only one mood; they are all full of the rising and
+dropping of winds, and the whistling of birds. New flowers may come out,
+the green embroidery of the hedges increase, but the same heaven broods
+overhead, soft, thick, and blue, the same figures, seen and unseen, are
+wandering by coppice and meadow. The morning that Margaret had spent
+with Miss Avery, and the afternoon she set out to entrap Helen, were the
+scales of a single balance. Time might never have moved, rain never
+have fallen, and man alone, with his schemes and ailments, was troubling
+Nature until he saw her through a veil of tears.
+
+She protested no more. Whether Henry was right or wrong, he was most
+kind, and she knew of no other standard by which to judge him. She
+must trust him absolutely. As soon as he had taken up a business, his
+obtuseness vanished. He profited by the slightest indications, and the
+capture of Helen promised to be staged as deftly as the marriage of
+Evie.
+
+They went down in the morning as arranged, and he discovered that their
+victim was actually in Hilton. On his arrival he called at all
+the livery-stables in the village, and had a few minutes’ serious
+conversation with the proprietors. What he said, Margaret did not
+know--perhaps not the truth; but news arrived after lunch that a lady
+had come by the London train, and had taken a fly to Howards End.
+
+“She was bound to drive,” said Henry. “There will be her books.”
+
+“I cannot make it out,” said Margaret for the hundredth time.
+
+“Finish your coffee, dear. We must be off.”
+
+“Yes, Margaret, you know you must take plenty,” said Dolly.
+
+Margaret tried, but suddenly lifted her hand to her eyes. Dolly stole
+glances at her father-in-law which he did not answer. In the silence the
+motor came round to the door.
+
+“You’re not fit for it,” he said anxiously. “Let me go alone. I know
+exactly what to do.”
+
+“Oh yes, I am fit,” said Margaret, uncovering her face. “Only most
+frightfully worried. I cannot feel that Helen is really alive. Her
+letters and telegrams seem to have come from some one else. Her voice
+isn’t in them. I don’t believe your driver really saw her at the
+station. I wish I’d never mentioned it. I know that Charles is vexed.
+Yes, he is--” She seized Dolly’s hand and kissed it. “There, Dolly will
+forgive me. There. Now we’ll be off.”
+
+Henry had been looking at her closely. He did not like this breakdown.
+
+“Don’t you want to tidy yourself?” he asked.
+
+“Have I time?”
+
+“Yes, plenty.”
+
+She went to the lavatory by the front door, and as soon as the bolt
+slipped, Mr. Wilcox said quietly:
+
+“Dolly, I’m going without her.”
+
+Dolly’s eyes lit up with vulgar excitement. She followed him on tiptoe
+out to the car.
+
+“Tell her I thought it best.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I see.”
+
+“Say anything you like. All right.”
+
+The car started well, and with ordinary luck would have got away. But
+Porgly-woggles, who was playing in the garden, chose this moment to sit
+down in the middle of the path. Crane, in trying to pass him, ran one
+wheel over a bed of wallflowers. Dolly screamed. Margaret, hearing the
+noise, rushed out hatless, and was in time to jump on the footboard.
+She said not a single word; he was only treating her as she had treated
+Helen, and her rage at his dishonesty only helped to indicate what Helen
+would feel against them. She thought, “I deserve it; I am punished for
+lowering my colours.” And she accepted his apologies with a calmness
+that astonished him.
+
+“I still consider you are not fit for it,” he kept saying.
+
+“Perhaps I was not at lunch. But the whole thing is spread clearly
+before me now.”
+
+“I was meaning to act for the best.”
+
+“Just lend me your scarf, will you. This wind takes one’s hair so.”
+
+“Certainly, dear girl. Are you all right now?”
+
+“Look! My hands have stopped trembling.”
+
+“And have quite forgiven me? Then listen. Her cab should already have
+arrived at Howards End. (We’re a little late, but no matter.) Our first
+move will be to send it down to wait at the farm, as, if possible, one
+doesn’t want a scene before servants. A certain gentleman”--he pointed
+at Crane’s back--“won’t drive in, but will wait a little short of the
+front gate, behind the laurels. Have you still the keys of the house?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, they aren’t wanted. Do you remember how the house stands?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“If we don’t find her in the porch, we can stroll round into the garden.
+Our object--”
+
+Here they stopped to pick up the doctor.
+
+“I was just saying to my wife, Mansbridge, that our main object is not
+to frighten Miss Schlegel. The house, as you know, is my property, so it
+should seem quite natural for us to be there. The trouble is evidently
+nervous--wouldn’t you say so, Margaret?”
+
+The doctor, a very young man, began to ask questions about Helen. Was
+she normal? Was there anything congenital or hereditary? Had anything
+occurred that was likely to alienate her from her family?
+
+“Nothing,” answered Margaret, wondering what would have happened if she
+had added: “Though she did resent my husband’s immorality.”
+
+“She always was highly strung,” pursued Henry, leaning back in the
+car as it shot past the church. “A tendency to spiritualism and those
+things, though nothing serious. Musical, literary, artistic, but I
+should say normal--a very charming girl.”
+
+Margaret’s anger and terror increased every moment. How dare these
+men label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What impertinences that
+shelter under the name of science! The pack was turning on Helen, to
+deny her human rights, and it seemed to Margaret that all Schlegels were
+threatened with her. “Were they normal?” What a question to ask! And it
+is always those who know nothing about human nature, who are bored by
+psychology--and shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her
+sister’s state, she knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad
+together if the world chose to consider them so.
+
+It was now five minutes past three. The car slowed down by the farm, in
+the yard of which Miss Avery was standing. Henry asked her whether a cab
+had gone past. She nodded, and the next moment they caught sight of it,
+at the end of the lane. The car ran silently like a beast of prey. So
+unsuspicious was Helen that she was sitting in the porch, with her back
+to the road. She had come. Only her head and shoulders were visible. She
+sat framed in the vine, and one of her hands played with the buds. The
+wind ruffled her hair, the sun glorified it; she was as she had always
+been.
+
+Margaret was seated next to the door. Before her husband could prevent
+her, she slipped out. She ran to the garden gate, which was shut, passed
+through it, and deliberately pushed it in his face. The noise alarmed
+Helen. Margaret saw her rise with an unfamiliar movement, and, rushing
+into the porch, learnt the simple explanation of all their fears--her
+sister was with child.
+
+“Is the truant all right?” called Henry.
+
+She had time to whisper: “Oh, my darling--” The keys of the house were
+in her hand. She unlocked Howards End and thrust Helen into it. “Yes,
+all right,” she said, and stood with her back to the door.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+“Margaret, you look upset!” said Henry.
+
+Mansbridge had followed. Crane was at the gate, and the flyman had stood
+up on the box. Margaret shook her head at them; she could not speak any
+more. She remained clutching the keys, as if all their future depended
+on them. Henry was asking more questions. She shook her head again. His
+words had no sense. She heard him wonder why she had let Helen in. “You
+might have given me a knock with the gate,” was another of his remarks.
+Presently she heard herself speaking. She, or someone for her, said, “Go
+away.” Henry came nearer. He repeated, “Margaret, you look upset again.
+My dear, give me the keys. What are you doing with Helen?”
+
+“Oh, dearest, do go away, and I will manage it all.”
+
+“Manage what?”
+
+He stretched out his hand for the keys. She might have obeyed if it had
+not been for the doctor.
+
+“Stop that at least,” she said piteously; the doctor had turned back,
+and was questioning the driver of Helen’s cab. A new feeling came over
+her; she was fighting for women against men. She did not care about
+rights, but if men came into Howards End, it should be over her body.
+
+“Come, this is an odd beginning,” said her husband.
+
+The doctor came forward now, and whispered two words to Mr. Wilcox--the
+scandal was out. Sincerely horrified, Henry stood gazing at the earth.
+
+“I cannot help it,” said Margaret. “Do wait. It’s not my fault. Please
+all four of you go away now.”
+
+Now the flyman was whispering to Crane.
+
+“We are relying on you to help us, Mrs. Wilcox,” said the young doctor.
+“Could you go in and persuade your sister to come out?”
+
+“On what grounds?” said Margaret, suddenly looking him straight in the
+eyes.
+
+Thinking it professional to prevaricate, he murmured something about a
+nervous breakdown.
+
+“I beg your pardon, but it is nothing of the sort. You are not qualified
+to attend my sister, Mr. Mansbridge. If we require your services, we
+will let you know.”
+
+“I can diagnose the case more bluntly if you wish,” he retorted.
+
+“You could, but you have not. You are, therefore, not qualified to
+attend my sister.”
+
+“Come, come, Margaret!” said Henry, never raising his eyes. “This is a
+terrible business, an appalling business. It’s doctor’s orders. Open the
+door.”
+
+“Forgive me, but I will not.”
+
+“I don’t agree.”
+
+Margaret was silent.
+
+“This business is as broad as it’s long,” contributed the doctor. “We
+had better all work together. You need us, Mrs. Wilcox, and we need
+you.”
+
+“Quite so,” said Henry.
+
+“I do not need you in the least,” said Margaret.
+
+The two men looked at each other anxiously.
+
+“No more does my sister, who is still many weeks from her confinement.”
+
+“Margaret, Margaret!”
+
+“Well, Henry, send your doctor away. What possible use is he now?”
+
+Mr. Wilcox ran his eye over the house. He had a vague feeling that he
+must stand firm and support the doctor. He himself might need support,
+for there was trouble ahead.
+
+“It all turns on affection now,” said Margaret. “Affection. Don’t you
+see?” Resuming her usual methods, she wrote the word on the house with
+her finger. “Surely you see. I like Helen very much, you not so much.
+Mr. Mansbridge doesn’t know her. That’s all. And affection, when
+reciprocated, gives rights. Put that down in your note-book, Mr.
+Mansbridge. It’s a useful formula.”
+
+Henry told her to be calm.
+
+“You don’t know what you want yourselves,” said Margaret, folding her
+arms. “For one sensible remark I will let you in. But you cannot make
+it. You would trouble my sister for no reason. I will not permit it.
+I’ll stand here all the day sooner.”
+
+“Mansbridge,” said Henry in a low voice, “perhaps not now.”
+
+The pack was breaking up. At a sign from his master, Crane also went
+back into the car.
+
+“Now, Henry, you,” she said gently. None of her bitterness had been
+directed at him. “Go away now, dear. I shall want your advice later, no
+doubt. Forgive me if I have been cross. But, seriously, you must go.”
+
+He was too stupid to leave her. Now it was Mr. Mansbridge who called in
+a low voice to him.
+
+“I shall soon find you down at Dolly’s,” she called, as the gate at last
+clanged between them. The fly moved out of the way, the motor backed,
+turned a little, backed again, and turned in the narrow road. A string
+of farm carts came up in the middle; but she waited through all, for
+there was no hurry. When all was over and the car had started, she
+opened the door. “Oh, my darling!” she said. “My darling, forgive me.”
+ Helen was standing in the hall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+Margaret bolted the door on the inside. Then she would have kissed her
+sister, but Helen, in a dignified voice, that came strangely from her,
+said:
+
+“Convenient! You did not tell me that the books were unpacked. I have
+found nearly everything that I want.”
+
+“I told you nothing that was true.”
+
+“It has been a great surprise, certainly. Has Aunt Juley been ill?”
+
+“Helen, you wouldn’t think I’d invent that?”
+
+“I suppose not,” said Helen, turning away, and crying a very little.
+“But one loses faith in everything after this.”
+
+“We thought it was illness, but even then--I haven’t behaved worthily.”
+
+Helen selected another book.
+
+“I ought not to have consulted any one. What would our father have
+thought of me?”
+
+She did not think of questioning her sister, or of rebuking her. Both
+might be necessary in the future, but she had first to purge a greater
+crime than any that Helen could have committed--that want of confidence
+that is the work of the devil.
+
+“Yes, I am annoyed,” replied Helen. “My wishes should have been
+respected. I would have gone through this meeting if it was necessary,
+but after Aunt Juley recovered, it was not necessary. Planning my life,
+as I now have to do.”
+
+“Come away from those books,” called Margaret. “Helen, do talk to me.”
+
+“I was just saying that I have stopped living haphazard. One can’t go
+through a great deal of --”--she left out the noun--“without planning one’s
+actions in advance. I am going to have a child in June, and in the first
+place conversations, discussions, excitement, are not good for me. I
+will go through them if necessary, but only then. In the second place I
+have no right to trouble people. I cannot fit in with England as I know
+it. I have done something that the English never pardon. It would not be
+right for them to pardon it. So I must live where I am not known.”
+
+“But why didn’t you tell me, dearest?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Helen judicially. “I might have, but decided to wait.”
+
+“I believe you would never have told me.”
+
+“Oh yes, I should. We have taken a flat in Munich.”
+
+Margaret glanced out of the window.
+
+“By ‘we’ I mean myself and Monica. But for her, I am and have been and
+always wish to be alone.”
+
+“I have not heard of Monica.”
+
+“You wouldn’t have. She’s an Italian--by birth at least. She makes her
+living by journalism. I met her originally on Garda. Monica is much the
+best person to see me through.”
+
+“You are very fond of her, then.”
+
+“She has been extraordinarily sensible with me.”
+
+Margaret guessed at Monica’s type--“Italiano Inglesiato” they had named
+it--the crude feminist of the South, whom one respects but avoids. And
+Helen had turned to it in her need!
+
+“You must not think that we shall never meet,” said Helen, with a
+measured kindness. “I shall always have a room for you when you can be
+spared, and the longer you can be with me the better. But you haven’t
+understood yet, Meg, and of course it is very difficult for you. This is
+a shock to you. It isn’t to me, who have been thinking over our futures
+for many months, and they won’t be changed by a slight contretemps, such
+as this. I cannot live in England.”
+
+“Helen, you’ve not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN’T talk like
+this to me if you had.”
+
+“Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?” She dropped a book and sighed
+wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: “Tell me, how is it that
+all the books are down here?”
+
+“Series of mistakes.”
+
+“And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked.”
+
+“All.”
+
+“Who lives here, then?”
+
+“No one.”
+
+“I suppose you are letting it, though.”
+
+“The house is dead,” said Margaret, with a frown. “Why worry on about
+it?”
+
+“But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life.
+I am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn’t the feel of a dead house.
+The hall seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the
+Wilcoxes’ own things.”
+
+“Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband
+lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things were unpacked,
+and Miss Avery, instead of--” She stopped. “Look here, I can’t go on
+like this. I warn you I won’t. Helen, why should you be so miserably
+unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?”
+
+“I don’t hate him now,” said Helen. “I have stopped being a schoolgirl,
+and, Meg, once again, I’m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with
+your English life--no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a visit
+from me at Ducie Street! It’s unthinkable.”
+
+Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly
+moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither
+asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and
+the company of those who would not blame her. She had been through--how
+much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old
+habits as well as old friends.
+
+“Tell me about yourself,” said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was
+lingering over the furniture.
+
+“There’s nothing to tell.”
+
+“But your marriage has been happy, Meg?”
+
+“Yes, but I don’t feel inclined to talk.”
+
+“You feel as I do.”
+
+“Not that, but I can’t.”
+
+“No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying.”
+
+Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which
+henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already
+potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered
+acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection
+survived.
+
+“Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?”
+
+“You mean that you want to go away from me?”
+
+“I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn’t any use. I knew we should have
+nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more
+yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later.”
+
+“Certainly, dearest.”
+
+“For that is all we can do.”
+
+It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen’s common sense; Monica had
+been extraordinarily good for her.
+
+“I am glad to have seen you and the things.” She looked at the bookcase
+lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past.
+
+Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: “The car has gone, and here’s
+your cab.”
+
+She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring
+had never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the
+gate, called out, “Please, lady, a message,” and handed her Henry’s
+visiting-card through the bars.
+
+“How did this come?” she asked.
+
+Crane had returned with it almost at once.
+
+She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in
+domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back
+for the night to Dolly’s. “Il faut dormir sur ce sujet.” while Helen
+was to be found une comfortable chambre a l’hotel. The final sentence
+displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles’s had only
+one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest.
+
+“Henry would have done what he could,” she interpreted.
+
+Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost
+her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to
+table. She grew more like the old Helen, irresponsible and charming.
+
+“This IS Mr. Wilcox’s house?” she inquired.
+
+“Surely you remember Howards End?”
+
+“Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now.”
+
+“Miss Avery was extraordinary,” said Margaret, her own spirits
+lightening a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of
+disloyalty. But it brought her relief, and she yielded to it. “She loved
+Mrs. Wilcox, and would rather furnish her home with our things than
+think of it empty. In consequence here are all the library books.”
+
+“Not all the books. She hasn’t unpacked the Art books, in which she may
+show her sense. And we never used to have the sword here.”
+
+“The sword looks well, though.”
+
+“Magnificent.”
+
+“Yes, doesn’t it?”
+
+“Where’s the piano, Meg?”
+
+“I warehoused that in London. Why?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Curious, too, that the carpet fits.”
+
+“The carpet’s a mistake,” announced Helen. “I know that we had it in
+London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful.”
+
+“You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to come
+into the dining-room before you start? There’s no carpet there.”
+
+They went in, and each minute their talk became more natural.
+
+“Oh, WHAT a place for mother’s chiffonier!” cried Helen.
+
+“Look at the chairs, though.”
+
+“Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn’t it?”
+
+“North-west.”
+
+“Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun.
+Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm.”
+
+“But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just--”
+
+“Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn.”
+
+Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.
+
+“Ye--es. The window’s too high.”
+
+“Try a drawing-room chair.”
+
+“No, I don’t like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been
+match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise.”
+
+“Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You’re perfectly right.
+It’s a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for
+women. Men don’t know what we want--”
+
+“And never will.”
+
+“I don’t agree. In two thousand years they’ll know. Look where Tibby
+spilt the soup.”
+
+“Coffee. It was coffee surely.”
+
+Helen shook her head. “Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given
+coffee at that time.”
+
+“Was father alive?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then you’re right and it must have been soup. I was thinking of much
+later--that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley’s, when she didn’t realise
+that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on
+purpose. There was some rhyme, ‘Tea, coffee--coffee tea,’ that she said
+to him every morning at breakfast. Wait a minute--how did it go?”
+
+“I know--no, I don’t. What a detestable boy Tibby was!”
+
+“But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it.”
+
+“Ah, that greengage-tree,” cried Helen, as if the garden was also part
+of their childhood. “Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come
+the chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love yellow-hammers.”
+
+Margaret interrupted her. “I have got it,” she announced.
+
+       “‘Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
+         Or chocolaritee.’
+
+“That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild.”
+
+“Tibby is moderately a dear now,” said Helen.
+
+“There! I knew you’d say that in the end. Of course he’s a dear.”
+
+A bell rang.
+
+“Listen! what’s that?”
+
+Helen said, “Perhaps the Wilcoxes are beginning the siege.”
+
+“What nonsense--listen!”
+
+And the triviality faded from their faces, though it left something
+behind--the knowledge that they never could be parted because their love
+was rooted in common things. Explanations and appeals had failed; they
+had tried for a common meeting-ground, and had only made each other
+unhappy. And all the time their salvation was lying round them--the past
+sanctifying the present; the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring
+that there would after all be a future with laughter and the voices of
+children. Helen, still smiling, came up to her sister. She said, “It
+is always Meg.” They looked into each other’s eyes. The inner life had
+paid.
+
+Solemnly the clapper tolled. No one was in the front. Margaret went to
+the kitchen, and struggled between packing-cases to the window. Their
+visitor was only a little boy with a tin can. And triviality returned.
+
+“Little boy, what do you want?”
+
+“Please, I am the milk.”
+
+“Did Miss Avery send you?” said Margaret, rather sharply.
+
+“Yes, please.”
+
+“Then take it back and say we require no milk.” While she called to
+Helen, “No, it’s not the siege, but possibly an attempt to provision us
+against one.”
+
+“But I like milk,” cried Helen. “Why send it away?”
+
+“Do you? Oh, very well. But we’ve nothing to put it in, and he wants the
+can.”
+
+“Please, I’m to call in the morning for the can,” said the boy.
+
+“The house will be locked up then.”
+
+“In the morning would I bring eggs too?”
+
+“Are you the boy whom I saw playing in the stacks last week?”
+
+The child hung his head.
+
+“Well, run away and do it again.”
+
+“Nice little boy,” whispered Helen. “I say, what’s your name? Mine’s
+Helen.”
+
+“Tom.”
+
+That was Helen all over. The Wilcoxes, too, would ask a child its name,
+but they never told their names in return.
+
+“Tom, this one here is Margaret. And at home we’ve another called Tibby.”
+
+“Mine are lop-eareds,” replied Tom, supposing Tibby to be a rabbit.
+
+“You’re a very good and rather a clever little boy. Mind you come
+again.--Isn’t he charming?”
+
+“Undoubtedly,” said Margaret. “He is probably the son of Madge, and
+Madge is dreadful. But this place has wonderful powers.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Because I probably agree with you.”
+
+“It kills what is dreadful and makes what is beautiful live.”
+
+“I do agree,” said Helen, as she sipped the milk. “But you said that the
+house was dead not half an hour ago.”
+
+“Meaning that I was dead. I felt it.”
+
+“Yes, the house has a surer life than we, even if it was empty, and, as
+it is, I can’t get over that for thirty years the sun has never shone
+full on our furniture. After all, Wickham Place was a grave. Meg, I’ve a
+startling idea.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Drink some milk to steady you.”
+
+Margaret obeyed.
+
+“No, I won’t tell you yet,” said Helen, “because you may laugh or be
+angry. Let’s go upstairs first and give the rooms an airing.”
+
+They opened window after window, till the inside, too, was rustling
+to the spring. Curtains blew, picture frames tapped cheerfully. Helen
+uttered cries of excitement as she found this bed obviously in its right
+place, that in its wrong one. She was angry with Miss Avery for not
+having moved the wardrobes up. “Then one would see really.” She admired
+the view. She was the Helen who had written the memorable letters four
+years ago. As they leant out, looking westward, she said: “About my
+idea. Couldn’t you and I camp out in this house for the night?”
+
+“I don’t think we could well do that,” said Margaret.
+
+“Here are beds, tables, towels--”
+
+“I know; but the house isn’t supposed to be slept in, and Henry’s
+suggestion was--”
+
+“I require no suggestions. I shall not alter anything in my plans. But
+it would give me so much pleasure to have one night here with you. It
+will be something to look back on. Oh, Meg lovey, do let’s!”
+
+“But, Helen, my pet,” said Margaret, “we can’t without getting Henry’s
+leave. Of course, he would give it, but you said yourself that you
+couldn’t visit at Ducie Street now, and this is equally intimate.”
+
+“Ducie Street is his house. This is ours. Our furniture, our sort of
+people coming to the door. Do let us camp out, just one night, and Tom
+shall feed us on eggs and milk. Why not? It’s a moon.”
+
+Margaret hesitated. “I feel Charles wouldn’t like it,” she said at last.
+“Even our furniture annoyed him, and I was going to clear it out when
+Aunt Juley’s illness prevented me. I sympathise with Charles. He feels
+it’s his mother’s house. He loves it in rather an untaking way. Henry I
+could answer for--not Charles.”
+
+“I know he won’t like it,” said Helen. “But I am going to pass out of
+their lives. What difference will it make in the long run if they say,
+‘And she even spent the night at Howards End’?”
+
+“How do you know you’ll pass out of their lives? We have thought that
+twice before.”
+
+“Because my plans--”
+
+“--which you change in a moment.”
+
+“Then because my life is great and theirs are little,” said Helen,
+taking fire. “I know of things they can’t know of, and so do you. We
+know that there’s poetry. We know that there’s death. They can only take
+them on hearsay. We know this is our house, because it feels ours. Oh,
+they may take the title-deeds and the door-keys, but for this one night
+we are at home.”
+
+“It would be lovely to have you once more alone,” said Margaret. “It may
+be a chance in a thousand.”
+
+“Yes, and we could talk.” She dropped her voice. “It won’t be a
+very glorious story. But under that wych-elm--honestly, I see little
+happiness ahead. Cannot I have this one night with you?”
+
+“I needn’t say how much it would mean to me.”
+
+“Then let us.”
+
+“It is no good hesitating. Shall I drive down to Hilton now and get
+leave?”
+
+“Oh, we don’t want leave.”
+
+But Margaret was a loyal wife. In spite of imagination and
+poetry--perhaps on account of them--she could sympathise with the
+technical attitude that Henry would adopt. If possible, she would be
+technical, too. A night’s lodging--and they demanded no more--need not
+involve the discussion of general principles.
+
+“Charles may say no,” grumbled Helen.
+
+“We shan’t consult him.”
+
+“Go if you like; I should have stopped without leave.”
+
+It was the touch of selfishness, which was not enough to mar Helen’s
+character, and even added to its beauty. She would have stopped without
+leave and escaped to Germany the next morning. Margaret kissed her.
+
+“Expect me back before dark. I am looking forward to it so much. It is
+like you to have thought of such a beautiful thing.”
+
+“Not a thing, only an ending,” said Helen rather sadly; and the sense of
+tragedy closed in on Margaret again as soon as she left the house.
+
+She was afraid of Miss Avery. It is disquieting to fulfil a prophecy,
+however superficially. She was glad to see no watching figure as she
+drove past the farm, but only little Tom, turning somersaults in the
+straw.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+The tragedy began quietly enough, and, like many another talk, by the
+man’s deft assertion of his superiority. Henry heard her arguing with
+the driver, stepped out and settled the fellow, who was inclined to be
+rude, and then led the way to some chairs on the lawn. Dolly, who
+had not been “told,” ran out with offers of tea. He refused them, and
+ordered them to wheel baby’s perambulator away, as they desired to be
+alone.
+
+“But the diddums can’t listen; he isn’t nine months old,” she pleaded.
+
+“That’s not what I was saying,” retorted her father-in-law.
+
+Baby was wheeled out of earshot, and did not hear about the crisis till
+later years. It was now the turn of Margaret.
+
+“Is it what we feared?” he asked.
+
+“It is.”
+
+“Dear girl,” he began, “there is a troublesome business ahead of us,
+and nothing but the most absolute honesty and plain speech will see
+us through.” Margaret bent her head. “I am obliged to question you on
+subjects we’d both prefer to leave untouched. As you know, I am not one
+of your Bernard Shaws who consider nothing sacred. To speak as I must
+will pain me, but there are occasions--We are husband and wife, not
+children. I am a man of the world, and you are a most exceptional
+woman.”
+
+All Margaret’s senses forsook her. She blushed, and looked past him at
+the Six Hills, covered with spring herbage. Noting her colour, he grew
+still more kind.
+
+“I see that you feel as I felt when--My poor little wife! Oh, be brave!
+Just one or two questions, and I have done with you. Was your sister
+wearing a wedding-ring?”
+
+Margaret stammered a “No.”
+
+There was an appalling silence.
+
+“Henry, I really came to ask a favour about Howards End.”
+
+“One point at a time. I am now obliged to ask for the name of her
+seducer.”
+
+She rose to her feet and held the chair between them. Her colour had
+ebbed, and she was grey. It did not displease him that she should
+receive his question thus.
+
+“Take your time,” he counselled her. “Remember that this is far worse
+for me than for you.”
+
+She swayed; he feared she was going to faint. Then speech came, and she
+said slowly: “Seducer? No; I do not know her seducer’s name.”
+
+“Would she not tell you?”
+
+“I never even asked her who seduced her,” said Margaret, dwelling on the
+hateful word thoughtfully.
+
+“That is singular.” Then he changed his mind. “Natural perhaps, dear
+girl, that you shouldn’t ask. But until his name is known, nothing can
+be done. Sit down. How terrible it is to see you so upset! I knew you
+weren’t fit for it. I wish I hadn’t taken you.”
+
+Margaret answered, “I like to stand, if you don’t mind, for it gives me
+a pleasant view of the Six Hills.”
+
+“As you like.”
+
+“Have you anything else to ask me, Henry?”
+
+“Next you must tell me whether you have gathered anything. I have often
+noticed your insight, dear. I only wish my own was as good. You may have
+guessed something, even though your sister said nothing. The slightest
+hint would help us.”
+
+“Who is ‘we’?”
+
+“I thought it best to ring up Charles.”
+
+“That was unnecessary,” said Margaret, growing warmer. “This news will
+give Charles disproportionate pain.”
+
+“He has at once gone to call on your brother.”
+
+“That too was unnecessary.”
+
+“Let me explain, dear, how the matter stands. You don’t think that I and
+my son are other than gentlemen? It is in Helen’s interests that we are
+acting. It is still not too late to save her name.”
+
+Then Margaret hit out for the first time. “Are we to make her seducer
+marry her?” she asked.
+
+“If possible, yes.”
+
+“But, Henry, suppose he turned out to be married already? One has heard
+of such cases.”
+
+“In that case he must pay heavily for his misconduct, and be thrashed
+within an inch of his life.”
+
+So her first blow missed. She was thankful of it. What had tempted her
+to imperil both of their lives. Henry’s obtuseness had saved her as well
+as himself. Exhausted with anger, she sat down again, blinking at him as
+he told her as much as he thought fit. At last she said: “May I ask you
+my question now?”
+
+“Certainly, my dear.”
+
+“To-morrow Helen goes to Munich--”
+
+“Well, possibly she is right.”
+
+“Henry, let a lady finish. To-morrow she goes; to-night, with your
+permission, she would like to sleep at Howards End.”
+
+It was the crisis of his life. Again she would have recalled the words
+as soon as they were uttered. She had not led up to them with sufficient
+care. She longed to warn him that they were far more important than
+he supposed. She saw him weighing them, as if they were a business
+proposition.
+
+“Why Howards End?” he said at last. “Would she not be more comfortable,
+as I suggested, at the hotel?”
+
+Margaret hastened to give him reasons. “It is an odd request, but you
+know what Helen is and what women in her state are.” He frowned, and
+moved irritably. “She has the idea that one night in your house would
+give her pleasure and do her good. I think she’s right. Being one of
+those imaginative girls, the presence of all our books and furniture
+soothes her. This is a fact. It is the end of her girlhood. Her last
+words to me were, ‘A beautiful ending.’”
+
+“She values the old furniture for sentimental reasons, in fact.”
+
+“Exactly. You have quite understood. It is her last hope of being with
+it.”
+
+“I don’t agree there, my dear! Helen will have her share of the goods
+wherever she goes--possibly more than her share, for you are so fond
+of her that you’d give her anything of yours that she fancies, wouldn’t
+you? and I’d raise no objection. I could understand it if it was her old
+home, because a home, or a house,” he changed the word, designedly; he
+had thought of a telling point--“because a house in which one has once
+lived becomes in a sort of way sacred, I don’t know why. Associations
+and so on. Now Helen has no associations with Howards End, though I
+and Charles and Evie have. I do not see why she wants to stay the night
+there. She will only catch cold.”
+
+“Leave it that you don’t see,” cried Margaret. “Call it fancy. But
+realise that fancy is a scientific fact. Helen is fanciful, and wants
+to.”
+
+Then he surprised her--a rare occurrence. He shot an unexpected bolt.
+“If she wants to sleep one night she may want to sleep two. We shall
+never get her out of the house, perhaps.”
+
+“Well?” said Margaret, with the precipice in sight. “And suppose we
+don’t get her out of the house? Would it matter? She would do no one any
+harm.”
+
+Again the irritated gesture.
+
+“No, Henry,” she panted, receding. “I didn’t mean that. We will
+only trouble Howards End for this one night. I take her to London
+to-morrow--”
+
+“Do you intend to sleep in a damp house, too?”
+
+“She cannot be left alone.”
+
+“That’s quite impossible! Madness. You must be here to meet Charles.”
+
+“I have already told you that your message to Charles was unnecessary,
+and I have no desire to meet him.”
+
+“Margaret--my Margaret.”
+
+“What has this business to do with Charles? If it concerns me little, it
+concerns you less, and Charles not at all.”
+
+“As the future owner of Howards End,” said Mr. Wilcox arching his
+fingers, “I should say that it did concern Charles.”
+
+“In what way? Will Helen’s condition depreciate the property?”
+
+“My dear, you are forgetting yourself.”
+
+“I think you yourself recommended plain speaking.”
+
+They looked at each other in amazement. The precipice was at their feet
+now.
+
+“Helen commands my sympathy,” said Henry. “As your husband, I shall do
+all for her that I can, and I have no doubt that she will prove more
+sinned against than sinning. But I cannot treat her as if nothing has
+happened. I should be false to my position in society if I did.”
+
+She controlled herself for the last time. “No, let us go back to Helen’s
+request,” she said. “It is unreasonable, but the request of an unhappy
+girl. Tomorrow she will go to Germany, and trouble society no longer.
+To-night she asks to sleep in your empty house--a house which you do not
+care about, and which you have not occupied for over a year. May she?
+Will you give my sister leave? Will you forgive her as you hope to be
+forgiven, and as you have actually been forgiven? Forgive her for one
+night only. That will be enough.”
+
+“As I have actually been forgiven--?”
+
+“Never mind for the moment what I mean by that,” said Margaret. “Answer
+my question.”
+
+Perhaps some hint of her meaning did dawn on him. If so, he blotted
+it out. Straight from his fortress he answered: “I seem rather
+unaccommodating, but I have some experience of life, and know how one
+thing leads to another. I am afraid that your sister had better sleep
+at the hotel. I have my children and the memory of my dear wife to
+consider. I am sorry, but see that she leaves my house at once.”
+
+“You have mentioned Mrs. Wilcox.”
+
+“I beg your pardon?”
+
+“A rare occurrence. In reply, may I mention Mrs. Bast?”
+
+“You have not been yourself all day,” said Henry, and rose from his seat
+with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She
+was transfigured.
+
+“Not any more of this!” she cried. “You shall see the connection if it
+kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress--I forgave you. My sister
+has a lover--you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection?
+Stupid, hypocritical, cruel--oh, contemptible!--a man who insults his
+wife when she’s alive and cants with her memory when she’s dead. A man
+who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin other men.
+And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not responsible.
+These men are you. You can’t recognise them, because you cannot connect.
+I’ve had enough of your unneeded kindness. I’ve spoilt you long enough.
+All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you. No one has
+ever told what you are--muddled, criminally muddled. Men like you use
+repentance as a blind, so don’t repent. Only say to yourself, ‘What
+Helen has done, I’ve done.’”
+
+“The two cases are different,” Henry stammered. His real retort was
+not quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he wanted a little
+longer.
+
+“In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only
+herself. You remain in society, Helen can’t. You have had only pleasure,
+she may die. You have the insolence to talk to me of differences,
+Henry?”
+
+Oh, the uselessness of it! Henry’s retort came.
+
+“I perceive you are attempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty weapon
+for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through life has been
+never to pay the least attention to threats, and I can only repeat
+what I said before: I do not give you and your sister leave to sleep at
+Howards End.”
+
+Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first one and
+then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she stood looking at
+the Six Hills, tombs of warriors, breasts of the spring. Then she passed
+out into what was now the evening.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying.
+Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the
+English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them
+understood. Charles saw in Helen the family foe. He had singled her out
+as the most dangerous of the Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked
+forward to telling his wife how right he had been. His mind was made up
+at once; the girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them
+farther. If occasion offered she might be married to a villain, or,
+possibly, to a fool. But this was a concession to morality, it formed
+no part of his main scheme. Honest and hearty was Charles’s dislike, and
+the past spread itself out very clearly before him; hatred is a skilful
+compositor. As if they were heads in a note-book, he ran through all
+the incidents of the Schlegels’ campaign: the attempt to compromise his
+brother, his mother’s legacy, his father’s marriage, the introduction
+of the furniture, the unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the
+request to sleep at Howards End; that was to be their master-stroke and
+the opportunity for his. But he already felt that Howards End was the
+objective, and, though he disliked the house, was determined to defend
+it.
+
+Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the
+conventions: his sister had a right to do what she thought right. It is
+not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages
+among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a
+bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.
+Unlike Charles, Tibby had money enough; his ancestors had earned it for
+him, and if he shocked the people in one set of lodgings he had only to
+move into another. His was the leisure without sympathy--an attitude as
+fatal as the strenuous; a little cold culture may be raised on it, but
+no art. His sisters had seen the family danger, and had never forgotten
+to discount the gold islets that raised them from the sea. Tibby gave
+all the praise to himself, and so despised the struggling and the
+submerged.
+
+Hence the absurdity of the interview; the gulf between them was economic
+as well as spiritual. But several facts passed; Charles pressed for them
+with an impertinence that the undergraduate could not withstand. On what
+date had Helen gone abroad? To whom? (Charles was anxious to fasten the
+scandal on Germany.) Then, changing his tactics, he said roughly: “I
+suppose you realise that you are your sister’s protector?”
+
+“In what sense?”
+
+“If a man played about with my sister, I’d send a bullet through him,
+but perhaps you don’t mind.”
+
+“I mind very much,” protested Tibby.
+
+“Who d’ye suspect, then? Speak out man. One always suspects some one.”
+
+“No one. I don’t think so.” Involuntarily he blushed. He had remembered
+the scene in his Oxford rooms.
+
+“You are hiding something,” said Charles. As interviews go, he got the
+best of this one. “When you saw her last, did she mention any one’s
+name? Yes or no!” he thundered, so that Tibby started.
+
+“In my rooms she mentioned some friends, called the Basts.”
+
+“Who are the Basts?”
+
+“People--friends of hers at Evie’s wedding.”
+
+“I don’t remember. But, by great Scott, I do! My aunt told me about some
+rag-tag. Was she full of them when you saw her? Is there a man? Did she
+speak of the man? Or--look here--have you had any dealings with him?”
+
+Tibby was silent. Without intending it, he had betrayed his sister’s
+confidence; he was not enough interested in human life to see where
+things will lead to. He had a strong regard for honesty, and his word,
+once given, had always been kept up to now. He was deeply vexed, not
+only for the harm he had done Helen, but for the flaw he had discovered
+in his own equipment.
+
+“I see--you are in his confidence. They met at your rooms. Oh, what a
+family, what a family! God help the poor pater--”
+
+And Tibby found himself alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+Leonard--he would figure at length in a newspaper report, but that
+evening he did not count for much. The foot of the tree was in shadow,
+since the moon was still hidden behind the house. But above, to right,
+to left, down the long meadow the moonlight was streaming. Leonard
+seemed not a man, but a cause.
+
+Perhaps it was Helen’s way of falling in love--a curious way to
+Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted
+with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed
+her emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice herself, or have instincts,
+but had she ever loved in the noblest way, where man and woman, having
+lost themselves in sex, desire to lose sex itself in comradeship?
+
+Margaret wondered, but said no word of blame. This was Helen’s evening.
+Troubles enough lay ahead of her--the loss of friends and of social
+advantages, the agony, the supreme agony, of motherhood, which is not
+even yet a matter of common knowledge. For the present let the moon
+shine brightly and the breezes of the spring blow gently, dying away
+from the gale of the day, and let the earth, that brings increase, bring
+peace. Not even to herself dare she blame Helen.
+
+She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything
+or nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and
+group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen.
+The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that
+morality is not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him.
+It is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone.
+
+This was Helen’s evening--won at what cost, and not to be marred by the
+sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never uttered a word.
+
+“One isolates,” said Helen slowly. “I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other
+forces that were pulling Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of
+pity, and almost of revenge. For weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and
+so, when your letters came--”
+
+“I need never have written them,” sighed Margaret. “They never shielded
+Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy away the past, even for others!”
+
+“I did not know that it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts.”
+
+“Looking back, that was wrong of me.”
+
+“Looking back, darling, I know that it was right. It is right to save
+the man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we
+both thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his
+callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time--and Mrs. Bast
+was upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to
+Leonard--I had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned me
+I was in danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an
+explanation. He said that he guessed the explanation--he knew of it, and
+you mustn’t know. I pressed him to tell me. He said no one must know; it
+was something to do with his wife. Right up to the end we were Mr. Bast
+and Miss Schlegel. I was going to tell him that he must be frank with me
+when I saw his eyes, and guessed that Mr. Wilcox had ruined him in two
+ways, not one. I drew him to me. I made him tell me. I felt very lonely
+myself. He is not to blame. He would have gone on worshipping me. I want
+never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to give him
+money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known about these
+things!”
+
+She laid her face against the tree.
+
+“The little, too, that is known about growth! Both times it was
+loneliness, and the night, and panic afterwards. Did Leonard grow out of
+Paul?”
+
+Margaret did not speak for a moment. So tired was she that her attention
+had actually wandered to the teeth--the teeth that had been thrust into
+the tree’s bark to medicate it. From where she sat she could see them
+gleam. She had been trying to count them. “Leonard is a better growth
+than madness,” she said. “I was afraid that you would react against Paul
+until you went over the verge.”
+
+“I did react until I found poor Leonard. I am steady now. I shan’t ever
+like your Henry, dearest Meg, or even speak kindly about him, but all
+that blinding hate is over. I shall never rave against Wilcoxes any
+more. I understand how you married him, and you will now be very happy.”
+
+Margaret did not reply.
+
+“Yes,” repeated Helen, her voice growing more tender, “I do at last
+understand.”
+
+“Except Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little movements.”
+
+“Because in death--I agree.”
+
+“Not quite. I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of that
+woman’s mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She is the house,
+and the tree that leans over it. People have their own deaths as well
+as their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall
+differ in our nothingness. I cannot believe that knowledge such as hers
+will perish with knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She
+knew when people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don’t
+doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her.”
+
+“Good-night, Mrs. Wilcox,” called a voice.
+
+“Oh, good-night, Miss Avery.”
+
+“Why should Miss Avery work for us?” Helen murmured.
+
+“Why, indeed?”
+
+Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into the hedge that divided
+it from the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had filled up, had
+reappeared, and her track through the dew followed the path that he had
+turfed over, when he improved the garden and made it possible for games.
+
+“This is not quite our house yet,” said Helen. “When Miss Avery called,
+I felt we are only a couple of tourists.”
+
+“We shall be that everywhere, and for ever.”
+
+“But affectionate tourists.”
+
+“But tourists who pretend each hotel is their home.”
+
+“I can’t pretend very long,” said Helen. “Sitting under this tree one
+forgets, but I know that to-morrow I shall see the moon rise out of
+Germany. Not all your goodness can alter the facts of the case. Unless
+you will come with me.”
+
+Margaret thought for a moment. In the past year she had grown so fond
+of England that to leave it was a real grief. Yet what detained her? No
+doubt Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on blustering and muddling
+into a ripe old age. But what was the good? She had just as soon vanish
+from his mind.
+
+“Are you serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your Monica?”
+
+“You would not, but I am serious in asking you.”
+
+“Still, no more plans now. And no more reminiscences.”
+
+They were silent for a little. It was Helen’s evening.
+
+The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made
+music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths,
+but its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled
+again. Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life.
+Life passed. The tree rustled again.
+
+“Sleep now,” said Margaret.
+
+The peace of the country was entering into her. It has no commerce with
+memory, and little with hope. Least of all is it concerned with the
+hopes of the next five minutes. It is the peace of the present, which
+passes understanding. Its murmur came “now,” and “now” once more as they
+trod the gravel, and “now,” as the moonlight fell upon their father’s
+sword. They passed upstairs, kissed, and amidst the endless iterations
+fell asleep. The house had enshadowed the tree at first, but as the moon
+rose higher the two disentangled, and were clear for a few moments
+at midnight. Margaret awoke and looked into the garden. How
+incomprehensible that Leonard Bast should have won her this night of
+peace! Was he also part of Mrs. Wilcox’s mind?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+Far different was Leonard’s development. The months after Oniton,
+whatever minor troubles they might bring him, were all overshadowed by
+Remorse. When Helen looked back she could philosophise, or she could
+look into the future and plan for her child. But the father saw nothing
+beyond his own sin. Weeks afterwards, in the midst of other occupations,
+he would suddenly cry out, “Brute--you brute, I couldn’t have--” and be
+rent into two people who held dialogues. Or brown rain would descend,
+blotting out faces and the sky. Even Jacky noticed the change in him.
+Most terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep. Sometimes
+he was happy at first, but grew conscious of a burden hanging to him
+and weighing down his thoughts when they would move. Or little irons
+scorched his body. Or a sword stabbed him. He would sit at the edge of
+his bed, holding his heart and moaning, “Oh what SHALL I do, whatever
+SHALL I do?” Nothing brought ease. He could put distance between him and
+the trespass, but it grew in his soul.
+
+Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks were right to
+dethrone her. Her action is too capricious, as though the Erinyes
+selected for punishment only certain men and certain sins. And of all
+means to regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away
+healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper
+than the evil. Leonard was driven straight through its torments and
+emerged pure, but enfeebled--a better man, who would never lose control
+of himself again, but also a smaller man, who had less to control. Nor
+did purity mean peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard
+to shake off as passion itself, and Leonard continued to start with a
+cry out of dreams.
+
+He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never
+occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of
+their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic
+of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the
+absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her
+as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for
+adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who
+could have travelled more gloriously through life than the juggernaut
+car that was crushing him. Memories of Evie’s wedding had warped
+her, the starched servants, the yards of uneaten food, the rustle of
+overdressed women, motor-cars oozing grease on the gravel, a pretentious
+band. She had tasted the lees of this on her arrival; in the darkness,
+after failure, they intoxicated her. She and the victim seemed alone in
+a world of unreality, and she loved him absolutely, perhaps for half an
+hour.
+
+In the morning she was gone. The note that she left, tender and
+hysterical in tone, and intended to be most kind, hurt her lover
+terribly. It was as if some work of art had been broken by him, some
+picture in the National Gallery slashed out of its frame. When he
+recalled her talents and her social position, he felt that the first
+passer-by had a right to shoot him down. He was afraid of the waitress
+and the porters at the railway-station. He was afraid at first of his
+wife, though later he was to regard her with a strange new tenderness,
+and to think, “There is nothing to choose between us, after all.”
+
+The expedition to Shropshire crippled the Basts permanently. Helen
+in her flight forgot to settle the hotel bill, and took their return
+tickets away with her; they had to pawn Jacky’s bangles to get home, and
+the smash came a few days afterwards. It is true that Helen offered him
+five thousand pounds, but such a sum meant nothing to him. He could not
+see that the girl was desperately righting herself, and trying to save
+something out of the disaster, if it was only five thousand pounds. But
+he had to live somehow. He turned to his family, and degraded himself to
+a professional beggar. There was nothing else for him to do.
+
+“A letter from Leonard,” thought Blanche, his sister; “and after all
+this time.” She hid it, so that her husband should not see, and when he
+had gone to his work read it with some emotion, and sent the prodigal a
+little money out of her dress allowance.
+
+“A letter from Leonard!” said the other sister, Laura, a few days later.
+She showed it to her husband. He wrote a cruel, insolent reply, but sent
+more money than Blanche, so Leonard soon wrote to him again.
+
+And during the winter the system was developed.
+
+Leonard realised that they need never starve, because it would be too
+painful for his relatives. Society is based on the family, and the
+clever wastrel can exploit this indefinitely. Without a generous thought
+on either side, pounds and pounds passed. The donors disliked Leonard,
+and he grew to hate them intensely. When Laura censured his immoral
+marriage, he thought bitterly, “She minds that! What would she say if
+she knew the truth?” When Blanche’s husband offered him work, he found
+some pretext for avoiding it. He had wanted work keenly at Oniton, but
+too much anxiety had shattered him, he was joining the unemployable.
+When his brother, the lay-reader, did not reply to a letter, he wrote
+again, saying that he and Jacky would come down to his village on foot.
+He did not intend this as blackmail. Still the brother sent a postal
+order, and it became part of the system. And so passed his winter and
+his spring.
+
+In the horror there are two bright spots. He never confused the past. He
+remained alive, and blessed are those who live, if it is only to a sense
+of sinfulness. The anodyne of muddledom, by which most men blur and
+blend their mistakes, never passed Leonard’s lips--
+
+        “And if I drink oblivion of a day,
+         So shorten I the stature of my soul.”
+
+It is a hard saying, and a hard man wrote it, but it lies at the root of
+all character.
+
+And the other bright spot was his tenderness for Jacky. He pitied her
+with nobility now--not the contemptuous pity of a man who sticks to a
+woman through thick and thin. He tried to be less irritable. He wondered
+what her hungry eyes desired--nothing that she could express, or that
+he or any man could give her. Would she ever receive the justice that is
+mercy--the justice for by-products that the world is too busy to bestow?
+She was fond of flowers, generous with money, and not revengeful. If she
+had borne him a child he might have cared for her. Unmarried, Leonard
+would never have begged; he would have flickered out and died. But the
+whole of life is mixed. He had to provide for Jacky, and went down dirty
+paths that she might have a few feathers and the dishes of food that
+suited her.
+
+One day he caught sight of Margaret and her brother. He was in St.
+Paul’s. He had entered the cathedral partly to avoid the rain and partly
+to see a picture that had educated him in former years. But the light
+was bad, the picture ill placed, and Time and judgment were inside him
+now. Death alone still charmed him, with her lap of poppies, on which
+all men shall sleep. He took one glance, and turned aimlessly away
+towards a chair. Then down the nave he saw Miss Schlegel and her
+brother. They stood in the fairway of passengers, and their faces were
+extremely grave. He was perfectly certain that they were in trouble
+about their sister.
+
+Once outside--and he fled immediately--he wished that he had spoken
+to them. What was his life? What were a few angry words, or even
+imprisonment? He had done wrong--that was the true terror. Whatever they
+might know, he would tell them everything he knew. He re-entered St.
+Paul’s. But they had moved in his absence, and had gone to lay their
+difficulties before Mr. Wilcox and Charles.
+
+The sight of Margaret turned remorse into new channels. He desired to
+confess, and though the desire is proof of a weakened nature, which
+is about to lose the essence of human intercourse, it did not take
+an ignoble form. He did not suppose that confession would bring him
+happiness. It was rather that he yearned to get clear of the tangle. So
+does the suicide yearn. The impulses are akin, and the crime of suicide
+lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave
+behind. Confession need harm no one--it can satisfy that test--and
+though it was un-English, and ignored by our Anglican cathedral, Leonard
+had a right to decide upon it.
+
+Moreover, he trusted Margaret. He wanted her hardness now. That cold,
+intellectual nature of hers would be just, if unkind. He would do
+whatever she told him, even if he had to see Helen. That was the supreme
+punishment she would exact. And perhaps she would tell him how Helen
+was. That was the supreme reward.
+
+He knew nothing about Margaret, not even whether she was married to Mr.
+Wilcox, and tracking her out took several days. That evening he
+toiled through the wet to Wickham Place, where the new flats were now
+appearing. Was he also the cause of their move? Were they expelled from
+society on his account? Thence to a public library, but could find no
+satisfactory Schlegel in the directory. On the morrow he searched again.
+He hung about outside Mr. Wilcox’s office at lunch time, and, as the
+clerks came out said, “Excuse me, sir, but is your boss married?” Most
+of them stared, some said, “What’s that to you?” but one, who had not
+yet acquired reticence, told him what he wished. Leonard could not learn
+the private address. That necessitated more trouble with directories
+and tubes. Ducie Street was not discovered till the Monday, the day
+that Margaret and her husband went down on their hunting expedition to
+Howards End.
+
+He called at about four o’clock. The weather had changed, and the
+sun shone gaily on the ornamental steps--black and white marble in
+triangles. Leonard lowered his eyes to them after ringing the bell. He
+felt in curious health; doors seemed to be opening and shutting inside
+his body, and he had been obliged to sleep sitting up in bed, with his
+back propped against the wall. When the parlourmaid came he could not
+see her face; the brown rain had descended suddenly.
+
+“Does Mrs. Wilcox live here?” he asked.
+
+“She’s out,” was the answer.
+
+“When will she be back?”
+
+“I’ll ask,” said the parlourmaid.
+
+Margaret had given instructions that no one who mentioned her name
+should ever be rebuffed. Putting the door on the chain--for Leonard’s
+appearance demanded this--she went through to the smoking-room, which
+was occupied by Tibby. Tibby was asleep. He had had a good lunch.
+Charles Wilcox had not yet rung him up for the distracting interview. He
+said drowsily: “I don’t know. Hilton. Howards End. Who is it?”
+
+“I’ll ask, sir.”
+
+“No, don’t bother.”
+
+“They have taken the car to Howards End,” said the parlourmaid to
+Leonard.
+
+He thanked her, and asked whereabouts that place was.
+
+“You appear to want to know a good deal,” she remarked. But Margaret had
+forbidden her to be mysterious. She told him against her better judgment
+that Howards End was in Hertfordshire.
+
+“Is it a village, please?”
+
+“Village! It’s Mr. Wilcox’s private house--at least, it’s one of them.
+Mrs. Wilcox keeps her furniture there. Hilton is the village.”
+
+“Yes. And when will they be back?”
+
+“Mr. Schlegel doesn’t know. We can’t know everything, can we?” She
+shut him out, and went to attend to the telephone, which was ringing
+furiously.
+
+He loitered away another night of agony. Confession grew more difficult.
+As soon as possible he went to bed. He watched a patch of moonlight
+cross the floor of their lodging, and, as sometimes happens when the
+mind is overtaxed, he fell asleep for the rest of the room, but kept
+awake for the patch of moonlight. Horrible! Then began one of those
+disintegrating dialogues. Part of him said: “Why horrible? It’s ordinary
+light from the moon.” “But it moves.” “So does the moon.” “But it is a
+clenched fist.” “Why not?” “But it is going to touch me.” “Let it.” And,
+seeming to gather motion, the patch ran up his blanket. Presently a
+blue snake appeared; then another parallel to it. “Is there life in the
+moon?” “Of course.” “But I thought it was uninhabited.” “Not by Time,
+Death, Judgment, and the smaller snakes.” “Smaller snakes!” said Leonard
+indignantly and aloud. “What a notion!” By a rending effort of the
+will he woke the rest of the room up. Jacky, the bed, their food, their
+clothes on the chair, gradually entered his consciousness, and the
+horror vanished outwards, like a ring that is spreading through water.
+
+“I say, Jacky, I’m going out for a bit.”
+
+She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell clear of the
+striped blanket, and began to cover the shawl that lay over her feet.
+Why had he been afraid? He went to the window, and saw that the moon
+was descending through a clear sky. He saw her volcanoes, and the bright
+expanses that a gracious error has named seas. They paled, for the sun,
+who had lit them up, was coming to light the earth. Sea of Serenity, Sea
+of Tranquillity, Ocean of the Lunar Storms, merged into one lucent drop,
+itself to slip into the sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the
+moon!
+
+He dressed among the contending lights, and went through his money. It
+was running low again, but enough for a return ticket to Hilton. As it
+clinked, Jacky opened her eyes.
+
+“Hullo, Len! What ho, Len!”
+
+“What ho, Jacky! see you again later.”
+
+She turned over and slept.
+
+The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman at Covent
+Garden. Leonard passed out and made his way down to the station. The
+train, though it did not start for an hour, was already drawn up at the
+end of the platform, and he lay down in it and slept. With the first
+jolt he was in daylight; they had left the gateways of King’s Cross,
+and were under blue sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew
+bluer, and from the embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight
+of the sun. It rolled along behind the eastern smokes--a wheel, whose
+fellow was the descending moon--and as yet it seemed the servant of the
+blue sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To
+the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right
+Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its
+wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees--that is a fact--grow out
+of one of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave’s occupant--that is
+the legend--is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest
+trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and
+farther afield lay the house of a hermit--Mrs. Wilcox had known him--who
+barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the
+poor. While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who
+saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed
+eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to
+all the primroses were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country,
+however they interpreted her, was uttering her cry of “now.” She did
+not free Leonard yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the
+train drew up at Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful.
+
+Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting. Leonard noticed the
+contrast when he stepped out of it into the country. Here men had been
+up since dawn. Their hours were ruled, not by a London office, but by
+the movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest
+type only the sentimentalists can declare. But they kept to the life of
+daylight. They are England’s hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch
+of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half
+clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to a
+nobler stock, and breed yeomen.
+
+At the chalk pit a motor passed him. In it was another type, whom Nature
+favours--the Imperial. Healthy, ever in motion, it hopes to inherit the
+earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as soundly; strong is the
+temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country’s
+virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is not what he thinks or seems. He
+is a destroyer. He prepares the way for cosmopolitanism, and though his
+ambitions may be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be grey.
+
+To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the conviction of
+innate goodness elsewhere. It was not the optimism which he had been
+taught at school. Again and again must the drums tap, and the goblins
+stalk over the universe before joy can be purged of the superficial. It
+was rather paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death destroys a man,
+but the idea of death saves him--that is the best account of it that has
+yet been given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in
+us, and strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not certain
+that they will, for they are not love’s servants. But they can beckon,
+and the knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him.
+
+As he approached the house all thought stopped. Contradictory notions
+stood side by side in his mind. He was terrified but happy, ashamed,
+but had done no sin. He knew the confession: “Mrs. Wilcox, I have done
+wrong,” but sunrise had robbed its meaning, and he felt rather on a
+supreme adventure.
+
+He entered a garden, steadied himself against a motor-car that he found
+in it, found a door open and entered a house. Yes, it would be very
+easy. From a room to the left he heard voices, Margaret’s amongst them.
+His own name was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said,
+“Oh, is he there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him within an inch of
+his life.”
+
+“Mrs. Wilcox,” said Leonard, “I have done wrong.”
+
+The man took him by the collar and cried, “Bring me a stick.” Women were
+screaming. A stick, very bright, descended. It hurt him, not where it
+descended, but in the heart. Books fell over him in a shower. Nothing
+had sense.
+
+“Get some water,” commanded Charles, who had all through kept very calm.
+“He’s shamming. Of course I only used the blade. Here, carry him out
+into the air.”
+
+Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him. They laid
+Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel; Helen poured water over him.
+
+“That’s enough,” said Charles.
+
+“Yes, murder’s enough,” said Miss Avery, coming out of the house with
+the sword.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+When Charles left Ducie Street he had caught the first train home, but
+had no inkling of the newest development until late at night. Then
+his father, who had dined alone, sent for him, and in very grave tones
+inquired for Margaret.
+
+“I don’t know where she is, pater” said Charles. “Dolly kept back dinner
+nearly an hour for her.”
+
+“Tell me when she comes in.”
+
+Another hour passed. The servants went to bed, and Charles visited his
+father again, to receive further instructions. Mrs. Wilcox had still not
+returned.
+
+“I’ll sit up for her as late as you like, but she can hardly be coming.
+Isn’t she stopping with her sister at the hotel?”
+
+“Perhaps,” said Mr. Wilcox thoughtfully--“perhaps.”
+
+“Can I do anything for you, sir?”
+
+“Not to-night, my boy.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox liked being called sir. He raised his eyes, and gave his son
+more open a look of tenderness than he usually ventured. He saw Charles
+as little boy and strong man in one. Though his wife had proved unstable
+his children were left to him.
+
+After midnight he tapped on Charles’s door. “I can’t sleep,” he said. “I
+had better have a talk with you and get it over.”
+
+He complained of the heat. Charles took him out into the garden, and
+they paced up and down in their dressing-gowns. Charles became very
+quiet as the story unrolled; he had known all along that Margaret was as
+bad as her sister.
+
+“She will feel differently in the morning,” said Mr. Wilcox, who had
+of course said nothing about Mrs. Bast. “But I cannot let this kind of
+thing continue without comment. I am morally certain that she is with
+her sister at Howards End. The house is mine--and, Charles, it will be
+yours--and when I say that no one is to live there, I mean that no one
+is to live there. I won’t have it.” He looked angrily at the moon.
+“To my mind this question is connected with something far greater, the
+rights of property itself.”
+
+“Undoubtedly,” said Charles.
+
+Mr. Wilcox linked his arm in his son’s, but somehow liked him less as
+he told him more. “I don’t want you to conclude that my wife and I had
+anything of the nature of a quarrel. She was only overwrought, as who
+would not be? I shall do what I can for Helen, but on the understanding
+that they clear out of the house at once. Do you see? That is a sine qua
+non.”
+
+“Then at eight to-morrow I may go up in the car?”
+
+“Eight or earlier. Say that you are acting as my representative, and, of
+course, use no violence, Charles.”
+
+On the morrow, as Charles returned, leaving Leonard dead upon the
+gravel, it did not seem to him that he had used violence. Death was
+due to heart disease. His stepmother herself had said so, and even Miss
+Avery had acknowledged that he only used the flat of the sword. On his
+way through the village he informed the police, who thanked him, and
+said there must be an inquest. He found his father in the garden shading
+his eyes from the sun.
+
+“It has been pretty horrible,” said Charles gravely. “They were there,
+and they had the man up there with them too.”
+
+“What--what man?”
+
+“I told you last night. His name was Bast.”
+
+“My God! is it possible?” said Mr. Wilcox. “In your mother’s house!
+Charles, in your mother’s house!”
+
+“I know, pater. That was what I felt. As a matter of fact, there is
+no need to trouble about the man. He was in the last stages of heart
+disease, and just before I could show him what I thought of him he went
+off. The police are seeing about it at this moment.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox listened attentively.
+
+“I got up there--oh, it couldn’t have been more than half-past seven.
+The Avery woman was lighting a fire for them. They were still upstairs.
+I waited in the drawing-room. We were all moderately civil and
+collected, though I had my suspicions. I gave them your message, and
+Mrs. Wilcox said, ‘Oh yes, I see; yes,’ in that way of hers.”
+
+“Nothing else?”
+
+“I promised to tell you, ‘with her love,’ that she was going to Germany
+with her sister this evening. That was all we had time for.”
+
+Mr. Wilcox seemed relieved.
+
+“Because by then I suppose the man got tired of hiding, for suddenly
+Mrs. Wilcox screamed out his name. I recognised it, and I went for him
+in the hall. Was I right, pater? I thought things were going a little
+too far.”
+
+“Right, my dear boy? I don’t know. But you would have been no son of
+mine if you hadn’t. Then did he just--just--crumple up as you said?” He
+shrunk from the simple word.
+
+“He caught hold of the bookcase, which came down over him. So I merely
+put the sword down and carried him into the garden. We all thought he
+was shamming. However, he’s dead right enough. Awful business!”
+
+“Sword?” cried his father, with anxiety in his voice. “What sword? Whose
+sword?”
+
+“A sword of theirs.”
+
+“What were you doing with it?”
+
+“Well, didn’t you see, pater, I had to snatch up the first thing handy.
+I hadn’t a riding-whip or stick. I caught him once or twice over the
+shoulders with the flat of their old German sword.”
+
+“Then what?”
+
+“He pulled over the bookcase, as I said, and fell,” said Charles, with
+a sigh. It was no fun doing errands for his father, who was never quite
+satisfied.
+
+“But the real cause was heart disease? Of that you’re sure?”
+
+“That or a fit. However, we shall hear more than enough at the inquest
+on such unsavoury topics.”
+
+They went in to breakfast. Charles had a racking headache, consequent on
+motoring before food. He was also anxious about the future, reflecting
+that the police must detain Helen and Margaret for the inquest and
+ferret the whole thing out. He saw himself obliged to leave Hilton. One
+could not afford to live near the scene of a scandal--it was not fair on
+one’s wife. His comfort was that the pater’s eyes were opened at last.
+There would be a horrible smash-up, and probably a separation from
+Margaret; then they would all start again, more as they had been in his
+mother’s time.
+
+“I think I’ll go round to the police-station,” said his father when
+breakfast was over.
+
+“What for?” cried Dolly, who had still not been “told.”
+
+“Very well, sir. Which car will you have?”
+
+“I think I’ll walk.”
+
+“It’s a good half-mile,” said Charles, stepping into the garden. “The
+sun’s very hot for April. Shan’t I take you up, and then, perhaps, a
+little spin round by Tewin?”
+
+“You go on as if I didn’t know my own mind,” said Mr. Wilcox fretfully.
+Charles hardened his mouth. “You young fellows’ one idea is to get into
+a motor. I tell you, I want to walk; I’m very fond of walking.”
+
+“Oh, all right; I’m about the house if you want me for anything. I
+thought of not going up to the office to-day, if that is your wish.”
+
+“It is, indeed, my boy,” said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his sleeve.
+
+Charles did not like it; he was uneasy about his father, who did not
+seem himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about him--more
+like a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The Wilcoxes were not
+lacking in affection; they had it royally, but they did not know how to
+use it. It was the talent in the napkin, and, for a warm-hearted man,
+Charles had conveyed very little joy. As he watched his father shuffling
+up the road, he had a vague regret--a wish that something had been
+different somewhere--a wish (though he did not express it thus) that
+he had been taught to say “I” in his youth. He meant to make up for
+Margaret’s defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with
+her until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick, no
+doubt--but how?
+
+Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to be an
+inquest on Leonard’s body to-morrow, and the police required his son to
+attend.
+
+“I expected that,” said Charles. “I shall naturally be the most
+important witness there.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Juley’s illness
+and was not even to end with Leonard’s death, it seemed impossible
+to Margaret that healthy life should re-emerge. Events succeeded in
+a logical, yet senseless, train. People lost their humanity, and took
+values as arbitrary as those in a pack of playing-cards. It was natural
+that Henry should do this and cause Helen to do that, and then think
+her wrong for doing it; natural that she herself should think him wrong;
+natural that Leonard should want to know how Helen was, and come, and
+Charles be angry with him for coming--natural, but unreal. In this
+jangle of causes and effects what had become of their true selves? Here
+Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes; yet life was a
+deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of
+hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything,
+except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the
+ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the
+man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave;
+there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As
+a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she, from the turmoil
+and horror of those days, caught glimpses of the diviner wheels.
+
+And Helen, dumb with fright, but trying to keep calm for the child’s
+sake, and Miss Avery, calm, but murmuring tenderly, “No one ever told
+the lad he’ll have a child”--they also reminded her that horror is not
+the end. To what ultimate harmony we tend she did not know, but there
+seemed great chance that a child would be born into the world, to take
+the great chances of beauty and adventure that the world offers. She
+moved through the sunlit garden, gathering narcissi, crimson-eyed and
+white. There was nothing else to be done; the time for telegrams and
+anger was over and it seemed wisest that the hands of Leonard should be
+folded on his breast and be filled with flowers. Here was the father;
+leave it at that. Let Squalor be turned into Tragedy, whose eyes are the
+stars, and whose hands hold the sunset and the dawn.
+
+And even the influx of officials, even the return of the doctor, vulgar
+and acute, could not shake her belief in the eternity of beauty. Science
+explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries
+among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the
+nerves, but this would never give understanding. One could open the
+heart to Mr. Mansbridge and his sort without discovering its secrets to
+them, for they wanted everything down in black and white, and black and
+white was exactly what they were left with.
+
+They questioned her closely about Charles. She never suspected why.
+Death had come, and the doctor agreed that it was due to heart disease.
+They asked to see her father’s sword. She explained that Charles’s anger
+was natural, but mistaken. Miserable questions about Leonard followed,
+all of which she answered unfalteringly. Then back to Charles again. “No
+doubt Mr. Wilcox may have induced death,” she said; “but if it wasn’t
+one thing it would have been another as you know.” At last they thanked
+her and took the sword and the body down to Hilton. She began to pick up
+the books from the floor.
+
+Helen had gone to the farm. It was the best place for her, since she
+had to wait for the inquest. Though, as if things were not hard enough,
+Madge and her husband had raised trouble; they did not see why they
+should receive the offscourings of Howards End. And, of course, they
+were right. The whole world was going to be right, and amply avenge any
+brave talk against the conventions. “Nothing matters,” the Schlegels had
+said in the past, “except one’s self-respect and that of one’s friends.”
+ When the time came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge
+had yielded, and Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and
+to-morrow she would return to Germany.
+
+As for herself, she determined to go too. No message came from Henry;
+perhaps he expected her to apologise. Now that she had time to think
+over her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She neither forgave him
+for his behaviour nor wished to forgive him. Her speech to him seemed
+perfect. She would not have altered a word. It had to be uttered once in
+a life, to adjust the lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only
+to her husband, but to thousands of men like him--a protest against the
+inner darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though
+he would build up his life without hers, she could not apologise. He had
+refused to connect, on the clearest issue that can be laid before a man,
+and their love must take the consequences.
+
+No, there was nothing more to be done. They had tried not to go over the
+precipice, but perhaps the fall was inevitable. And it comforted her to
+think that the future was certainly inevitable; cause and effect would
+go jangling forward to some goal doubtless, but to none that she could
+imagine. At such moments the soul retires within, to float upon the
+bosom of a deeper stream, and has communion with the dead, and sees
+the world’s glory not diminished, but different in kind to what she
+has supposed. She alters her focus until trivial things are blurred.
+Margaret had been tending this way all the winter. Leonard’s death
+brought her to the goal. Alas! that Henry should fade away as reality
+emerged, and only her love for him should remain clear, stamped with his
+image like the cameos we rescue out of dreams.
+
+With unfaltering eye she traced his future. He would soon present a
+healthy mind to the world again, and what did he or the world care if
+he was rotten at the core? He would grow into a rich, jolly old man,
+at times a little sentimental about women, but emptying his glass
+with anyone. Tenacious of power, he would keep Charles and the rest
+dependent, and retire from business reluctantly and at an advanced age.
+He would settle down--though she could not realise this. In her eyes
+Henry was always moving and causing others to move, until the ends of
+the earth met. But in time he must get too tired to move, and settle
+down. What next? The inevitable word. The release of the soul to its
+appropriate Heaven.
+
+Would they meet in it? Margaret believed in immortality for herself. An
+eternal future had always seemed natural to her. And Henry believed in
+it for himself. Yet, would they meet again? Are there not rather endless
+levels beyond the grave, as the theory that he had censured teaches?
+And his level, whether higher or lower, could it possibly be the same as
+hers?
+
+Thus gravely meditating, she was summoned by him. He sent up Crane in
+the motor. Other servants passed like water, but the chauffeur remained,
+though impertinent and disloyal. Margaret disliked Crane, and he knew
+it.
+
+“Is it the keys that Mr. Wilcox wants?” she asked.
+
+“He didn’t say, madam.”
+
+“You haven’t any note for me?”
+
+“He didn’t say, madam.”
+
+After a moment’s thought she locked up Howards End. It was pitiable to
+see in it the stirrings of warmth that would be quenched for ever. She
+raked out the fire that was blazing in the kitchen, and spread the coals
+in the gravelled yard. She closed the windows and drew the curtains.
+Henry would probably sell the place now.
+
+She was determined not to spare him, for nothing new had happened as far
+as they were concerned. Her mood might never have altered from yesterday
+evening. He was standing a little outside Charles’s gate, and motioned
+the car to stop. When his wife got out he said hoarsely: “I prefer to
+discuss things with you outside.”
+
+“It will be more appropriate in the road, I am afraid,” said Margaret.
+“Did you get my message?”
+
+“What about?”
+
+“I am going to Germany with my sister. I must tell you now that I shall
+make it my permanent home. Our talk last night was more important than
+you have realised. I am unable to forgive you and am leaving you.”
+
+“I am extremely tired,” said Henry, in injured tones. “I have been
+walking about all the morning, and wish to sit down.”
+
+“Certainly, if you will consent to sit on the grass.”
+
+The Great North Road should have been bordered all its length with
+glebe. Henry’s kind had filched most of it. She moved to the scrap
+opposite, wherein were the Six Hills. They sat down on the farther side,
+so that they could not be seen by Charles or Dolly.
+
+“Here are your keys,” said Margaret. She tossed them towards him. They
+fell on the sunlit slope of grass, and he did not pick them up.
+
+“I have something to tell you,” he said gently.
+
+She knew this superficial gentleness, this confession of hastiness, that
+was only intended to enhance her admiration of the male.
+
+“I don’t want to hear it,” she replied. “My sister is going to be
+ill. My life is going to be with her now. We must manage to build up
+something, she and I and her child.”
+
+“Where are you going?”
+
+“Munich. We start after the inquest, if she is not too ill.”
+
+“After the inquest?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Have you realised what the verdict at the inquest will be?”
+
+“Yes, heart disease.”
+
+“No, my dear; manslaughter.”
+
+Margaret drove her fingers through the grass. The hill beneath her moved
+as if it were alive.
+
+“Manslaughter,” repeated Mr. Wilcox. “Charles may go to prison. I dare
+not tell him. I don’t know what to do--what to do. I’m broken--I’m
+ended.”
+
+No sudden warmth arose in her. She did not see that to break him was her
+only hope. She did not enfold the sufferer in her arms. But all through
+that day and the next a new life began to move. The verdict was brought
+in. Charles was committed for trial. It was against all reason that he
+should be punished, but the law, notwithstanding, sentenced him to three
+years’ imprisonment. Then Henry’s fortress gave way. He could bear no
+one but his wife; he shambled up to Margaret afterwards and asked her
+to do what she could with him. She did what seemed easiest--she took him
+down to recruit at Howards End.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+Tom’s father was cutting the big meadow. He passed again and again amid
+whirring blades and sweet odours of grass, encompassing with narrowing
+circles the sacred centre of the field. Tom was negotiating with Helen.
+“I haven’t any idea,” she replied. “Do you suppose baby may, Meg?”
+
+Margaret put down her work and regarded them absently. “What was that?”
+ she asked.
+
+“Tom wants to know whether baby is old enough to play with hay?”
+
+“I haven’t the least notion,” answered Margaret, and took up her work
+again.
+
+“Now, Tom, baby is not to stand; he is not to lie on his face; he is not
+to lie so that his head wags; he is not to be teased or tickled; and he
+is not to be cut into two or more pieces by the cutter. Will you be as
+careful as all that?”
+
+Tom held out his arms.
+
+“That child is a wonderful nursemaid,” remarked Margaret.
+
+“He is fond of baby. That’s why he does it!” was Helen’s answer.
+“They’re going to be lifelong friends.”
+
+“Starting at the ages of six and one?”
+
+“Of course. It will be a great thing for Tom.”
+
+“It may be a greater thing for baby.”
+
+Fourteen months had passed, but Margaret still stopped at Howards End.
+No better plan had occurred to her. The meadow was being recut, the
+great red poppies were reopening in the garden. July would follow with
+the little red poppies among the wheat, August with the cutting of the
+wheat. These little events would become part of her year after year.
+Every summer she would fear lest the well should give out, every
+winter lest the pipes should freeze; every westerly gale might blow the
+wych-elm down and bring the end of all things, and so she could not read
+or talk during a westerly gale. The air was tranquil now. She and her
+sister were sitting on the remains of Evie’s rockery, where the lawn
+merged into the field.
+
+“What a time they all are!” said Helen. “What can they be doing inside?”
+ Margaret, who was growing less talkative, made no answer. The noise of
+the cutter came intermittently, like the breaking of waves. Close by
+them a man was preparing to scythe out one of the dell-holes.
+
+“I wish Henry was out to enjoy this,” said Helen. “This lovely weather
+and to be shut up in the house! It’s very hard.”
+
+“It has to be,” said Margaret. “The hay fever is his chief objection
+against living here, but he thinks it worth while.”
+
+“Meg, is or isn’t he ill? I can’t make out.”
+
+“Not ill. Eternally tired. He has worked very hard all his life, and
+noticed nothing. Those are the people who collapse when they do notice a
+thing.”
+
+“I suppose he worries dreadfully about his part of the tangle.”
+
+“Dreadfully. That is why I wish Dolly had not come, too, to-day. Still,
+he wanted them all to come. It has to be.”
+
+“Why does he want them?”
+
+Margaret did not answer.
+
+“Meg, may I tell you something? I like Henry.”
+
+“You’d be odd if you didn’t,” said Margaret.
+
+“I usen’t to.”
+
+“Usen’t!” She lowered her eyes a moment to the black abyss of the past.
+They had crossed it, always excepting Leonard and Charles. They were
+building up a new life, obscure, yet gilded with tranquillity. Leonard
+was dead; Charles had two years more in prison. One usen’t always to see
+clearly before that time. It was different now.
+
+“I like Henry because he does worry.”
+
+“And he likes you because you don’t.”
+
+Helen sighed. She seemed humiliated, and buried her face in her hands.
+After a time she said: “About love,” a transition less abrupt than it
+appeared.
+
+Margaret never stopped working.
+
+“I mean a woman’s love for a man. I supposed I should hang my life on
+to that once, and was driven up and down and about as if something was
+worrying through me. But everything is peaceful now; I seem cured. That
+Herr Forstmeister, whom Frieda keeps writing about, must be a noble
+character, but he doesn’t see that I shall never marry him or anyone. It
+isn’t shame or mistrust of myself. I simply couldn’t. I’m ended. I used
+to be so dreamy about a man’s love as a girl, and think that for good
+or evil love must be the great thing. But it hasn’t been; it has been
+itself a dream. Do you agree?”
+
+“I do not agree. I do not.”
+
+“I ought to remember Leonard as my lover,” said Helen, stepping down
+into the field. “I tempted him, and killed him, and it is surely the
+least I can do. I would like to throw out all my heart to Leonard on
+such an afternoon as this. But I cannot. It is no good pretending. I
+am forgetting him.” Her eyes filled with tears. “How nothing seems to
+match--how, my darling, my precious--” She broke off. “Tommy!”
+
+“Yes, please?”
+
+“Baby’s not to try and stand.--There’s something wanting in me. I see
+you loving Henry, and understanding him better daily, and I know
+that death wouldn’t part you in the least. But I--Is it some awful,
+appalling, criminal defect?”
+
+Margaret silenced her. She said: “It is only that people are far more
+different than is pretended. All over the world men and women are
+worrying because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop.
+Here and there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don’t
+fret yourself, Helen. Develop what you have; love your child. I do not
+love children. I am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty
+and charm, but that is all--nothing real, not one scrap of what there
+ought to be. And others--others go farther still, and move outside
+humanity altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow.
+Don’t you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of
+the battle against sameness. Differences, eternal differences, planted
+by God in a single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow
+perhaps, but colour in the daily grey. Then I can’t have you worrying
+about Leonard. Don’t drag in the personal when it will not come. Forget
+him.”
+
+“Yes, yes, but what has Leonard got out of life?”
+
+“Perhaps an adventure.”
+
+“Is that enough?”
+
+“Not for us. But for him.”
+
+Helen took up a bunch of grass. She looked at the sorrel, and the red
+and white and yellow clover, and the quaker grass, and the daisies, and
+the bents that composed it. She raised it to her face.
+
+“Is it sweetening yet?” asked Margaret.
+
+“No, only withered.”
+
+“It will sweeten to-morrow.”
+
+Helen smiled. “Oh, Meg, you are a person,” she said. “Think of the
+racket and torture this time last year. But now I couldn’t stop unhappy
+if I tried. What a change--and all through you!”
+
+“Oh, we merely settled down. You and Henry learnt to understand one
+another and to forgive, all through the autumn and the winter.”
+
+“Yes, but who settled us down?”
+
+Margaret did not reply. The scything had begun, and she took off her
+pince-nez to watch it.
+
+“You!” cried Helen. “You did it all, sweetest, though you’re too stupid
+to see. Living here was your plan--I wanted you; he wanted you; and
+everyone said it was impossible, but you knew. Just think of our lives
+without you, Meg--I and baby with Monica, revolting by theory, he handed
+about from Dolly to Evie. But you picked up the pieces, and made us a
+home. Can’t it strike you--even for a moment--that your life has been
+heroic? Can’t you remember the two months after Charles’s arrest, when
+you began to act, and did all?”
+
+“You were both ill at the time,” said Margaret. “I did the obvious
+things. I had two invalids to nurse. Here was a house, ready furnished
+and empty. It was obvious. I didn’t know myself it would turn into a
+permanent home. No doubt I have done a little towards straightening the
+tangle, but things that I can’t phrase have helped me.”
+
+“I hope it will be permanent,” said Helen, drifting away to other
+thoughts.
+
+“I think so. There are moments when I feel Howards End peculiarly our
+own.”
+
+“All the same, London’s creeping.”
+
+She pointed over the meadow--over eight or nine meadows, but at the end
+of them was a red rust.
+
+“You see that in Surrey and even Hampshire now,” she continued. “I can
+see it from the Purbeck Downs. And London is only part of something
+else, I’m afraid. Life’s going to be melted down, all over the world.”
+
+Margaret knew that her sister spoke truly. Howards End, Oniton, the
+Purbeck Downs, the Oderberge, were all survivals, and the melting-pot
+was being prepared for them. Logically, they had no right to be alive.
+One’s hope was in the weakness of logic. Were they possibly the earth
+beating time?
+
+“Because a thing is going strong now, it need not go strong for ever,”
+ she said. “This craze for motion has only set in during the last hundred
+years. It may be followed by a civilisation that won’t be a movement,
+because it will rest on the earth. All the signs are against it now, but
+I can’t help hoping, and very early in the morning in the garden I feel
+that our house is the future as well as the past.”
+
+They turned and looked at it. Their own memories coloured it now,
+for Helen’s child had been born in the central room of the nine. Then
+Margaret said, “Oh, take care--!” for something moved behind the window
+of the hall, and the door opened.
+
+“The conclave’s breaking at last. I’ll go.”
+
+It was Paul.
+
+Helen retreated with the children far into the field. Friendly voices
+greeted her. Margaret rose, to encounter a man with a heavy black
+moustache.
+
+“My father has asked for you,” he said with hostility.
+
+She took her work and followed him.
+
+“We have been talking business,” he continued, “but I dare say you knew
+all about it beforehand.”
+
+“Yes, I did.”
+
+Clumsy of movement--for he had spent all his life in the saddle--Paul
+drove his foot against the paint of the front door. Mrs. Wilcox gave
+a little cry of annoyance. She did not like anything scratched; she
+stopped in the hall to take Dolly’s boa and gloves out of a vase.
+
+Her husband was lying in a great leather chair in the dining-room, and
+by his side, holding his hand rather ostentatiously, was Evie. Dolly,
+dressed in purple, sat near the window. The room was a little dark and
+airless; they were obliged to keep it like this until the carting of the
+hay. Margaret joined the family without speaking; the five of them had
+met already at tea, and she knew quite well what was going to be said.
+Averse to wasting her time, she went on sewing. The clock struck six.
+
+“Is this going to suit everyone?” said Henry in a weary voice. He used
+the old phrases, but their effect was unexpected and shadowy. “Because I
+don’t want you all coming here later on and complaining that I have been
+unfair.”
+
+“It’s apparently got to suit us,” said Paul.
+
+“I beg your pardon, my boy. You have only to speak, and I will leave the
+house to you instead.”
+
+Paul frowned ill-temperedly, and began scratching at his arm. “As I’ve
+given up the outdoor life that suited me, and I have come home to look
+after the business, it’s no good my settling down here,” he said at
+last. “It’s not really the country, and it’s not the town.”
+
+“Very well. Does my arrangement suit you, Evie?”
+
+“Of course, father.”
+
+“And you, Dolly?”
+
+Dolly raised her faded little face, which sorrow could wither but not
+steady. “Perfectly splendidly,” she said. “I thought Charles wanted
+it for the boys, but last time I saw him he said no, because we cannot
+possibly live in this part of England again. Charles says we ought
+to change our name, but I cannot think what to, for Wilcox just suits
+Charles and me, and I can’t think of any other name.”
+
+There was a general silence. Dolly looked nervously round, fearing that
+she had been inappropriate. Paul continued to scratch his arm.
+
+“Then I leave Howards End to my wife absolutely,” said Henry. “And let
+everyone understand that; and after I am dead let there be no jealousy
+and no surprise.”
+
+Margaret did not answer. There was something uncanny in her triumph.
+She, who had never expected to conquer anyone, had charged straight
+through these Wilcoxes and broken up their lives.
+
+“In consequence, I leave my wife no money,” said Henry. “That is her own
+wish. All that she would have had will be divided among you. I am also
+giving you a great deal in my lifetime, so that you may be independent
+of me. That is her wish, too. She also is giving away a great deal of
+money. She intends to diminish her income by half during the next ten
+years; she intends when she dies to leave the house to her nephew, down
+in the field. Is all that clear? Does everyone understand?”
+
+Paul rose to his feet. He was accustomed to natives, and a very little
+shook him out of the Englishman. Feeling manly and cynical, he said:
+“Down in the field? Oh, come! I think we might have had the whole
+establishment, piccaninnies included.”
+
+Mrs. Cahill whispered: “Don’t, Paul. You promised you’d take care.”
+ Feeling a woman of the world, she rose and prepared to take her leave.
+
+Her father kissed her. “Good-bye, old girl,” he said; “don’t you worry
+about me.”
+
+“Good-bye, dad.”
+
+Then it was Dolly’s turn. Anxious to contribute, she laughed nervously,
+and said: “Good-bye, Mr. Wilcox. It does seem curious that Mrs. Wilcox
+should have left Margaret Howards End, and yet she get it, after all.”
+
+From Evie came a sharply-drawn breath. “Goodbye,” she said to Margaret,
+and kissed her.
+
+And again and again fell the word, like the ebb of a dying sea.
+
+“Good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye, Dolly.”
+
+“So long, father.”
+
+“Good-bye, my boy; always take care of yourself.”
+
+“Good-bye, Mrs. Wilcox.”
+
+“Good-bye.”
+
+Margaret saw their visitors to the gate. Then she returned to her
+husband and laid her head in his hands. He was pitiably tired. But
+Dolly’s remark had interested her. At last she said: “Could you tell me,
+Henry, what was that about Mrs. Wilcox having left me Howards End?”
+
+Tranquilly he replied: “Yes, she did. But that is a very old story.
+When she was ill and you were so kind to her she wanted to make you some
+return, and, not being herself at the time, scribbled ‘Howards End’ on
+a piece of paper. I went into it thoroughly, and, as it was clearly
+fanciful, I set it aside, little knowing what my Margaret would be to me
+in the future.”
+
+Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost recesses,
+and she shivered.
+
+“I didn’t do wrong, did I?” he asked, bending down.
+
+“You didn’t, darling. Nothing has been done wrong.”
+
+From the garden came laughter. “Here they are at last!” exclaimed Henry,
+disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the gloom, holding
+Tom by one hand and carrying her baby on the other. There were shouts of
+infectious joy.
+
+“The field’s cut!” Helen cried excitedly--“the big meadow! We’ve seen to
+the very end, and it’ll be such a crop of hay as never!”
+
+WEYBRIDGE, 1908-1910.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+
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+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Howards End
+
+Author: E. M. Forster
+
+Release Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #2946]
+[Last updated September 8, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOWARDS END ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      HOWARDS END
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By E. M. Forster
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One may as well begin with Helen&rsquo;s letters to her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tuesday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest Meg,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and
+      altogether delightful&mdash;red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is,
+      and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives
+      to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or
+      drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in
+      it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the
+      first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a row
+      above. That isn&rsquo;t all the house really, but it&rsquo;s all that one notices&mdash;nine
+      windows as you look up from the front garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s a very big wych-elm&mdash;to the left as you look up&mdash;leaning
+      a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden
+      and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks&mdash;no
+      nastier than ordinary oaks&mdash;pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No
+      silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I
+      only wanted to show that it isn&rsquo;t the least what we expected. Why did we
+      settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden
+      all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate them
+      with expensive hotels&mdash;Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down
+      long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are that
+      unjust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They are as
+      angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is too tiresome, he
+      starts a new mortal disease every month. How could he have got hay fever
+      in London? and even if he could, it seems hard that you should give up a
+      visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son
+      who is here) has hay fever too, but he&rsquo;s brave, and gets quite cross when
+      we inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good.
+      But you won&rsquo;t agree, and I&rsquo;d better change the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This long letter is because I&rsquo;m writing before breakfast. Oh, the
+      beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I looked out
+      earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. She evidently loves
+      it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large red
+      poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose corner
+      to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress over the
+      sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was
+      cut yesterday&mdash;I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on
+      smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of
+      croquet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox practising;
+      they are keen on all games. Presently he started sneezing and had to stop.
+      Then I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and then,
+      &lsquo;a-tissue, a-tissue&rsquo;: he has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and does
+      some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a
+      green-gage-tree&mdash;they put everything to use&mdash;and then she says
+      &lsquo;a-tissue,&rsquo; and in she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail,
+      trail, still smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this
+      on you because once you said that life is sometimes life and sometimes
+      only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish tother from which, and up
+      to now I have always put that down as &lsquo;Meg&rsquo;s clever nonsense.&rsquo; But this
+      morning, it really does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me
+      enormously to watch the W&rsquo;s. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an [omission],
+      and Evie [omission]. So it isn&rsquo;t exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if
+      you shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not
+      if you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of
+      them over the lawn&mdash;magnificently tall, so that they fall down in
+      garlands, and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks
+      through it and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house
+      near us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to Tibby.
+      Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you company, but what
+      a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friday
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest Meg,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if quieter
+      than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw anything like her
+      steady unselfishness, and the best of it is that the others do not take
+      advantage of her. They are the very happiest, jolliest family that you can
+      imagine. I do really feel that we are making friends. The fun of it is
+      that they think me a noodle, and say so&mdash;at least, Mr. Wilcox does&mdash;and
+      when that happens, and one doesn&rsquo;t mind, it&rsquo;s a pretty sure test, isn&rsquo;t
+      it? He says the most horrid things about woman&rsquo;s suffrage so nicely, and
+      when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms and gave me
+      such a setting down as I&rsquo;ve never had. Meg, shall we ever learn to talk
+      less? I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I couldn&rsquo;t point to a
+      time when men had been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal
+      had made them happier in other ways. I couldn&rsquo;t say a word. I had just
+      picked up the notion that equality is good from some book&mdash;probably
+      from poetry, or you. Anyhow, it&rsquo;s been knocked into pieces, and, like all
+      people who are really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the
+      other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay fever. We live like
+      fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out every day in the motor&mdash;a
+      tomb with trees in it, a hermit&rsquo;s house, a wonderful road that was made by
+      the Kings of Mercia&mdash;tennis&mdash;a cricket match&mdash;bridge and at
+      night we squeeze up in this lovely house. The whole clan&rsquo;s here now&mdash;it&rsquo;s
+      like a rabbit warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over Sunday&mdash;I
+      suppose it won&rsquo;t matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the views
+      marvellous&mdash;views westward to the high ground. Thank you for your
+      letter. Burn this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your affectionate
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sunday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest, dearest Meg,&mdash;I do not know what you will say: Paul and I
+      are in love&mdash;the younger son who only came here Wednesday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret glanced at her sister&rsquo;s note and pushed it over the
+      breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment&rsquo;s hush, and then the
+      flood-gates opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do. We met&mdash;we
+      only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I know so little that I
+      didn&rsquo;t even know their son&rsquo;s name. It&rsquo;s all so&mdash;&rdquo; She waved her hand
+      and laughed a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case it is far too sudden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn&rsquo;t be unpractical now that we&rsquo;ve
+      come to facts. It is too sudden, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Margaret, dear&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go for her other letters,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;ll finish
+      my breakfast. In fact, I haven&rsquo;t them. We met the Wilcoxes on an awful
+      expedition that we made from Heidelberg to Speyer. Helen and I had got it
+      into our heads that there was a grand old cathedral at Speyer&mdash;the
+      Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electors&mdash;you know&mdash;&lsquo;Speyer,
+      Maintz, and Koln.&rsquo; Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and
+      got it the name of Priest Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it looked
+      quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole thing. The
+      cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by restoration; not an inch
+      left of the original structure. We wasted a whole day, and came across the
+      Wilcoxes as we were eating our sandwiches in the public gardens. They too,
+      poor things, had been taken in&mdash;they were actually stopping at Speyer&mdash;and
+      they rather liked Helen&rsquo;s insisting that they must fly with us to
+      Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on next day. We all took
+      some drives together. They knew us well enough to ask Helen to come and
+      see them&mdash;at least, I was asked too, but Tibby&rsquo;s illness prevented
+      me, so last Monday she went alone. That&rsquo;s all. You know as much as I do
+      now. It&rsquo;s a young man out of the unknown. She was to have come back
+      Saturday, but put off till Monday, perhaps on account of&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning. Their house
+      was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty promontory of
+      buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare. One had the sense of a
+      backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose waters flowed in from the
+      invisible sea, and ebbed into a profound silence while the waves without
+      were still beating. Though the promontory consisted of flats&mdash;expensive,
+      with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms&mdash;it
+      fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a certain
+      measure of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These, too, would be swept away in time, and another promontory would
+      arise upon their site, as humanity piled itself higher and higher on the
+      precious soil of London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces. She decided that
+      Margaret was a little hysterical, and was trying to gain time by a torrent
+      of talk. Feeling very diplomatic, she lamented the fate of Speyer, and
+      declared that never, never should she be so misguided as to visit it, and
+      added of her own accord that the principles of restoration were ill
+      understood in Germany. &ldquo;The Germans,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;are too thorough, and
+      this is all very well sometimes, but at other times it does not do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; said Margaret; &ldquo;Germans are too thorough.&rdquo; And her eyes began
+      to shine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I regard you Schlegels as English,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt hastily&mdash;&ldquo;English
+      to the backbone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that reminds me&mdash;Helen&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helen&rsquo;s letter. I know&mdash;I
+      must go down and see her. I am thinking about her all right. I am meaning
+      to go down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But go with some plan,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her kindly voice a
+      note of exasperation. &ldquo;Margaret, if I may interfere, don&rsquo;t be taken by
+      surprise. What do you think of the Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they
+      likely people? Could they appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very
+      special sort of person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is
+      most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most
+      important. How old would the son be? She says &lsquo;younger son.&rsquo; Would he be
+      in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen happy? Did you gather&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gathered nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They began to talk at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then in that case&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case I can make no plans, don&rsquo;t you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isn&rsquo;t a baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then in that case, my dear, why go down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. If her aunt could not see why she must go down, she
+      was not going to tell her. She was not going to say, &ldquo;I love my dear
+      sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her life.&rdquo; The affections are
+      more reticent than the passions, and their expression more subtle. If she
+      herself should ever fall in love with a man, she, like Helen, would
+      proclaim it from the housetops, but as she loved only a sister she used
+      the voiceless language of sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I consider you odd girls,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Munt, &ldquo;and very wonderful
+      girls, and in many ways far older than your years. But&mdash;you won&rsquo;t be
+      offended? frankly, I feel you are not up to this business. It requires an
+      older person. Dear, I have nothing to call me back to Swanage.&rdquo; She spread
+      out her plump arms. &ldquo;I am all at your disposal. Let me go down to this
+      house whose name I forget instead of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley&rdquo;&mdash;she jumped up and kissed her&mdash;&ldquo;I must, must go to
+      Howards End myself. You don&rsquo;t exactly understand, though I can never thank
+      you properly for offering.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do understand,&rdquo; retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence. &ldquo;I go down
+      in no spirit of interference, but to make inquiries. Inquiries are
+      necessary. Now, I am going to be rude. You would say the wrong thing; to a
+      certainty you would. In your anxiety for Helen&rsquo;s happiness you would
+      offend the whole of these Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous
+      questions&mdash;not that one minds offending them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall ask no questions. I have it in Helen&rsquo;s writing that she and a man
+      are in love. There is no question to ask as long as she keeps to that. All
+      the rest isn&rsquo;t worth a straw. A long engagement if you like, but
+      inquiries, questions, plans, lines of action&mdash;no, Aunt Juley, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with
+      something that took the place of both qualities&mdash;something best
+      described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all
+      that she encountered in her path through life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a penniless
+      clerk&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your good
+      maids are dusting the banisters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;or if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter
+      Paterson, I should have said the same.&rdquo; Then, with one of those turns that
+      convinced her aunt that she was not mad really, and convinced observers of
+      another type that she was not a barren theorist, she added: &ldquo;Though in the
+      case of Carter Paterson I should want it to be a very long engagement
+      indeed, I must say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt; &ldquo;and, indeed, I can scarcely follow
+      you. Now, just imagine if you said anything of that sort to the Wilcoxes.
+      I understand it, but most good people would think you mad. Imagine how
+      disconcerting for Helen! What is wanted is a person who will go slowly,
+      slowly in this business, and see how things are and where they are likely
+      to lead to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was down on this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think probably it must; but slowly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you break an engagement off slowly?&rdquo; Her eyes lit up. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s an
+      engagement made of, do you suppose? I think it&rsquo;s made of some hard stuff
+      that may snap, but can&rsquo;t break. It is different to the other ties of life.
+      They stretch or bend. They admit of degree. They&rsquo;re different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly so. But won&rsquo;t you let me just run down to Howards House, and save
+      you all the discomfort? I will really not interfere, but I do so
+      thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels want that one quiet
+      look round will be enough for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret again thanked her, again kissed her, and then ran upstairs to see
+      her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not so well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night. His head ached, his
+      eyes were wet, his mucous membrane, he informed her, in a most
+      unsatisfactory condition. The only thing that made life worth living was
+      the thought of Walter Savage Landor, from whose Imaginary Conversations
+      she had promised to read at frequent intervals during the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She must be
+      assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at first sight. A
+      telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic, a personal visit seemed
+      each moment more impossible. Now the doctor arrived, and said that Tibby
+      was quite bad. Might it really be best to accept Aunt Juley&rsquo;s kind offer,
+      and to send her down to Howards End with a note?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly Margaret was impulsive. She did swing rapidly from one decision
+      to another. Running downstairs into the library, she cried: &ldquo;Yes, I have
+      changed my mind; I do wish that you would go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a train from King&rsquo;s Cross at eleven. At half-past ten Tibby,
+      with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was able to drive her
+      aunt to the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will remember, Aunt Juley, not to be drawn into discussing the
+      engagement. Give my letter to Helen, and say whatever you feel yourself,
+      but do keep clear of the relatives. We have scarcely got their names
+      straight yet, and, besides, that sort of thing is so uncivilised and
+      wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So uncivilised?&rdquo; queried Mrs. Munt, fearing that she was losing the point
+      of some brilliant remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I used an affected word. I only meant would you please talk the thing
+      over only with Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only with Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;&rdquo; But it was no moment to expound the personal nature of
+      love. Even Margaret shrank from it, and contented herself with stroking
+      her good aunt&rsquo;s hand, and with meditating, half sensibly and half
+      poetically, on the journey that was about to begin from King&rsquo;s Cross.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong
+      feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the
+      glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and
+      sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent
+      and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands
+      and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston;
+      Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo. Italians realise this, as is
+      natural; those of them who are so unfortunate as to serve as waiters in
+      Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d&rsquo;Italia, because by it they
+      must return to their homes. And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow
+      his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however shyly, the
+      emotions of fear and love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Margaret&mdash;I hope that it will not set the reader against her&mdash;the
+      station of King&rsquo;s Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very situation&mdash;withdrawn
+      a little behind the facile splendours of St. Pancras&mdash;implied a
+      comment on the materialism of life. Those two great arches, colourless,
+      indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals
+      for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would
+      certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. If you
+      think this ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is telling you
+      about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in plenty of time for
+      the train; that Mrs. Munt, though she took a second-class ticket, was put
+      by the guard into a first (only two &ldquo;seconds&rdquo; on the train, one smoking
+      and the other babies&mdash;one cannot be expected to travel with babies);
+      and that Margaret, on her return to Wickham Place, was confronted with the
+      following telegram:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one&mdash;, HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aunt Juley was gone&mdash;gone irrevocably, and no power on earth
+      could stop her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Most complacently did Mrs. Munt rehearse her mission. Her nieces were
+      independent young women, and it was not often that she was able to help
+      them. Emily&rsquo;s daughters had never been quite like other girls. They had
+      been left motherless when Tibby was born, when Helen was five and Margaret
+      herself but thirteen. It was before the passing of the Deceased Wife&rsquo;s
+      Sister Bill, so Mrs. Munt could without impropriety offer to go and keep
+      house at Wickham Place. But her brother-in-law, who was peculiar and a
+      German, had referred the question to Margaret, who with the crudity of
+      youth had answered, &ldquo;No, they could manage much better alone.&rdquo; Five years
+      later Mr. Schlegel had died too, and Mrs. Munt had repeated her offer.
+      Margaret, crude no longer, had been grateful and extremely nice, but the
+      substance of her answer had been the same. &ldquo;I must not interfere a third
+      time,&rdquo; thought Mrs. Munt. However, of course she did. She learnt, to her
+      horror, that Margaret, now of age, was taking her money out of the old
+      safe investments and putting it into Foreign Things, which always smash.
+      Silence would have been criminal. Her own fortune was invested in Home
+      Rails, and most ardently did she beg her niece to imitate her. &ldquo;Then we
+      should be together, dear.&rdquo; Margaret, out of politeness, invested a few
+      hundreds in the Nottingham and Derby Railway, and though the Foreign
+      Things did admirably and the Nottingham and Derby declined with the steady
+      dignity of which only Home Rails are capable, Mrs. Munt never ceased to
+      rejoice, and to say, &ldquo;I did manage that, at all events. When the smash
+      comes poor Margaret will have a nest-egg to fall back upon.&rdquo; This year
+      Helen came of age, and exactly the same thing happened in Helen&rsquo;s case;
+      she also would shift her money out of Consols, but she, too, almost
+      without being pressed, consecrated a fraction of it to the Nottingham and
+      Derby Railway. So far so good, but in social matters their aunt had
+      accomplished nothing. Sooner or later the girls would enter on the process
+      known as throwing themselves away, and if they had delayed hitherto, it
+      was only that they might throw themselves more vehemently in the future.
+      They saw too many people at Wickham Place&mdash;unshaven musicians, an
+      actress even, German cousins (one knows what foreigners are),
+      acquaintances picked up at Continental hotels (one knows what they are
+      too). It was interesting, and down at Swanage no one appreciated culture
+      more than Mrs. Munt; but it was dangerous, and disaster was bound to come.
+      How right she was, and how lucky to be on the spot when the disaster came!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It was only an hour&rsquo;s
+      journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and lower the window again and again.
+      She passed through the South Welwyn Tunnel, saw light for a moment, and
+      entered the North Welwyn Tunnel, of tragic fame. She traversed the immense
+      viaduct, whose arches span untroubled meadows and the dreamy flow of Tewin
+      Water. She skirted the parks of politicians. At times the Great North Road
+      accompanied her, more suggestive of infinity than any railway, awakening,
+      after a nap of a hundred years, to such life as is conferred by the stench
+      of motor-cars, and to such culture as is implied by the advertisements of
+      antibilious pills. To history, to tragedy, to the past, to the future,
+      Mrs. Munt remained equally indifferent; hers but to concentrate on the end
+      of her journey, and to rescue poor Helen from this dreadful mess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station for Howards End was at Hilton, one of the large villages that
+      are strung so frequently along the North Road, and that owe their size to
+      the traffic of coaching and pre-coaching days. Being near London, it had
+      not shared in the rural decay, and its long High Street had budded out
+      right and left into residential estates. For about a mile a series of
+      tiled and slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s inattentive eyes, a
+      series broken at one point by six Danish tumuli that stood shoulder to
+      shoulder along the highroad, tombs of soldiers. Beyond these tumuli,
+      habitations thickened, and the train came to a standstill in a tangle that
+      was almost a town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station, like the scenery, like Helen&rsquo;s letters, struck an
+      indeterminate note. Into which country will it lead, England or Suburbia?
+      It was new, it had island platforms and a subway, and the superficial
+      comfort exacted by business men. But it held hints of local life, personal
+      intercourse, as even Mrs. Munt was to discover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want a house,&rdquo; she confided to the ticket boy. &ldquo;Its name is Howards
+      Lodge. Do you know where it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox!&rdquo; the boy called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A young man in front of them turned around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s wanting Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing for it but to go forward, though Mrs. Munt was too much
+      agitated even to stare at the stranger. But remembering that there were
+      two brothers, she had the sense to say to him, &ldquo;Excuse me asking, but are
+      you the younger Mr. Wilcox or the elder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The younger. Can I do anything for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well&rdquo;&mdash;she controlled herself with difficulty. &ldquo;Really. Are you?
+      I&mdash;&rdquo; She moved; away from the ticket boy and lowered her voice. &ldquo;I am
+      Miss Schlegel&rsquo;s aunt. I ought to introduce myself, oughtn&rsquo;t I? My name is
+      Mrs. Munt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was conscious that he raised his cap and said quite coolly, &ldquo;Oh,
+      rather; Miss Schlegel is stopping with us. Did you want to see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll call you a cab. No; wait a mo&mdash;&rdquo; He thought. &ldquo;Our motor&rsquo;s here.
+      I&rsquo;ll run you up in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is very kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, if you&rsquo;ll just wait till they bring out a parcel from the
+      office. This way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My niece is not with you by any chance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I came over with my father. He has gone on north in your train.
+      You&rsquo;ll see Miss Schlegel at lunch. You&rsquo;re coming up to lunch, I hope?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to come UP,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, not committing herself to
+      nourishment until she had studied Helen&rsquo;s lover a little more. He seemed a
+      gentleman, but had so rattled her round that her powers of observation
+      were numbed. She glanced at him stealthily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a feminine eye there was nothing amiss in the sharp depressions at the
+      corners of his mouth, or in the rather box-like construction of his
+      forehead. He was dark, clean-shaven, and seemed accustomed to command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In front or behind? Which do you prefer? It may be windy in front.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In front if I may; then we can talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But excuse me one moment&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think what they&rsquo;re doing with that
+      parcel.&rdquo; He strode into the booking-office, and called with a new voice:
+      &ldquo;Hi! hi, you there! Are you going to keep me waiting all day? Parcel for
+      Wilcox, Howards End. Just look sharp!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emerging, he said in quieter tones: &ldquo;This station&rsquo;s abominably organised;
+      if I had my way, the whole lot of &rsquo;em should get the sack. May I help you
+      in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very good of you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, as she settled herself into a
+      luxurious cavern of red leather, and suffered her person to be padded with
+      rugs and shawls. She was more civil than she had intended, but really this
+      young man was very kind. Moreover, she was a little afraid of him; his
+      self-possession was extraordinary. &ldquo;Very good indeed,&rdquo; she repeated,
+      adding: &ldquo;It is just what I should have wished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good of you to say so,&rdquo; he replied, with a slight look of surprise,
+      which, like most slight looks, escaped Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s attention. &ldquo;I was just
+      tooling my father over to catch the down train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, we heard from Helen this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Wilcox was pouring in petrol, starting his engine, and performing
+      other actions with which this story has no concern. The great car began to
+      rock, and the form of Mrs. Munt, trying to explain things, sprang
+      agreeably up and down among the red cushions. &ldquo;The mater will be very glad
+      to see you,&rdquo; he mumbled. &ldquo;Hi! I say. Parcel. Parcel for Howards End. Bring
+      it out. Hi!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bearded porter emerged with the parcel in one hand and an entry book in
+      the other. With the gathering whir of the motor these ejaculations
+      mingled: &ldquo;Sign, must I? Why the &mdash; should I sign after all this bother?
+      Not even got a pencil on you? Remember next time I report you to the
+      station-master. My time&rsquo;s of value, though yours mayn&rsquo;t be. Here&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      being a tip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extremely sorry, Mrs. Munt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you object to going through the village? It is rather a longer
+      spin, but I have one or two commissions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should love going through the village. Naturally I am very anxious to
+      talk things over with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she said this she felt ashamed, for she was disobeying Margaret&rsquo;s
+      instructions. Only disobeying them in the letter, surely. Margaret had
+      only warned her against discussing the incident with outsiders. Surely it
+      was not &ldquo;uncivilised or wrong&rdquo; to discuss it with the young man himself,
+      since chance had thrown them together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A reticent fellow, he made no reply. Mounting by her side, he put on
+      gloves and spectacles, and off they drove, the bearded porter&mdash;life
+      is a mysterious business&mdash;looking after them with admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind was in their faces down the station road, blowing the dust into
+      Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s eyes. But as soon as they turned into the Great North Road she
+      opened fire. &ldquo;You can well imagine,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the news was a great
+      shock to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox,&rdquo; she said frankly, &ldquo;Margaret has told me everything&mdash;everything.
+      I have seen Helen&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not look her in the face, as his eyes were fixed on his work; he
+      was travelling as quickly as he dared down the High Street. But he
+      inclined his head in her direction, and said: &ldquo;I beg your pardon; I didn&rsquo;t
+      catch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Helen. Helen, of course. Helen is a very exceptional person&mdash;I
+      am sure you will let me say this, feeling towards her as you do&mdash;indeed,
+      all the Schlegels are exceptional. I come in no spirit of interference,
+      but it was a great shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They drew up opposite a draper&rsquo;s. Without replying, he turned round in his
+      seat, and contemplated the cloud of dust that they had raised in their
+      passage through the village. It was settling again, but not all into the
+      road from which he had taken it. Some of it had percolated through the
+      open windows, some had whitened the roses and gooseberries of the wayside
+      gardens, while a certain proportion had entered the lungs of the
+      villagers. &ldquo;I wonder when they&rsquo;ll learn wisdom and tar the roads,&rdquo; was his
+      comment. Then a man ran out of the draper&rsquo;s with a roll of oilcloth, and
+      off they went again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret could not come herself, on account of poor Tibby, so I am here
+      to represent her and to have a good talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to be so dense,&rdquo; said the young man, again drawing up outside a
+      shop. &ldquo;But I still haven&rsquo;t quite understood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, Mr. Wilcox&mdash;my niece and you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pushed up his goggles and gazed at her, absolutely bewildered. Horror
+      smote her to the heart, for even she began to suspect that they were at
+      cross-purposes, and that she had commenced her mission by some hideous
+      blunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel and myself?&rdquo; he asked, compressing his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust there has been no misunderstanding,&rdquo; quavered Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;Her
+      letter certainly read that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you and she&mdash;&rdquo; She paused, then drooped her eyelids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I catch your meaning,&rdquo; he said stickily. &ldquo;What an extraordinary
+      mistake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you didn&rsquo;t the least&mdash;&rdquo; she stammered, getting blood-red in the
+      face, and wishing she had never been born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely, as I am already engaged to another lady.&rdquo; There was a moment&rsquo;s
+      silence, and then he caught his breath and exploded with, &ldquo;Oh, good God!
+      Don&rsquo;t tell me it&rsquo;s some silliness of Paul&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you say so at the station?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said nothing of the sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, you did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, I did not. My name is Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Younger&rdquo; may mean son as opposed to father, or second brother as opposed
+      to first. There is much to be said for either view, and later on they said
+      it. But they had other questions before them now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that Paul&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not like his voice. He sounded as if he was talking to a
+      porter, and, certain that he had deceived her at the station, she too grew
+      angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that Paul and your niece&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt&mdash;such is human nature&mdash;determined that she would
+      champion the lovers. She was not going to be bullied by a severe young
+      man. &ldquo;Yes, they care for one another very much indeed,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I dare
+      say they will tell you about it by-and-by. We heard this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Charles clenched his fist and cried, &ldquo;The idiot, the idiot, the little
+      fool!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt tried to divest herself of her rugs. &ldquo;If that is your attitude,
+      Mr. Wilcox, I prefer to walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg you will do no such thing. I take you up this moment to the house.
+      Let me tell you the thing&rsquo;s impossible, and must be stopped.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt did not often lose her temper, and when she did it was only to
+      protect those whom she loved. On this occasion she blazed out. &ldquo;I quite
+      agree, sir. The thing is impossible, and I will come up and stop it. My
+      niece is a very exceptional person, and I am not inclined to sit still
+      while she throws herself away on those who will not appreciate her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles worked his jaws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering she has only known your brother since Wednesday, and only met
+      your father and mother at a stray hotel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could you possibly lower your voice? The shopman will overhear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esprit de classe&mdash;if one may coin the phrase&mdash;was strong in Mrs.
+      Munt. She sat quivering while a member of the lower orders deposited a
+      metal funnel, a saucepan, and a garden squirt beside the roll of oilcloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right behind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo; And the lower orders vanished in a cloud of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I warn you: Paul hasn&rsquo;t a penny; it&rsquo;s useless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need to warn us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you. The warning is all the
+      other way. My niece has been very foolish, and I shall give her a good
+      scolding and take her back to London with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has to make his way out in Nigeria. He couldn&rsquo;t think of marrying for
+      years, and when he does it must be a woman who can stand the climate, and
+      is in other ways&mdash;Why hasn&rsquo;t he told us? Of course he&rsquo;s ashamed. He
+      knows he&rsquo;s been a fool. And so he has&mdash;a downright fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She grew furious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whereas Miss Schlegel has lost no time in publishing the news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were a man, Mr. Wilcox, for that last remark I&rsquo;d box your ears.
+      You&rsquo;re not fit to clean my niece&rsquo;s boots, to sit in the same room with
+      her, and you dare&mdash;you actually dare&mdash;I decline to argue with
+      such a person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I know is, she&rsquo;s spread the thing and he hasn&rsquo;t, and my father&rsquo;s away
+      and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And all that I know is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might I finish my sentence, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles clenched his teeth and sent the motor swerving all over the lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She screamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So they played the game of Capping Families, a round of which is always
+      played when love would unite two members of our race. But they played it
+      with unusual vigour, stating in so many words that Schlegels were better
+      than Wilcoxes, Wilcoxes better than Schlegels. They flung decency aside.
+      The man was young, the woman deeply stirred; in both a vein of coarseness
+      was latent. Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels&mdash;inevitable
+      at the time, incredible afterwards. But it was more than usually futile. A
+      few minutes, and they were enlightened. The motor drew up at Howards End,
+      and Helen, looking very pale, ran out to meet her aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley, I have just had a telegram from Margaret; I&mdash;I meant to
+      stop your coming. It isn&rsquo;t&mdash;it&rsquo;s over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The climax was too much for Mrs. Munt. She burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley dear, don&rsquo;t. Don&rsquo;t let them know I&rsquo;ve been so silly. It wasn&rsquo;t
+      anything. Do bear up for my sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul,&rdquo; cried Charles Wilcox, pulling his gloves off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let them know. They are never to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my darling Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul! Paul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A very young man came out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul, is there any truth in this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t&mdash;I don&rsquo;t&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes or no, man; plain question, plain answer. Did or didn&rsquo;t Miss Schlegel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles, dear,&rdquo; said a voice from the garden. &ldquo;Charles, dear Charles, one
+      doesn&rsquo;t ask plain questions. There aren&rsquo;t such things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were all silent. It was Mrs. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She approached just as Helen&rsquo;s letter had described her, trailing
+      noiselessly over the lawn, and there was actually a wisp of hay in her
+      hands. She seemed to belong not to the young people and their motor, but
+      to the house, and to the tree that overshadowed it. One knew that she
+      worshipped the past, and that the instinctive wisdom the past can alone
+      bestow had descended upon her&mdash;that wisdom to which we give the
+      clumsy name of aristocracy. High born she might not be. But assuredly she
+      cared about her ancestors, and let them help her. When she saw Charles
+      angry, Paul frightened, and Mrs. Munt in tears, she heard her ancestors
+      say, &ldquo;Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most. The rest
+      can wait.&rdquo; So she did not ask questions. Still less did she pretend that
+      nothing had happened, as a competent society hostess would have done. She
+      said: &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, would you take your aunt up to your room or to my
+      room, whichever you think best. Paul, do find Evie, and tell her lunch for
+      six, but I&rsquo;m not sure whether we shall all be downstairs for it.&rdquo; And when
+      they had obeyed her, she turned to her elder son, who still stood in the
+      throbbing, stinking car, and smiled at him with tenderness, and without
+      saying a word, turned away from him towards her flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;are you aware that Paul has been playing the fool
+      again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right, dear. They have broken off the engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Engagement&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They do not love any longer, if you prefer it put that way,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Wilcox, stooping down to smell a rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Helen and her aunt returned to Wickham Place in a state of collapse, and
+      for a little time Margaret had three invalids on her hands. Mrs. Munt soon
+      recovered. She possessed to a remarkable degree the power of distorting
+      the past, and before many days were over she had forgotten the part played
+      by her own imprudence in the catastrophe. Even at the crisis she had
+      cried, &ldquo;Thank goodness, poor Margaret is saved this!&rdquo; which during the
+      journey to London evolved into, &ldquo;It had to be gone through by some one,&rdquo;
+       which in its turn ripened into the permanent form of &ldquo;The one time I
+      really did help Emily&rsquo;s girls was over the Wilcox business.&rdquo; But Helen was
+      a more serious patient. New ideas had burst upon her like a thunderclap,
+      and by them and by their reverberations she had been stunned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth was that she had fallen in love, not with an individual, but
+      with a family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Paul arrived she had, as it were, been tuned up into his key. The
+      energy of the Wilcoxes had fascinated her, had created new images of
+      beauty in her responsive mind. To be all day with them in the open air, to
+      sleep at night under their roof, had seemed the supreme joy of life, and
+      had led to that abandonment of personality that is a possible prelude to
+      love. She had liked giving in to Mr. Wilcox, or Evie, or Charles; she had
+      liked being told that her notions of life were sheltered or academic; that
+      Equality was nonsense, Votes for Women nonsense, Socialism nonsense, Art
+      and Literature, except when conducive to strengthening the character,
+      nonsense. One by one the Schlegel fetiches had been overthrown, and,
+      though professing to defend them, she had rejoiced. When Mr. Wilcox said
+      that one sound man of business did more good to the world than a dozen of
+      your social reformers, she had swallowed the curious assertion without a
+      gasp, and had leant back luxuriously among the cushions of his motorcar.
+      When Charles said, &ldquo;Why be so polite to servants? they don&rsquo;t understand
+      it,&rdquo; she had not given the Schlegel retort of, &ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t understand
+      it, I do.&rdquo; No; she had vowed to be less polite to servants in the future.
+      &ldquo;I am swathed in cant,&rdquo; she thought, &ldquo;and it is good for me to be stripped
+      of it.&rdquo; And all that she thought or did or breathed was a quiet
+      preparation for Paul. Paul was inevitable. Charles was taken up with
+      another girl, Mr. Wilcox was so old, Evie so young, Mrs. Wilcox so
+      different. Round the absent brother she began to throw the halo of
+      Romance, to irradiate him with all the splendour of those happy days, to
+      feel that in him she should draw nearest to the robust ideal. He and she
+      were about the same age, Evie said. Most people thought Paul handsomer
+      than his brother. He was certainly a better shot, though not so good at
+      golf. And when Paul appeared, flushed with the triumph of getting through
+      an examination, and ready to flirt with any pretty girl, Helen met him
+      halfway, or more than halfway, and turned towards him on the Sunday
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been talking of his approaching exile in Nigeria, and he should
+      have continued to talk of it, and allowed their guest to recover. But the
+      heave of her bosom flattered him. Passion was possible, and he became
+      passionate. Deep down in him something whispered, &ldquo;This girl would let you
+      kiss her; you might not have such a chance again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was &ldquo;how it happened,&rdquo; or, rather, how Helen described it to her
+      sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own. But the poetry of
+      that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there was in life for hours
+      after it&mdash;who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman to
+      sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular cynic and
+      the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity. It is so easy to
+      talk of &ldquo;passing emotion,&rdquo; and to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it
+      passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We
+      recognise that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are
+      personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for
+      an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the impulse too highly. We do not
+      admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be
+      shaken open. To Helen, at all events, her life was to bring nothing more
+      intense than the embrace of this boy who played no part in it. He had
+      drawn her out of the house, where there was danger of surprise and light;
+      he had led her by a path he knew, until they stood under the column of the
+      vast wych-elm. A man in the darkness, he had whispered &ldquo;I love you&rdquo; when
+      she was desiring love. In time his slender personality faded, the scene
+      that he had evoked endured. In all the variable years that followed she
+      never saw the like of it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said Margaret&mdash; &ldquo;at least, I understand as much as
+      ever is understood of these things. Tell me now what happened on the
+      Monday morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was over at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How, Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was still happy while I dressed, but as I came downstairs I got
+      nervous, and when I went into the dining-room I knew it was no good. There
+      was Evie&mdash;I can&rsquo;t explain&mdash;managing the tea-urn, and Mr. Wilcox
+      reading the Times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was Paul there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and Charles was talking to him about stocks and shares, and he
+      looked frightened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By slight indications the sisters could convey much to each other.
+      Margaret saw horror latent in the scene, and Helen&rsquo;s next remark did not
+      surprise her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow, when that kind of man looks frightened it is too awful. It is
+      all right for us to be frightened, or for men of another sort&mdash;father,
+      for instance; but for men like that! When I saw all the others so placid,
+      and Paul mad with terror in case I said the wrong thing, I felt for a
+      moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of newspapers
+      and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it fell I should find nothing
+      behind it but panic and emptiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that. The Wilcoxes struck me as being genuine people,
+      particularly the wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t really think that. But Paul was so broad-shouldered; all
+      kinds of extraordinary things made it worse, and I knew that it would
+      never do&mdash;never. I said to him after breakfast, when the others were
+      practising strokes, &lsquo;We rather lost our heads,&rsquo; and he looked better at
+      once, though frightfully ashamed. He began a speech about having no money
+      to marry on, but it hurt him to make it, and I stopped him. Then he said,
+      &lsquo;I must beg your pardon over this, Miss Schlegel; I can&rsquo;t think what came
+      over me last night.&rsquo; And I said, &lsquo;Nor what over me; never mind.&rsquo; And then
+      we parted&mdash;at least, until I remembered that I had written straight
+      off to tell you the night before, and that frightened him again. I asked
+      him to send a telegram for me, for he knew you would be coming or
+      something; and he tried to get hold of the motor, but Charles and Mr.
+      Wilcox wanted it to go to the station; and Charles offered to send the
+      telegram for me, and then I had to say that the telegram was of no
+      consequence, for Paul said Charles might read it, and though I wrote it
+      out several times, he always said people would suspect something. He took
+      it himself at last, pretending that he must walk down to get cartridges,
+      and, what with one thing and the other, it was not handed in at the
+      post-office until too late. It was the most terrible morning. Paul
+      disliked me more and more, and Evie talked cricket averages till I nearly
+      screamed. I cannot think how I stood her all the other days. At last
+      Charles and his father started for the station, and then came your
+      telegram warning me that Aunt Juley was coming by that train, and Paul&mdash;oh,
+      rather horrible&mdash;said that I had muddled it. But Mrs. Wilcox knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knew what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything; though we neither of us told her a word, and she had known
+      all along, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she must have overheard you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so, but it seemed wonderful. When Charles and Aunt Juley drove
+      up, calling each other names, Mrs. Wilcox stepped in from the garden and
+      made everything less terrible. Ugh! but it has been a disgusting business.
+      To think that&mdash;&rdquo; She sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To think that because you and a young man meet for a moment, there must
+      be all these telegrams and anger,&rdquo; supplied Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often thought about it, Helen. It&rsquo;s one of the most interesting
+      things in the world. The truth is that there is a great outer life that
+      you and I have never touched&mdash;a life in which telegrams and anger
+      count. Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme there.
+      There love means marriage settlements, death, death duties. So far I&rsquo;m
+      clear. But here my difficulty. This outer life, though obviously horrid;
+      often seems the real one&mdash;there&rsquo;s grit in it. It does breed
+      character. Do personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Meg&mdash;, that&rsquo;s what I felt, only not so clearly, when the
+      Wilcoxes were so competent, and seemed to have their hands on all the
+      ropes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you feel it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember Paul at breakfast,&rdquo; said Helen quietly. &ldquo;I shall never forget
+      him. He had nothing to fall back upon. I know that personal relations are
+      the real life, for ever and ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So the Wilcox episode fell into the background, leaving behind it memories
+      of sweetness and horror that mingled, and the sisters pursued the life
+      that Helen had commended. They talked to each other and to other people,
+      they filled the tall thin house at Wickham Place with those whom they
+      liked or could befriend. They even attended public meetings. In their own
+      fashion they cared deeply about politics, though not as politicians would
+      have us care; they desired that public life should mirror whatever is good
+      in the life within. Temperance, tolerance, and sexual equality were
+      intelligible cries to them; whereas they did not follow our Forward Policy
+      in Tibet with the keen attention that it merits, and would at times
+      dismiss the whole British Empire with a puzzled, if reverent, sigh. Not
+      out of them are the shows of history erected: the world would be a grey,
+      bloodless place were it composed entirely of Miss Schlegels. But the world
+      being what it is, perhaps they shine out in it like stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A word on their origin. They were not &ldquo;English to the back-bone,&rdquo; as their
+      aunt had piously asserted. But, on the other hand, they were not &ldquo;Germans
+      of the dreadful sort.&rdquo; Their father had belonged to a type that was more
+      prominent in Germany fifty years ago than now. He was not the aggressive
+      German, so dear to the English journalist, nor the domestic German, so
+      dear to the English wit. If one classed him at all it would be as the
+      countryman of Hegel and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be dreamy,
+      whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. Not that his life had
+      been inactive. He had fought like blazes against Denmark, Austria, France.
+      But he had fought without visualising the results of victory. A hint of
+      the truth broke on him after Sedan, when he saw the dyed moustaches of
+      Napoleon going grey; another when he entered Paris, and saw the smashed
+      windows of the Tuileries. Peace came&mdash;it was all very immense, one
+      had turned into an Empire&mdash;but he knew that some quality had vanished
+      for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him. Germany a
+      commercial Power, Germany a naval Power, Germany with colonies here and a
+      Forward Policy there, and legitimate aspirations in the other place, might
+      appeal to others, and be fitly served by them; for his own part, he
+      abstained from the fruits of victory, and naturalised himself in England.
+      The more earnest members of his family never forgave him, and knew that
+      his children, though scarcely English of the dreadful sort, would never be
+      German to the back-bone. He had obtained work in one of our provincial
+      universities, and there married Poor Emily (or Die Englanderin, as the
+      case may be), and as she had money, they proceeded to London, and came to
+      know a good many people. But his gaze was always fixed beyond the sea. It
+      was his hope that the clouds of materialism obscuring the Fatherland would
+      part in time, and the mild intellectual light re-emerge. &ldquo;Do you imply
+      that we Germans are stupid, Uncle Ernst?&rdquo; exclaimed a haughty and
+      magnificent nephew. Uncle Ernst replied, &ldquo;To my mind. You use the
+      intellect, but you no longer care about it. That I call stupidity.&rdquo; As the
+      haughty nephew did not follow, he continued, &ldquo;You only care about the
+      things that you can use, and therefore arrange them in the following
+      order: Money, supremely useful; intellect, rather useful; imagination, of
+      no use at all. No&rdquo;&mdash;for the other had protested&mdash;&ldquo;your
+      Pan-Germanism is no more imaginative than is our Imperialism over here. It
+      is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a
+      thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square
+      mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven. That
+      is not imagination. No, it kills it. When their poets over here try to
+      celebrate bigness they are dead at once, and naturally. Your poets too are
+      dying, your philosophers, your musicians, to whom Europe has listened for
+      two hundred years. Gone. Gone with the little courts that nurtured them&mdash;gone
+      with Esterhazy and Weimar. What? What&rsquo;s that? Your universities? Oh yes,
+      you have learned men, who collect more facts than do the learned men of
+      England. They collect facts, and facts, and empires of facts. But which of
+      them will rekindle the light within?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To all this Margaret listened, sitting on the haughty nephew&rsquo;s knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a unique education for the little girls. The haughty nephew would
+      be at Wickham Place one day, bringing with him an even haughtier wife,
+      both convinced that Germany was appointed by God to govern the world. Aunt
+      Juley would come the next day, convinced that Great Britain had been
+      appointed to the same post by the same authority. Were both these
+      loud-voiced parties right? On one occasion they had met and Margaret with
+      clasped hands had implored them to argue the subject out in her presence.
+      Whereat they blushed, and began to talk about the weather. &ldquo;Papa,&rdquo; she
+      cried&mdash;she was a most offensive child&mdash;&ldquo;why will they not
+      discuss this most clear question?&rdquo; Her father, surveying the parties
+      grimly, replied that he did not know. Putting her head on one side,
+      Margaret then remarked, &ldquo;To me one of two things is very clear; either God
+      does not know his own mind about England and Germany, or else these do not
+      know the mind of God.&rdquo; A hateful little girl, but at thirteen she had
+      grasped a dilemma that most people travel through life without perceiving.
+      Her brain darted up and down; it grew pliant and strong. Her conclusion
+      was, that any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any organisation,
+      and from this she never varied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen advanced along the same lines, though with a more irresponsible
+      tread. In character she resembled her sister, but she was pretty, and so
+      apt to have a more amusing time. People gathered round her more readily,
+      especially when they were new acquaintances, and she did enjoy a little
+      homage very much. When their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham
+      Place, she often absorbed the whole of the company, while Margaret&mdash;both
+      were tremendous talkers&mdash;fell flat. Neither sister bothered about
+      this. Helen never apologised afterwards, Margaret did not feel the
+      slightest rancour. But looks have their influence upon character. The
+      sisters were alike as little girls, but at the time of the Wilcox episode
+      their methods were beginning to diverge; the younger was rather apt to
+      entice people, and, in enticing them, to be herself enticed; the elder
+      went straight ahead, and accepted an occasional failure as part of the
+      game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little need be premised about Tibby. He was now an intelligent man of
+      sixteen, but dyspeptic and difficile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It will be generally admitted that Beethoven&rsquo;s Fifth Symphony is the most
+      sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and
+      conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap
+      surreptitiously when the tunes come&mdash;of course, not so as to disturb
+      the others&mdash;or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the
+      music&rsquo;s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like
+      Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score
+      open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who remembers
+      all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch; or like Fraulein Mosebach&rsquo;s
+      young man, who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach: in any case,
+      the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit
+      that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. It is cheap, even if you hear
+      it in the Queen&rsquo;s Hall, dreariest music-room in London, though not as
+      dreary as the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; and even if you sit on the
+      extreme left of that hall, so that the brass bumps at you before the rest
+      of the orchestra arrives, it is still cheap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom is Margaret talking to?&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, at the conclusion of the
+      first movement. She was again in London on a visit to Wickham Place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen looked down the long line of their party, and said that she did not
+      know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect so,&rdquo; Helen replied. Music enwrapped her, and she could not enter
+      into the distinction that divides young men whom one takes an interest in
+      from young men whom one knows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You girls are so wonderful in always having&mdash;Oh dear! one mustn&rsquo;t
+      talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the Andante had begun&mdash;very beautiful, but bearing a family
+      likeness to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had written,
+      and, to Helen&rsquo;s mind, rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of
+      the first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third. She heard the
+      tune through once, and then her attention wandered, and she gazed at the
+      audience, or the organ, or the architecture. Much did she censure the
+      attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen&rsquo;s Hall, inclining
+      each to each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow pantaloons, on which
+      the October sunlight struck. &ldquo;How awful to marry a man like those Cupids!&rdquo;
+       thought Helen. Here Beethoven started decorating his tune, so she heard
+      him through once more, and then she smiled at her Cousin Frieda. But
+      Frieda, listening to Classical Music, could not respond. Herr Liesecke,
+      too, looked as if wild horses could not make him inattentive; there were
+      lines across his forehead, his lips were parted, his pince-nez at right
+      angles to his nose, and he had laid a thick, white hand on either knee.
+      And next to her was Aunt Juley, so British, and wanting to tap. How
+      interesting that row of people was! What diverse influences had gone to
+      the making! Here Beethoven, after humming and hawing with great sweetness,
+      said &ldquo;Heigho,&rdquo; and the Andante came to an end. Applause, and a round of
+      &ldquo;wunderschoning&rdquo; and pracht volleying from the German contingent. Margaret
+      started talking to her new young man; Helen said to her aunt: &ldquo;Now comes
+      the wonderful movement: first of all the goblins, and then a trio of
+      elephants dancing&rdquo;; and Tibby implored the company generally to look out
+      for the transitional passage on the drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the what, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the drum, Aunt Juley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; look out for the part where you think you have done with the goblins
+      and they come back,&rdquo; breathed Helen, as the music started with a goblin
+      walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him.
+      They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made them so terrible
+      to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as
+      splendour or heroism in the world. After the interlude of elephants
+      dancing, they returned and made the observation for the second time. Helen
+      could not contradict them, for, once at all events, she had felt the same,
+      and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse. Panic and emptiness!
+      Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right. Her brother raised his
+      finger; it was the transitional passage on the drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold of the goblins
+      and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in person. He gave them a
+      little push, and they began to walk in a major key instead of in a minor,
+      and then&mdash;he blew with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts of
+      splendour, gods and demigods contending with vast swords, colour and
+      fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory,
+      magnificent death! Oh, it all burst before the girl, and she even
+      stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible. Any fate was
+      titanic; any contest desirable; conqueror and conquered would alike be
+      applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the goblins&mdash;they had not really been there at all? They were
+      only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse
+      would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would
+      say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They
+      might return&mdash;and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might
+      boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the
+      terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked
+      quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and
+      emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven
+      chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with
+      his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He
+      brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the
+      magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman
+      joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were
+      there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can
+      trust Beethoven when he says other things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She desired to be alone. The
+      music had summed up to her all that had happened or could happen in her
+      career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She read it as a tangible statement, which could never be superseded. The
+      notes meant this and that to her, and they could have no other meaning,
+      and life could have no other meaning. She pushed right out of the building
+      and walked slowly down the outside staircase, breathing the autumnal air,
+      and then she strolled home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret,&rdquo; called Mrs. Munt, &ldquo;is Helen all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is always going away in the middle of a programme,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The music has evidently moved her deeply,&rdquo; said Fraulein Mosebach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me,&rdquo; said Margaret&rsquo;s young man, who had for some time been
+      preparing a sentence, &ldquo;but that lady has, quite inadvertently, taken my
+      umbrella.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, good gracious me!&mdash;I am so sorry. Tibby, run after Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby, love, you must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t of any consequence,&rdquo; said the young man, in truth a little
+      uneasy about his umbrella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of course it is. Tibby! Tibby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby rose to his feet, and wilfully caught his person on the backs of the
+      chairs. By the time he had tipped up the seat and had found his hat, and
+      had deposited his full score in safety, it was &ldquo;too late&rdquo; to go after
+      Helen. The Four Serious Songs had begun, and one could not move during
+      their performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister is so careless,&rdquo; whispered Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; replied the young man; but his voice was dead and cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would give me your address&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not at all, not at all;&rdquo; and he wrapped his greatcoat over his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret&rsquo;s ears. Brahms, for
+      all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed what it felt like to be
+      suspected of stealing an umbrella. For this fool of a young man thought
+      that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence trick on him,
+      and that if he gave his address they would break into his rooms some
+      midnight or other and steal his walking-stick too. Most ladies would have
+      laughed, but Margaret really minded, for it gave her a glimpse into
+      squalor. To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can
+      indulge; the poor cannot afford it. As soon as Brahms had grunted himself
+      out, she gave him her card and said, &ldquo;That is where we live; if you
+      preferred, you could call for the umbrella after the concert, but I didn&rsquo;t
+      like to trouble you when it has all been our fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W. It was
+      sad to see him corroded with suspicion, and yet not daring to be impolite,
+      in case these well-dressed people were honest after all. She took it as a
+      good sign that he said to her, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a fine programme this afternoon, is
+      it not?&rdquo; for this was the remark with which he had originally opened,
+      before the umbrella intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Beethoven&rsquo;s fine,&rdquo; said Margaret, who was not a female of the
+      encouraging type. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like the Brahms, though, nor the Mendelssohn
+      that came first and ugh! I don&rsquo;t like this Elgar that&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, what?&rdquo; called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. &ldquo;The &lsquo;Pomp and
+      Circumstance&rsquo; will not be fine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!&rdquo; cried her aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for &lsquo;Pomp and
+      Circumstance,&rsquo; and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him to
+      hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,&mdash;you musn&rsquo;t run down our English
+      composers, Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin,&rdquo; said Fraulein
+      Mosebach, &ldquo;on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art. And
+      English literature, except Shakespeare, and he&rsquo;s a German. Very well,
+      Frieda, you may go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common impulse,
+      they rose to their feet and fled from &ldquo;Pomp and Circumstance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true,&rdquo; said Herr
+      Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music
+      started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&mdash;&rdquo; loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag
+      behind her on the seat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, there was Frieda&rsquo;s reticule, containing her address book, her
+      pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a bother&mdash;what a family we are! Fr&mdash;frieda!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said all those who thought the music fine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s the number they want in Finsbury Circus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might I&mdash;couldn&rsquo;t I&mdash;&rdquo; said the suspicious young man, and got
+      very red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I would be so grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the bag&mdash;money clinking inside it&mdash;and slipped up the
+      gangway with it. He was just in time to catch them at the swing-door, and
+      he received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her
+      cavalier. He returned to his seat upsides with the world. The trust that
+      they had reposed in him was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his
+      mistrust for them, and that probably he would not be &ldquo;had&rdquo; over his
+      umbrella. This young man had been &ldquo;had&rdquo; in the past badly, perhaps
+      overwhelmingly&mdash;and now most of his energies went in defending
+      himself against the unknown. But this afternoon&mdash;perhaps on account
+      of music&mdash;he perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what
+      is the good of being alive? Wickham Place, W., though a risk, was as safe
+      as most things, and he would risk it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So when the concert was over and Margaret said, &ldquo;We live quite near; I am
+      going there now. Could you walk round with me, and we&rsquo;ll find your
+      umbrella?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; peaceably, and followed her out of the
+      Queen&rsquo;s Hall. She wished that he was not so anxious to hand a lady
+      downstairs, or to carry a lady&rsquo;s programme for her&mdash;his class was
+      near enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him
+      interesting on the whole&mdash;every one interested the Schlegels on the
+      whole at that time&mdash;and while her lips talked culture, her heart was
+      planning to invite him to tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How tired one gets after music!&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you find the atmosphere of Queen&rsquo;s Hall oppressive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, horribly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you go there much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen would have exclaimed, &ldquo;So do I. I love the gallery,&rdquo; and thus have
+      endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these things. But
+      Margaret had an almost morbid horror of &ldquo;drawing people out,&rdquo; of &ldquo;making
+      things go.&rdquo; She had been to the gallery at Covent Garden, but she did not
+      &ldquo;attend&rdquo; it, preferring the more expensive seats; still less did she love
+      it. So she made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This year I have been three times&mdash;to &lsquo;Faust,&rsquo; &lsquo;Tosca,&rsquo; and&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Was it &ldquo;Tannhouser&rdquo; or &ldquo;Tannhoyser&rdquo;? Better not risk the word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret disliked &ldquo;Tosca&rdquo; and &ldquo;Faust.&rdquo; And so, for one reason and another,
+      they walked on in silence, chaperoned by the voice of Mrs. Munt, who was
+      getting into difficulties with her nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do in a WAY remember the passage, Tibby, but when every instrument is
+      so beautiful, it is difficult to pick out one thing rather than another. I
+      am sure that you and Helen take me to the very nicest concerts. Not a dull
+      note from beginning to end. I only wish that our German friends had stayed
+      till it finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely you haven&rsquo;t forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low C,
+      Aunt Juley?&rdquo; came Tibby&rsquo;s voice. &ldquo;No one could. It&rsquo;s unmistakable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A specially loud part?&rdquo; hazarded Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;Of course I do not go in for
+      being musical,&rdquo; she added, the shot failing. &ldquo;I only care for music&mdash;a
+      very different thing. But still I will say this for myself&mdash;I do know
+      when I like a thing and when I don&rsquo;t. Some people are the same about
+      pictures. They can go into a picture gallery&mdash;Miss Conder can&mdash;and
+      say straight off what they feel, all round the wall. I never could do
+      that. But music is so different from pictures, to my mind. When it comes
+      to music I am as safe as houses, and I assure you, Tibby, I am by no means
+      pleased by everything. There was a thing&mdash;something about a faun in
+      French&mdash;which Helen went into ecstasies over, but I thought it most
+      tinkling and superficial, and said so, and I held to my opinion too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you agree?&rdquo; asked Margaret. &ldquo;Do you think music is so different from
+      pictures?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I should have thought so, kind of,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So should I. Now, my sister declares they&rsquo;re just the same. We have great
+      arguments over it. She says I&rsquo;m dense; I say she&rsquo;s sloppy.&rdquo; Getting under
+      way, she cried: &ldquo;Now, doesn&rsquo;t it seem absurd to you? What is the good of
+      the Arts if they&rsquo;re interchangeable? What is the good of the ear if it
+      tells you the same as the eye? Helen&rsquo;s one aim is to translate tunes into
+      the language of painting, and pictures into the language of music. It&rsquo;s
+      very ingenious, and she says several pretty things in the process, but
+      what&rsquo;s gained, I&rsquo;d like to know? Oh, it&rsquo;s all rubbish, radically false. If
+      Monet&rsquo;s really Debussy, and Debussy&rsquo;s really Monet, neither gentleman is
+      worth his salt&mdash;that&rsquo;s my opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evidently these sisters quarrelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, this very symphony that we&rsquo;ve just been having&mdash;she won&rsquo;t let
+      it alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish; turns it into
+      literature. I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be
+      treated as music. Yet I don&rsquo;t know. There&rsquo;s my brother&mdash;behind us. He
+      treats music as music, and oh, my goodness! He makes me angrier than any
+      one, simply furious. With him I daren&rsquo;t even argue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An unhappy family, if talented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, of course, the real villain is Wagner. He has done more than any man
+      in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts. I do feel that
+      music is in a very serious state just now, though extraordinarily
+      interesting. Every now and then in history there do come these terrible
+      geniuses, like Wagner, who stir up all the wells of thought at once. For a
+      moment it&rsquo;s splendid. Such a splash as never was. But afterwards&mdash;such
+      a lot of mud; and the wells&mdash;as it were, they communicate with each
+      other too easily now, and not one of them will run quite clear. That&rsquo;s
+      what Wagner&rsquo;s done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds. If only he
+      could talk like this, he would have caught the world. Oh, to acquire
+      culture! Oh, to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh, to be well
+      informed, discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But it
+      would take one years. With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours in
+      the evening, how was it possible to catch up with leisured women, who had
+      been reading steadily from childhood? His brain might be full of names, he
+      might have even heard of Monet and Debussy; the trouble was that he could
+      not string them together into a sentence, he could not make them &ldquo;tell,&rdquo;
+       he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella. Yes, the umbrella was
+      the real trouble. Behind Monet and Debussy the umbrella persisted, with
+      the steady beat of a drum. &ldquo;I suppose my umbrella will be all right,&rdquo; he
+      was thinking. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really mind about it. I will think about music
+      instead. I suppose my umbrella will be all right.&rdquo; Earlier in the
+      afternoon he had worried about seats. Ought he to have paid as much as two
+      shillings? Earlier still he had wondered, &ldquo;Shall I try to do without a
+      programme?&rdquo; There had always been something to worry him ever since he
+      could remember, always something that distracted him in the pursuit of
+      beauty. For he did pursue beauty, and, therefore, Margaret&rsquo;s speeches did
+      flutter away from him like birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret talked ahead, occasionally saying, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think so? don&rsquo;t you
+      feel the same?&rdquo; And once she stopped, and said, &ldquo;Oh, do interrupt me!&rdquo;
+       which terrified him. She did not attract him, though she filled him with
+      awe. Her figure was meagre, her face seemed all teeth and eyes, her
+      references to her sister and her brother were uncharitable. For all her
+      cleverness and culture, she was probably one of those soulless,
+      atheistical women who have been so shown up by Miss Corelli. It was
+      surprising (and alarming) that she should suddenly say, &ldquo;I do hope that
+      you&rsquo;ll come in and have some tea. We should be so glad. I have dragged you
+      so far out of your way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had arrived at Wickham Place. The sun had set, and the backwater, in
+      deep shadow, was filling with a gentle haze. To the right the fantastic
+      sky-line of the flats towered black against the hues of evening; to the
+      left the older houses raised a square-cut, irregular parapet against the
+      grey. Margaret fumbled for her latch-key. Of course she had forgotten it.
+      So, grasping her umbrella by its ferrule, she leant over the area and
+      tapped at the dining-room window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen! Let us in!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been taking this gentleman&rsquo;s umbrella.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Taken a what?&rdquo; said Helen, opening the door. &ldquo;Oh, what&rsquo;s that? Do come
+      in! How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you must not be so ramshackly. You took this gentleman&rsquo;s umbrella
+      away from Queen&rsquo;s Hall, and he has had the trouble of coming round for
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am so sorry!&rdquo; cried Helen, all her hair flying. She had pulled off
+      her hat as soon as she returned, and had flung herself into the big
+      dining-room chair. &ldquo;I do nothing but steal umbrellas. I am so very sorry!
+      Do come in and choose one. Is yours a hooky or a nobbly? Mine&rsquo;s a nobbly&mdash;at
+      least, I THINK it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light was turned on, and they began to search the hall, Helen, who had
+      abruptly parted with the Fifth Symphony, commenting with shrill little
+      cries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you talk, Meg! You stole an old gentleman&rsquo;s silk top-hat. Yes, she
+      did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact. She thought it was a muff. Oh,
+      heavens! I&rsquo;ve knocked the In-and-Out card down. Where&rsquo;s Frieda? Tibby, why
+      don&rsquo;t you ever&mdash;No, I can&rsquo;t remember what I was going to say. That
+      wasn&rsquo;t it, but do tell the maids to hurry tea up. What about this
+      umbrella?&rdquo; She opened it. &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s all gone along the seams. It&rsquo;s an
+      appalling umbrella. It must be mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took it from her, murmured a few words of thanks, and then fled, with
+      the lilting step of the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you will stop&mdash;&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;Now, Helen, how stupid
+      you&rsquo;ve been!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whatever have I done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see that you&rsquo;ve frightened him away? I meant him to stop to
+      tea. You oughtn&rsquo;t to talk about stealing or holes in an umbrella. I saw
+      his nice eyes getting so miserable. No, it&rsquo;s not a bit of good now.&rdquo; For
+      Helen had darted out into the street, shouting, &ldquo;Oh, do stop!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say it is all for the best,&rdquo; opined Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;We know nothing
+      about the young man, Margaret, and your drawing-room is full of very
+      tempting little things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Helen cried: &ldquo;Aunt Juley, how can you! You make me more and more
+      ashamed. I&rsquo;d rather he had been a thief and taken all the apostle spoons
+      than that I&mdash;Well, I must shut the front-door, I suppose. One more
+      failure for Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+      Seeing that her aunt did not understand, she added: &ldquo;You remember &lsquo;rent&rsquo;?
+      It was one of father&rsquo;s words&mdash;Rent to the ideal, to his own faith in
+      human nature. You remember how he would trust strangers, and if they
+      fooled him he would say, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s better to be fooled than to be suspicious&rsquo;&mdash;that
+      the confidence trick is the work of man, but the want-of-confidence trick
+      is the work of the devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember something of the sort now,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, rather tartly, for
+      she longed to add, &ldquo;It was lucky that your father married a wife with
+      money.&rdquo; But this was unkind, and she contented herself with, &ldquo;Why, he
+      might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better that he had,&rdquo; said Helen stoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I agree with Aunt Juley,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather mistrust people
+      than lose my little Ricketts. There are limits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, had stolen upstairs to
+      see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the teapot&mdash;almost
+      too deftly&mdash;rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had
+      provided, poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with
+      really boiling water, and now called to the ladies to be quick or they
+      would lose the aroma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Auntie Tibby,&rdquo; called Helen, while Margaret, thoughtful again,
+      said: &ldquo;In a way, I wish we had a real boy in the house&mdash;the kind of
+      boy who cares for men. It would make entertaining so much easier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; said her sister. &ldquo;Tibby only cares for cultured females singing
+      Brahms.&rdquo; And when they joined him she said rather sharply: &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you
+      make that young man welcome, Tibby? You must do the host a little, you
+      know. You ought to have taken his hat and coaxed him into stopping,
+      instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s no good looking superior. I mean what I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave Tibby alone!&rdquo; said Margaret, who could not bear her brother to be
+      scolded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the house a regular hen-coop!&rdquo; grumbled Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dear!&rdquo; protested Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;How can you say such dreadful things!
+      The number of men you get here has always astonished me. If there is any
+      danger it&rsquo;s the other way round.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but it&rsquo;s the wrong sort of men, Helen means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; corrected Helen. &ldquo;We get the right sort of man, but the
+      wrong side of him, and I say that&rsquo;s Tibby&rsquo;s fault. There ought to be a
+      something about the house&mdash;an&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A touch of the W&rsquo;s, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen put out her tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are the W&rsquo;s?&rdquo; asked Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The W&rsquo;s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don&rsquo;t, so
+      there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose that ours is a female house,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;and one must just
+      accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don&rsquo;t mean that this house is full of women.
+      I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it was
+      irrevocably feminine, even in father&rsquo;s time. Now I&rsquo;m sure you understand!
+      Well, I&rsquo;ll give you another example. It&rsquo;ll shock you, but I don&rsquo;t care.
+      Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that the guests had been
+      Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you
+      suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic?
+      Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So
+      with our house&mdash;it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that
+      it isn&rsquo;t effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but won&rsquo;t,
+      sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that
+      it isn&rsquo;t brutal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That house being the W&rsquo;s house, I presume,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not going to be told about the W&rsquo;s, my child,&rdquo; Helen cried, &ldquo;so
+      don&rsquo;t you think it. And on the other hand, I don&rsquo;t the least mind if you
+      find out, so don&rsquo;t you think you&rsquo;ve done anything clever, in either case.
+      Give me a cigarette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do what you can for the house,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;The drawing-room
+      reeks of smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is
+      probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria&rsquo;s dinner-party&mdash;if
+      something had been just a little Different&mdash;perhaps if she&rsquo;d worn a
+      clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With an India shawl over her shoulders&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bursts of disloyal laughter&mdash;you must remember that they are half
+      German&mdash;greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, &ldquo;How
+      inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art.&rdquo; And the
+      conversation drifted away and away, and Helen&rsquo;s cigarette turned to a spot
+      in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted
+      windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly.
+      Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently&mdash;a tide that could never
+      be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the
+      moon was rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into the
+      dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate&mdash;and that is so
+      firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be
+      supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for
+      the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these
+      superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has
+      recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and
+      no name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to
+      be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with
+      gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are
+      gentlefolk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was not
+      in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people whom he knew had
+      dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he was poor, and would admit
+      it; he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority to the rich.
+      This may be splendid of him. But he was inferior to most rich people,
+      there is not the least doubt of it. He was not as courteous as the average
+      rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and
+      his body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he was
+      modern they were always craving better food. Had he lived some centuries
+      ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had
+      a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in
+      his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with
+      leathern wings, and proclaiming, &ldquo;All men are equal&mdash;all men, that is
+      to say, who possess umbrellas,&rdquo; and so he was obliged to assert gentility,
+      lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of
+      Democracy are inaudible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he walked away from Wickham Place, his first care was to prove that he
+      was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in his pride, he
+      tried to wound them in return. They were probably not ladies. Would real
+      ladies have asked him to tea? They were certainly ill-natured and cold. At
+      each step his feeling of superiority increased. Would a real lady have
+      talked about stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves after all,
+      and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a chloroformed
+      handkerchief over his face. He walked on complacently as far as the Houses
+      of Parliament. There an empty stomach asserted itself, and told him that
+      he was a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Dealtry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nice evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dealtry, a fellow clerk, passed on, and Leonard stood wondering
+      whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him, or
+      whether he would walk. He decided to walk&mdash;it is no good giving in,
+      and he had spent money enough at Queen&rsquo;s Hall&mdash;and he walked over
+      Westminster Bridge, in front of St. Thomas&rsquo;s Hospital, and through the
+      immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at Vauxhall.
+      In the tunnel he paused and listened to the roar of the trains. A sharp
+      pain darted through his head, and he was conscious of the exact form of
+      his eye sockets. He pushed on for another mile, and did not slacken speed
+      until he stood at the entrance of a road called Camelia Road which was at
+      present his home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he stopped again, and glanced suspiciously to right and left, like a
+      rabbit that is going to bolt into its hole. A block of flats, constructed
+      with extreme cheapness, towered on either hand. Farther down the road two
+      more blocks were being built, and beyond these an old house was being
+      demolished to accommodate another pair. It was the kind of scene that may
+      be observed all over London, whatever the locality&mdash;bricks and mortar
+      rising and falling with the restlessness of the water in a fountain as the
+      city receives more and more men upon her soil. Camelia Road would soon
+      stand out like a fortress, and command, for a little, an extensive view.
+      Only for a little. Plans were out for the erection of flats in Magnolia
+      Road also. And again a few years, and all the flats in either road might
+      be pulled down, and new buildings, of a vastness at present unimaginable,
+      might arise where they had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester,&rdquo;
+       repeated Mr. Cunningham, tapping the Sunday paper, in which the calamity
+      in question had just been announced to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; said Leonard, who was not going to let on that he had not
+      bought a Sunday paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be
+      stationary in 1960.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call it a very serious thing, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-evening, Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-evening, Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats, and turned, not upstairs, but
+      down, into what is known to house agents as a semi-basement, and to other
+      men as a cellar. He opened the door, and cried, &ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; with the pseudo
+      geniality of the Cockney. There was no reply. &ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; he repeated. The
+      sitting-room was empty, though the electric light had been left burning. A
+      look of relief came over his face, and he flung himself into the armchair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sitting-room contained, besides the armchair, two other chairs, a
+      piano, a three-legged table, and a cosy corner. Of the walls, one was
+      occupied by the window, the other by a draped mantelshelf bristling with
+      Cupids. Opposite the window was the door, and beside the door a bookcase,
+      while over the piano there extended one of the masterpieces of Maud
+      Goodman. It was an amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the
+      curtains were drawn, and the lights turned on, and the gas-stove unlit.
+      But it struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the
+      dwelling-place. It had been too easily gained, and could be relinquished
+      too easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged table, and
+      a photograph frame, honourably poised upon it, slid sideways, fell off
+      into the fireplace, and smashed. He swore in a colourless sort of way, and
+      picked the photograph up. It represented a young lady called Jacky, and
+      had been taken at the time when young ladies called Jacky were often
+      photographed with their mouths open. Teeth of dazzling whiteness extended
+      along either of Jacky&rsquo;s jaws, and positively weighed her head sideways,
+      so large were they and so numerous. Take my word for it, that smile was
+      simply stunning, and it is only you and I who will be fastidious, and
+      complain that true joy begins in the eyes, and that the eyes of Jacky did
+      not accord with her smile, but were anxious and hungry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard tried to pull out the fragments of glass, and cut his fingers and
+      swore again. A drop of blood fell on the frame, another followed, spilling
+      over on to the exposed photograph. He swore more vigorously, and dashed
+      into the kitchen, where he bathed his hands. The kitchen was the same size
+      as the sitting-room; beyond it was a bedroom. This completed his home. He
+      was renting the flat furnished; of all the objects that encumbered it none
+      were his own except the photograph frame, the Cupids, and the books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn, damn, damnation!&rdquo; he murmured, together with such other words as he
+      had learnt from older men. Then he raised his hand to his forehead and
+      said, &ldquo;Oh, damn it all&mdash;&rdquo; which meant something different. He pulled
+      himself together. He drank a little tea, black and silent, that still
+      survived upon an upper shelf. He swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake.
+      Then he went back to the sitting-room, settled himself anew, and began to
+      read a volume of Ruskin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven miles to the north of Venice&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command of
+      admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking to us from his gondola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the
+      city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level,
+      and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and
+      there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin; he understood him to be
+      the greatest master of English Prose. He read forward steadily,
+      occasionally making a few notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and
+      first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what is very
+      peculiar to this church&mdash;its luminousness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he adapt it
+      to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with modifications,
+      when he next wrote a letter to his brother, the lay-reader? For example:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and
+      first (for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already),
+      what is very peculiar to this flat&mdash;its obscurity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something told him that the modifications would not do; and that
+      something, had he known it, was the spirit of English Prose. &ldquo;My flat is
+      dark as well as stuffy.&rdquo; Those were the words for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping melodiously of Effort and
+      Self-Sacrifice, full of high purpose, full of beauty, full even of
+      sympathy and the love of men, yet somehow eluding all that was actual and
+      insistent in Leonard&rsquo;s life. For it was the voice of one who had never
+      been dirty or hungry, and had not guessed successfully what dirt and
+      hunger are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard listened to it with reverence. He felt that he was being done good
+      to, and that if he kept on with Ruskin, and the Queen&rsquo;s Hall Concerts, and
+      some pictures by Watts, he would one day push his head out of the grey
+      waters and see the universe. He believed in sudden conversion, a belief
+      which may be right, but which is peculiarly attractive to a half-baked
+      mind. It is the basis of much popular religion; in the domain of business
+      it dominates the Stock Exchange, and becomes that &ldquo;bit of luck&rdquo; by which
+      all successes and failures are explained. &ldquo;If only I had a bit of luck,
+      the whole thing would come straight... He&rsquo;s got a most magnificent place
+      down at Streatham and a 20 h.p. Fiat, but then, mind you, he&rsquo;s had luck...
+      I&rsquo;m sorry the wife&rsquo;s so late, but she never has any luck over catching
+      trains.&rdquo; Leonard was superior to these people; he did believe in effort
+      and in a steady preparation for the change that he desired. But of a
+      heritage that may expand gradually, he had no conception; he hoped to come
+      to Culture suddenly, much as the Revivalist hopes to come to Jesus. Those
+      Miss Schlegels had come to it; they had done the trick; their hands were
+      upon the ropes, once and for all. And meanwhile, his flat was dark, as
+      well as stuffy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently there was a noise on the staircase. He shut up Margaret&rsquo;s card
+      in the pages of Ruskin, and opened the door. A woman entered, of whom it
+      is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was
+      awesome. She seemed all strings and bell-pulls&mdash;ribbons, chains, bead
+      necklaces that clinked and caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round
+      her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double
+      row of pearls, her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be
+      detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was flowery,
+      resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed with mustard
+      and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes, and there no.
+      She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or rather hairs,
+      they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down her back,
+      lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny,
+      rippled around her forehead. The face&mdash;the face does not signify. It
+      was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so
+      numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so white.
+      Yes, Jacky was past her prime, whatever that prime may have been. She was
+      descending quicker than most women into the colourless years, and the look
+      in her eyes confessed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ho!&rdquo; said Leonard, greeting the apparition with much spirit, and
+      helping it off with its boa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky, in husky tones, replied, &ldquo;What ho!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Been out?&rdquo; he asked. The question sounds superfluous, but it cannot have
+      been really, for the lady answered, &ldquo;No,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;Oh, I am so tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired,&rdquo; said he, hanging the boa up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Len, I am so tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been to that classical concert I told you about,&rdquo; said Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came back as soon as it was over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any one been round to our place?&rdquo; asked Jacky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I&rsquo;ve seen. I met Mr. Cunningham outside, and we passed a few
+      remarks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, not Mr. Cunningham?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you mean Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been out to tea at a lady friend&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her secret being at last given&mdash;to the world, and the name of the
+      lady friend being even adumbrated, Jacky made no further experiments in
+      the difficult and tiring art of conversation. She never had been a great
+      talker. Even in her photographic days she had relied upon her smile and
+      her figure to attract, and now that she was
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;On the shelf,
+       On the shelf,
+       Boys, boys, I&rsquo;m on the shelf,&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      she was not likely to find her tongue. Occasional bursts of song (of which
+      the above is an example) still issued from her lips, but the spoken word
+      was rare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down on Leonard&rsquo;s knee, and began to fondle him. She was now a
+      massive woman of thirty-three, and her weight hurt him, but he could not
+      very well say anything. Then she said, &ldquo;Is that a book you&rsquo;re reading?&rdquo;
+       and he said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a book,&rdquo; and drew it from her unreluctant grasp.
+      Margaret&rsquo;s card fell out of it. It fell face downwards, and he murmured,
+      &ldquo;Bookmarker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Len&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he asked, a little wearily, for she only had one topic of
+      conversation when she sat upon his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do love me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jacky, you know that I do. How can you ask such questions!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do love me, Len, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A pause. The other remark was still due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Len&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well? What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Len, you will make it all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t have you ask me that again,&rdquo; said the boy, flaring up into a
+      sudden passion. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve promised to marry you when I&rsquo;m of age, and that&rsquo;s
+      enough. My word&rsquo;s my word. I&rsquo;ve promised to marry you as soon as ever I&rsquo;m
+      twenty-one, and I can&rsquo;t keep on being worried. I&rsquo;ve worries enough. It
+      isn&rsquo;t likely I&rsquo;d throw you over, let alone my word, when I&rsquo;ve spent all
+      this money. Besides, I&rsquo;m an Englishman, and I never go back on my word.
+      Jacky, do be reasonable. Of course I&rsquo;ll marry you. Only do stop badgering
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When&rsquo;s your birthday, Len?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you again and again, the eleventh of November next. Now get off
+      my knee a bit; some one must get supper, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky went through to the bedroom, and began to see to her hat. This meant
+      blowing at it with short sharp puffs. Leonard tidied up the sitting-room,
+      and began to prepare their evening meal. He put a penny into the slot of
+      the gas-meter, and soon the flat was reeking with metallic fumes. Somehow
+      he could not recover his temper, and all the time he was cooking he
+      continued to complain bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It really is too bad when a fellow isn&rsquo;t trusted. It makes one feel so
+      wild, when I&rsquo;ve pretended to the people here that you&rsquo;re my wife&mdash;all
+      right, all right, you SHALL be my wife&mdash;and I&rsquo;ve bought you the ring
+      to wear, and I&rsquo;ve taken this flat furnished, and it&rsquo;s far more than I can
+      afford, and yet you aren&rsquo;t content, and I&rsquo;ve also not told the truth when
+      I&rsquo;ve written home.&rdquo; He lowered his voice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d stop it.&rdquo; In a tone of
+      horror, that was a little luxurious, he repeated: &ldquo;My brother&rsquo;d stop it.
+      I&rsquo;m going against the whole world, Jacky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I am, Jacky. I don&rsquo;t take any heed of what any one says. I
+      just go straight forward, I do. That&rsquo;s always been my way. I&rsquo;m not one of
+      your weak knock-kneed chaps. If a woman&rsquo;s in trouble, I don&rsquo;t leave her in
+      the lurch. That&rsquo;s not my street. No, thank you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you another thing too. I care a good deal about improving
+      myself by means of Literature and Art, and so getting a wider outlook. For
+      instance, when you came in I was reading Ruskin&rsquo;s Stones of Venice. I
+      don&rsquo;t say this to boast, but just to show you the kind of man I am. I can
+      tell you, I enjoyed that classical concert this afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent. When supper was ready&mdash;and
+      not before&mdash;she emerged from the bedroom, saying: &ldquo;But you do love
+      me, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They began with a soup square, which Leonard had just dissolved in some
+      hot water. It was followed by the tongue&mdash;a freckled cylinder of
+      meat, with a little jelly at the top, and a great deal of yellow fat at
+      the bottom&mdash;ending with another square dissolved in water (jelly:
+      pineapple), which Leonard had prepared earlier in the day. Jacky ate
+      contentedly enough, occasionally looking at her man with those anxious
+      eyes, to which nothing else in her appearance corresponded, and which yet
+      seemed to mirror her soul. And Leonard managed to convince his stomach
+      that it was having a nourishing meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few statements. She
+      observed that her &ldquo;likeness&rdquo; had been broken. He found occasion to remark,
+      for the second time, that he had come straight back home after the concert
+      at Queen&rsquo;s Hall. Presently she sat upon his knee. The inhabitants of
+      Camelia Road tramped to and fro outside the window, just on a level with
+      their heads, and the family in the flat on the ground-floor began to sing,
+      &ldquo;Hark, my soul, it is the Lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That tune fairly gives me the hump,&rdquo; said Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky followed this, and said that, for her part, she thought it a lovely
+      tune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I&rsquo;ll play you something lovely. Get up, dear, for a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg. He played badly and
+      vulgarly, but the performance was not without its effect, for Jacky said
+      she thought she&rsquo;d be going to bed. As she receded, a new set of interests
+      possessed the boy, and he began to think of what had been said about music
+      by that odd Miss Schlegel&mdash;the one that twisted her face about so
+      when she spoke. Then the thoughts grew sad and envious. There was the girl
+      named Helen, who had pinched his umbrella, and the German girl who had
+      smiled at him pleasantly, and Herr some one, and Aunt some one, and the
+      brother&mdash;all, all with their hands on the ropes. They had all passed
+      up that narrow, rich staircase at Wickham Place to some ample room,
+      whither he could never follow them, not if he read for ten hours a day.
+      Oh, it was no good, this continual aspiration. Some are born cultured; the
+      rest had better go in for whatever comes easy. To see life steadily and to
+      see it whole was not for the likes of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the darkness beyond the kitchen a voice called, &ldquo;Len?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You in bed?&rdquo; he asked, his forehead twitching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she called him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must clean my boots ready for the morning,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she called him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I rather want to get this chapter done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed his ears against her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Jacky, nothing; I&rsquo;m reading a book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he answered, catching her degraded deafness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she called him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruskin had visited Torcello by this time, and was ordering his gondoliers
+      to take him to Murano. It occurred to him, as he glided over the
+      whispering lagoons, that the power of Nature could not be shortened by the
+      folly, nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery of such as
+      Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margaret,&rdquo; cried her aunt next morning, &ldquo;such a most unfortunate
+      thing has happened. I could not get you alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The most unfortunate thing was not very serious. One of the flats in the
+      ornate block opposite had been taken furnished by the Wilcox family,
+      &ldquo;coming up, no doubt, in the hope of getting into London society.&rdquo; That
+      Mrs. Munt should be the first to discover the misfortune was not
+      remarkable, for she was so interested in the flats, that she watched their
+      every mutation with unwearying care. In theory she despised them&mdash;they
+      took away that old-world look&mdash;they cut off the sun&mdash;flats house
+      a flashy type of person. But if the truth had been known, she found her
+      visits to Wickham Place twice as amusing since Wickham Mansions had
+      arisen, and would in a couple of days learn more about them than her
+      nieces in a couple of months, or her nephew in a couple of years. She
+      would stroll across and make friends with the porters, and inquire what
+      the rents were, exclaiming for example: &ldquo;What! a hundred and twenty for a
+      basement? You&rsquo;ll never get it!&rdquo; And they would answer: &ldquo;One can but try,
+      madam.&rdquo; The passenger lifts, the arrangement for coals (a great temptation
+      for a dishonest porter), were all familiar matters to her, and perhaps a
+      relief from the politico-economical-esthetic atmosphere that reigned at
+      the Schlegels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret received the information calmly, and did not agree that it would
+      throw a cloud over poor Helen&rsquo;s life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but Helen isn&rsquo;t a girl with no interests,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;She has
+      plenty of other things and other people to think about. She made a false
+      start with the Wilcoxes, and she&rsquo;ll be as willing as we are to have
+      nothing more to do with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a clever girl, dear, how very oddly you do talk. Helen&rsquo;ll HAVE to
+      have something more to do with them, now that they&rsquo;re all opposite. She
+      may meet that Paul in the street. She cannot very well not bow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she must bow. But look here; let&rsquo;s do the flowers. I was going
+      to say, the will to be interested in him has died, and what else matters?
+      I look on that disastrous episode (over which you were so kind) as the
+      killing of a nerve in Helen. It&rsquo;s dead, and she&rsquo;ll never be troubled with
+      it again. The only things that matter are the things that interest one.
+      Bowing, even calling and leaving cards, even a dinner-party&mdash;we can
+      do all those things to the Wilcoxes, if they find it agreeable; but the
+      other thing, the one important thing&mdash;never again. Don&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a most questionable
+      statement&mdash;that any emotion, any interest once vividly aroused, can
+      wholly die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I also have the honour to inform you that the Wilcoxes are bored with us.
+      I didn&rsquo;t tell you at the time&mdash;it might have made you angry, and you
+      had enough to worry you&mdash;but I wrote a letter to Mrs. W, and
+      apologised for the trouble that Helen had given them. She didn&rsquo;t answer
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very rude!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder. Or was it sensible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Margaret, most rude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In either case one can class it as reassuring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt sighed. She was going back to Swanage on the morrow, just as her
+      nieces were wanting her most. Other regrets crowded upon her: for
+      instance, how magnificently she would have cut Charles if she had met him
+      face to face. She had already seen him, giving an order to the porter&mdash;and
+      very common he looked in a tall hat. But unfortunately his back was turned
+      to her, and though she had cut his back, she could not regard this as a
+      telling snub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will be careful, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she exhorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, certainly. Fiendishly careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Helen must be careful, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Careful over what?&rdquo; cried Helen, at that moment coming into the room with
+      her cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&rdquo; said Margaret, seized with a momentary awkwardness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Careful over what, Aunt Juley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt assumed a cryptic air. &ldquo;It is only that a certain family, whom
+      we know by name but do not mention, as you said yourself last night after
+      the concert, have taken the flat opposite from the Mathesons&mdash;where
+      the plants are in the balcony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen began some laughing reply, and then disconcerted them all by
+      blushing. Mrs. Munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed, &ldquo;What, Helen,
+      you don&rsquo;t mind them coming, do you?&rdquo; and deepened the blush to crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I don&rsquo;t mind,&rdquo; said Helen a little crossly. &ldquo;It is that you and
+      Meg are both so absurdly grave about it, when there&rsquo;s nothing to be grave
+      about at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not grave,&rdquo; protested Margaret, a little cross in her turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you look grave; doesn&rsquo;t she, Frieda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel grave, that&rsquo;s all I can say; you&rsquo;re going quite on the wrong
+      tack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she does not feel grave,&rdquo; echoed Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;I can bear witness to
+      that. She disagrees&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hark!&rdquo; interrupted Fraulein Mosebach. &ldquo;I hear Bruno entering the hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Herr Liesecke was due at Wickham Place to call for the two younger
+      girls. He was not entering the hall&mdash;in fact, he did not enter it for
+      quite five minutes. But Frieda detected a delicate situation, and said
+      that she and Helen had much better wait for Bruno down below, and leave
+      Margaret and Mrs. Munt to finish arranging the flowers. Helen acquiesced.
+      But, as if to prove that the situation was not delicate really, she
+      stopped in the doorway and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you say the Mathesons&rsquo; flat, Aunt Juley? How wonderful you are! I
+      never knew that the name of the woman who laced too tightly was Matheson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Helen,&rdquo; said her cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, Helen,&rdquo; said her aunt; and continued to Margaret almost in the same
+      breath: &ldquo;Helen cannot deceive me. She does mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hush!&rdquo; breathed Margaret. &ldquo;Frieda&rsquo;ll hear you, and she can be so
+      tiresome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She minds,&rdquo; persisted Mrs. Munt, moving thoughtfully about the room, and
+      pulling the dead chrysanthemums out of the vases. &ldquo;I knew she&rsquo;d mind&mdash;and
+      I&rsquo;m sure a girl ought to! Such an experience! Such awful coarse-grained
+      people! I know more about them than you do, which you forget, and if
+      Charles had taken you that motor drive&mdash;well, you&rsquo;d have reached the
+      house a perfect wreck. Oh, Margaret, you don&rsquo;t know what you are in for!
+      They&rsquo;re all bottled up against the drawing-room window. There&rsquo;s Mrs.
+      Wilcox&mdash;I&rsquo;ve seen her. There&rsquo;s Paul. There&rsquo;s Evie, who is a minx.
+      There&rsquo;s Charles&mdash;I saw him to start with. And who would an elderly
+      man with a moustache and a copper-coloured face be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox, possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it. And there&rsquo;s Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame to call his face copper colour,&rdquo; complained Margaret. &ldquo;He
+      has a remarkably good complexion for a man of his age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt, triumphant elsewhere, could afford to concede Mr. Wilcox his
+      complexion. She passed on from it to the plan of campaign that her nieces
+      should pursue in the future. Margaret tried to stop her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen did not take the news quite as I expected, but the Wilcox nerve is
+      dead in her really, so there&rsquo;s no need for plans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s as well to be prepared.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;it&rsquo;s as well not to be prepared.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not explain
+      in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the
+      emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.
+      It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or a dinner-party, or a
+      possible fall in the price of stock: those who attempt human relations
+      must adopt another method, or fail. &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;d sooner risk it,&rdquo; was her
+      lame conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But imagine the evenings,&rdquo; exclaimed her aunt, pointing to the Mansions
+      with the spout of the watering can. &ldquo;Turn the electric light on here or
+      there, and it&rsquo;s almost the same room. One evening they may forget to draw
+      their blinds down, and you&rsquo;ll see them; and the next, you yours, and
+      they&rsquo;ll see you. Impossible to sit out on the balconies. Impossible to
+      water the plants, or even speak. Imagine going out of the front-door, and
+      they come out opposite at the same moment. And yet you tell me that plans
+      are unnecessary, and you&rsquo;d rather risk it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to risk things all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margaret, most dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But after all,&rdquo; she continued with a smile, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s never any great risk
+      as long as you have money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, shame! What a shocking speech!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money pads the edges of things,&rdquo; said Miss Schlegel. &ldquo;God help those who
+      have none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is something quite new!&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas
+      as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that
+      are portable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and
+      the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our
+      feet that we forget its very existence. It&rsquo;s only when we see some one
+      near us tottering that we realise all that an independent income means.
+      Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think
+      that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is
+      not the absence of love, but the absence of coin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call that rather cynical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to
+      criticise others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of
+      the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always
+      reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from
+      those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last
+      June, if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people, and couldn&rsquo;t invoke
+      railways and motor-cars to part them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more like Socialism,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one&rsquo;s hand
+      spread open on the table. I&rsquo;m tired of these rich people who pretend to be
+      poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that
+      keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred
+      pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as
+      fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed&mdash;from
+      the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of
+      six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don&rsquo;t want to
+      steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to
+      steal them and do steal them sometimes, and that what&rsquo;s a joke up here is
+      down there reality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There they go&mdash;there goes Fraulein Mosebach. Really, for a German
+      she does dress charmingly. Oh!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen was looking up at the Wilcoxes&rsquo; flat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, I interrupted you. What was it you were saying about
+      reality?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had worked round to myself, as usual,&rdquo; answered Margaret in tones that
+      were suddenly preoccupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do tell me this, at all events. Are you for the rich or for the poor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too difficult. Ask me another. Am I for poverty or for riches? For
+      riches. Hurrah for riches!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For riches!&rdquo; echoed Mrs. Munt, having, as it were, at last secured her
+      nut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. For riches. Money for ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So am I, and so, I am afraid, are most of my acquaintances at Swanage,
+      but I am surprised that you agree with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much, Aunt Juley. While I have talked theories, you have
+      done the flowers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, dear. I wish you would let me help you in more important
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, would you be very kind? Would you come round with me to the
+      registry office? There&rsquo;s a housemaid who won&rsquo;t say yes but doesn&rsquo;t say
+      no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On their way thither they too looked up at the Wilcoxes&rsquo; flat. Evie was in
+      the balcony, &ldquo;staring most rudely,&rdquo; according to Mrs. Munt. Oh yes, it was
+      a nuisance, there was no doubt of it. Helen was proof against a passing
+      encounter, but&mdash;Margaret began to lose confidence. Might it reawake
+      the dying nerve if the family were living close against her eyes? And
+      Frieda Mosebach was stopping with them for another fortnight, and Frieda
+      was sharp, abominably sharp, and quite capable of remarking, &ldquo;You love one
+      of the young gentlemen opposite, yes?&rdquo; The remark would be untrue, but of
+      the kind which, if stated often enough, may become true; just as the
+      remark, &ldquo;England and Germany are bound to fight,&rdquo; renders war a little
+      more likely each time that it is made, and is therefore made the more
+      readily by the gutter press of either nation. Have the private emotions
+      also their gutter press? Margaret thought so, and feared that good Aunt
+      Juley and Frieda were typical specimens of it. They might, by continual
+      chatter, lead Helen into a repetition of the desires of June. Into a
+      repetition&mdash;they could not do more; they could not lead her into
+      lasting love. They were&mdash;she saw it clearly&mdash;Journalism; her
+      father, with all his defects and wrong-headedness, had been Literature,
+      and had he lived, he would have persuaded his daughter rightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The registry office was holding its morning reception. A string of
+      carriages filled the street. Miss Schlegel waited her turn, and finally
+      had to be content with an insidious &ldquo;temporary,&rdquo; being rejected by genuine
+      housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs. Her failure depressed
+      her, and though she forgot the failure, the depression remained. On her
+      way home she again glanced up at the Wilcoxes&rsquo; flat, and took the rather
+      matronly step of speaking about the matter to Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you must tell me whether this thing worries you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If what?&rdquo; said Helen, who was washing her hands for lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Ws&rsquo; coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really.&rdquo; Then she admitted that she was a little worried on Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      account; she implied that Mrs. Wilcox might reach backward into deep
+      feelings, and be pained by things that never touched the other members of
+      that clan. &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t mind if Paul points at our house and says, &lsquo;There
+      lives the girl who tried to catch me.&rsquo; But she might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If even that worries you, we could arrange something. There&rsquo;s no reason
+      we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease, thanks to
+      our money. We might even go away for a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am going away. Frieda&rsquo;s just asked me to Stettin, and I shan&rsquo;t be
+      back till after the New Year. Will that do? Or must I fly the country
+      altogether? Really, Meg, what has come over you to make such a fuss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m getting an old maid, I suppose. I thought I minded nothing, but
+      really I&mdash;I should be bored if you fell in love with the same man
+      twice and&rdquo;&mdash;she cleared her throat&mdash;&ldquo;you did go red, you know,
+      when Aunt Juley attacked you this morning. I shouldn&rsquo;t have referred to it
+      otherwise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Helen&rsquo;s laugh rang true, as she raised a soapy hand to heaven and
+      swore that never, nowhere and nohow, would she again fall in love with any
+      of the Wilcox family, down to its remotest collaterals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which was to develop so
+      quickly and with such strange results, may perhaps have had its beginnings
+      at Speyer, in the spring. Perhaps the elder lady, as she gazed at the
+      vulgar, ruddy cathedral, and listened to the talk of her husband and
+      Helen, may have detected in the other and less charming of the sisters a
+      deeper sympathy, a sounder judgment. She was capable of detecting such
+      things. Perhaps it was she who had desired the Miss Schlegels to be
+      invited to Howards End, and Margaret whose presence she had particularly
+      desired. All this is speculation; Mrs. Wilcox has left few clear
+      indications behind her. It is certain that she came to call at Wickham
+      Place a fortnight later, the very day that Helen was going with her cousin
+      to Stettin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen!&rdquo; cried Fraulein Mosebach in awestruck tones (she was now in her
+      cousin&rsquo;s confidence)&mdash;&ldquo;his mother has forgiven you!&rdquo; And then,
+      remembering that in England the new-comer ought not to call before she is
+      called upon, she changed her tone from awe to disapproval, and opined that
+      Mrs. Wilcox was keine Dame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bother the whole family!&rdquo; snapped Margaret. &ldquo;Helen, stop giggling and
+      pirouetting, and go and finish your packing. Why can&rsquo;t the woman leave us
+      alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I shall do with Meg,&rdquo; Helen retorted, collapsing upon
+      the stairs. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s got Wilcox and Box upon the brain. Meg, Meg, I don&rsquo;t
+      love the young gentleman; I don&rsquo;t love the young gentleman, Meg, Meg. Can
+      a body speak plainer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly her love has died,&rdquo; asserted Fraulein Mosebach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly it has, Frieda, but that will not prevent me from being
+      bored with the Wilcoxes if I return the call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Helen simulated tears, and Fraulein Mosebach, who thought her
+      extremely amusing, did the same. &ldquo;Oh, boo hoo! boo hoo hoo! Meg&rsquo;s going to
+      return the call, and I can&rsquo;t. &lsquo;Cos why? &lsquo;Cos I&rsquo;m going to German-eye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are going to Germany, go and pack; if you aren&rsquo;t, go and call on
+      the Wilcoxes instead of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Meg, Meg, I don&rsquo;t love the young gentleman; I don&rsquo;t love the young&mdash;O
+      lud, who&rsquo;s that coming down the stairs? I vow &lsquo;tis my brother. O crimini!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A male&mdash;even such a male as Tibby&mdash;was enough to stop the
+      foolery. The barrier of sex, though decreasing among the civilised, is
+      still high, and higher on the side of women. Helen could tell her sister
+      all, and her cousin much about Paul; she told her brother nothing. It was
+      not prudishness, for she now spoke of &ldquo;the Wilcox ideal&rdquo; with laughter,
+      and even with a growing brutality. Nor was it precaution, for Tibby seldom
+      repeated any news that did not concern himself. It was rather the feeling
+      that she betrayed a secret into the camp of men, and that, however trivial
+      it was on this side of the barrier, it would become important on that. So
+      she stopped, or rather began to fool on other subjects, until her
+      long-suffering relatives drove her upstairs. Fraulein Mosebach followed
+      her, but lingered to say heavily over the banisters to Margaret, &ldquo;It is
+      all right&mdash;she does not love the young man&mdash;he has not been
+      worthy of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know; thanks very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I did right to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever so many thanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; asked Tibby. No one told him, and he proceeded into the
+      dining-room, to eat plums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening Margaret took decisive action. The house was very quiet, and
+      the fog&mdash;we are in November now&mdash;pressed against the windows
+      like an excluded ghost. Frieda and Helen and all their luggages had gone.
+      Tibby, who was not feeling well, lay stretched on a sofa by the fire.
+      Margaret sat by him, thinking. Her mind darted from impulse to impulse,
+      and finally marshalled them all in review. The practical person, who knows
+      what he wants at once, and generally knows nothing else, will accuse her
+      of indecision. But this was the way her mind worked. And when she did act,
+      no one could accuse her of indecision then. She hit out as lustily as if
+      she had not considered the matter at all. The letter that she wrote Mrs.
+      Wilcox glowed with the native hue of resolution. The pale cast of thought
+      was with her a breath rather than a tarnish, a breath that leaves the
+      colours all the more vivid when it has been wiped away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MRS. WILCOX,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to write something discourteous. It would be better if we did not
+      meet. Both my sister and my aunt have given displeasure to your family,
+      and, in my sister&rsquo;s case, the grounds for displeasure might recur. So far
+      as I know she no longer occupies her thoughts with your son. But it would
+      not be fair, either to her or to you, if they met, and it is therefore
+      right that our acquaintance, which began so pleasantly, should end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear that you will not agree with this; indeed, I know that you will
+      not, since you have been good enough to call on us. It is only an instinct
+      on my part, and no doubt the instinct is wrong. My sister would,
+      undoubtedly, say that it is wrong. I write without her knowledge, and I
+      hope that you will not associate her with my discourtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe me,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M. J. SCHLEGEL.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret sent this letter round by the post. Next morning she received the
+      following reply by hand:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MISS SCHLEGEL,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not have written me such a letter. I called to tell you that
+      Paul has gone abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;RUTH WILCOX.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret&rsquo;s cheeks burnt. She could not finish her breakfast. She was on
+      fire with shame. Helen had told her that the youth was leaving England,
+      but other things had seemed more important, and she had forgotten. All her
+      absurd anxieties fell to the ground, and in their place arose the
+      certainty that she had been rude to Mrs. Wilcox. Rudeness affected
+      Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it
+      is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. She flung
+      on a hat and shawl, just like a poor woman, and plunged into the fog,
+      which still continued. Her lips were compressed, the letter remained in
+      her hand, and in this state she crossed the street, entered the marble
+      vestibule of the flats, eluded the concierges, and ran up the stairs till
+      she reached the second floor. She sent in her name, and to her surprise
+      was shown straight into Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, I have made the baddest blunder. I am more, more ashamed
+      and sorry than I can say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox bowed gravely. She was offended, and did not pretend to the
+      contrary. She was sitting up in bed, writing letters on an invalid table
+      that spanned her knees. A breakfast tray was on another table beside her.
+      The light of the fire, the light from the window, and the light of a
+      candle-lamp, which threw a quivering halo round her hands combined to
+      create a strange atmosphere of dissolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew he was going to India in November, but I forgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He sailed on the 17th for Nigeria, in Africa.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew&mdash;I know. I have been too absurd all through. I am very much
+      ashamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am more sorry than I can say, and I hope that you will forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter, Miss Schlegel. It is good of you to have come round so
+      promptly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does matter,&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;I have been rude to you; and my sister
+      is not even at home, so there was not even that excuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has just gone to Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She gone as well,&rdquo; murmured the other. &ldquo;Yes, certainly, it is quite safe&mdash;safe,
+      absolutely, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been worrying too!&rdquo; exclaimed Margaret, getting more and more
+      excited, and taking a chair without invitation. &ldquo;How perfectly
+      extraordinary! I can see that you have. You felt as I do; Helen mustn&rsquo;t
+      meet him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did think it best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a most difficult question,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, smiling, and a
+      little losing her expression of annoyance. &ldquo;I think you put it best in
+      your letter&mdash;it was an instinct, which may be wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t that your son still&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no; he often&mdash;my Paul is very young, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She repeated: &ldquo;An instinct which may be wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, they belong to types that can fall in love, but couldn&rsquo;t
+      live together. That&rsquo;s dreadfully probable. I&rsquo;m afraid that in nine cases
+      out of ten Nature pulls one way and human nature another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are indeed &lsquo;other words,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox. &ldquo;I had nothing so
+      coherent in my head. I was merely alarmed when I knew that my boy cared
+      for your sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I have always been wanting to ask you. How DID you know? Helen was so
+      surprised when our aunt drove up, and you stepped forward and arranged
+      things. Did Paul tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to be gained by discussing that,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox after
+      a moment&rsquo;s pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox, were you very angry with us last June? I wrote you a letter
+      and you didn&rsquo;t answer it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was certainly against taking Mrs. Matheson&rsquo;s flat. I knew it was
+      opposite your house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s all right now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You only think? You aren&rsquo;t sure? I do love these little muddles tidied
+      up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, moving with uneasiness beneath the
+      clothes. &ldquo;I always sound uncertain over things. It is my way of speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right, and I&rsquo;m sure, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the maid came in to remove the breakfast-tray. They were interrupted,
+      and when they resumed conversation it was on more normal lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must say good-bye now&mdash;you will be getting up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;please stop a little longer&mdash;I am taking a day in bed. Now
+      and then I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought of you as one of the early risers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Howards End&mdash;yes; there is nothing to get up for in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing to get up for?&rdquo; cried the scandalised Margaret. &ldquo;When there are
+      all the autumn exhibitions, and Ysaye playing in the afternoon! Not to
+      mention people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth is, I am a little tired. First came the wedding, and then Paul
+      went off, and, instead of resting yesterday, I paid a round of calls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A wedding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; Charles, my elder son, is married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We took the flat chiefly on that account, and also that Paul could get
+      his African outfit. The flat belongs to a cousin of my husband&rsquo;s, and she
+      most kindly offered it to us. So before the day came we were able to make
+      the acquaintance of Dolly&rsquo;s people, which we had not yet done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret asked who Dolly&rsquo;s people were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fussell. The father is in the Indian army&mdash;retired; the brother is
+      in the army. The mother is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So perhaps these were the &ldquo;chinless sunburnt men&rdquo; whom Helen had espied
+      one afternoon through the window. Margaret felt mildly interested in the
+      fortunes of the Wilcox family. She had acquired the habit on Helen&rsquo;s
+      account, and it still clung to her. She asked for more information about
+      Miss Dolly Fussell that was, and was given it in even, unemotional tones.
+      Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s voice, though sweet and compelling, had little range of
+      expression. It suggested that pictures, concerts, and people are all of
+      small and equal value. Only once had it quickened&mdash;when speaking of
+      Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles and Albert Fussell have known one another some time. They belong
+      to the same club, and are both devoted to golf. Dolly plays golf too,
+      though I believe not so well; and they first met in a mixed foursome. We
+      all like her, and are very much pleased. They were married on the 11th, a
+      few days before Paul sailed. Charles was very anxious to have his brother
+      as best man, so he made a great point of having it on the 11th. The
+      Fussells would have preferred it after Christmas, but they were very nice
+      about it. There is Dolly&rsquo;s photograph&mdash;in that double frame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you quite certain that I&rsquo;m not interrupting, Mrs. Wilcox?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will stay. I&rsquo;m enjoying this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly&rsquo;s photograph was now examined. It was signed &ldquo;For dear Mims,&rdquo; which
+      Mrs. Wilcox interpreted as &ldquo;the name she and Charles had settled that she
+      should call me.&rdquo; Dolly looked silly, and had one of those triangular faces
+      that so often prove attractive to a robust man. She was very pretty. From
+      her Margaret passed to Charles, whose features prevailed opposite. She
+      speculated on the forces that had drawn the two together till God parted
+      them. She found time to hope that they would be happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have gone to Naples for their honeymoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lucky people!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can hardly imagine Charles in Italy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t he care for travelling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He likes travel, but he does see through foreigners so. What he enjoys
+      most is a motor tour in England, and I think that would have carried the
+      day if the weather had not been so abominable. His father gave him a car
+      for a wedding present, which for the present is being stored at Howards
+      End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you have a garage there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. My husband built a little one only last month, to the west of the
+      house, not far from the wych-elm, in what used to be the paddock for the
+      pony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The last words had an indescribable ring about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the pony gone?&rdquo; asked Margaret after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pony? Oh, dead, ever so long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wych-elm I remember. Helen spoke of it as a very splendid tree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the finest wych-elm in Hertfordshire. Did your sister tell you
+      about the teeth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it might interest you. There are pigs&rsquo; teeth stuck into the trunk,
+      about four feet from the ground. The country people put them in long ago,
+      and they think that if they chew a piece of the bark, it will cure the
+      toothache. The teeth are almost grown over now, and no one comes to the
+      tree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should. I love folklore and all festering superstitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one believed in
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it did. It would cure anything&mdash;once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I remember cases&mdash;you see I lived at Howards End long,
+      long before Mr. Wilcox knew it. I was born there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation again shifted. At the time it seemed little more than
+      aimless chatter. She was interested when her hostess explained that
+      Howards End was her own property. She was bored when too minute an account
+      was given of the Fussell family, of the anxieties of Charles concerning
+      Naples, of the movements of Mr. Wilcox and Evie, who were motoring in
+      Yorkshire. Margaret could not bear being bored. She grew inattentive,
+      played with the photograph frame, dropped it, smashed Dolly&rsquo;s glass,
+      apologised, was pardoned, cut her finger thereon, was pitied, and finally
+      said she must be going&mdash;there was all the housekeeping to do, and she
+      had to interview Tibby&rsquo;s riding-master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the curious note was struck again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Miss Schlegel, good-bye. Thank you for coming. You have cheered
+      me up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so glad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I wonder whether you ever think about yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of nothing else,&rdquo; said Margaret, blushing, but letting her hand
+      remain in that of the invalid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder. I wondered at Heidelberg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;M sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I almost think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; asked Margaret, for there was a long pause&mdash;a pause that was
+      somehow akin to the flicker of the fire, the quiver of the reading-lamp
+      upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a pause of shifting and
+      eternal shadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I almost think you forget you&rsquo;re a girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was startled and a little annoyed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m twenty-nine,&rdquo; she
+      remarked. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not so wildly girlish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you say that? Do you mean that I have been gauche and rude?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shake of the head. &ldquo;I only meant that I am fifty-one, and that to me
+      both of you&mdash;Read it all in some book or other; I cannot put things
+      clearly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve got it&mdash;inexperience. I&rsquo;m no better than Helen, you mean,
+      and yet I presume to advise her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You have got it. Inexperience is the word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inexperience,&rdquo; repeated Margaret, in serious yet buoyant tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, I have everything to learn&mdash;absolutely everything&mdash;just
+      as much as Helen. Life&rsquo;s very difficult and full of surprises. At all
+      events, I&rsquo;ve got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight
+      ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged&mdash;well,
+      one can&rsquo;t do all these things at once, worse luck, because they&rsquo;re so
+      contradictory. It&rsquo;s then that proportion comes in&mdash;to live by
+      proportion. Don&rsquo;t BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let
+      proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed,
+      and a deadlock&mdash;Gracious me, I&rsquo;ve started preaching!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, you put the difficulties of life splendidly,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox,
+      withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows. &ldquo;It is just what I should
+      have liked to say about them myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about
+      life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty,
+      and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel. She
+      had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with
+      distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up a
+      brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet the
+      little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s honour was not a
+      success. The new friend did not blend with the &ldquo;one or two delightful
+      people&rdquo; who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of
+      polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture
+      slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in the
+      dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started as a
+      conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with cries of
+      joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was half over did they
+      realise that the principal guest had taken no part in the chase. There was
+      no common topic. Mrs. Wilcox, whose life had been spent in the service of
+      husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who had never shared it,
+      and whose age was half her own. Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her
+      delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-car, all
+      jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice she deplored the
+      weather, twice criticised the train service on the Great Northern Railway.
+      They vigorously assented, and rushed on, and when she inquired whether
+      there was any news of Helen, her hostess was too much occupied in placing
+      Rothenstein to answer. The question was repeated: &ldquo;I hope that your sister
+      is safe in Germany by now.&rdquo; Margaret checked herself and said, &ldquo;Yes, thank
+      you; I heard on Tuesday.&rdquo; But the demon of vociferation was in her, and
+      the next moment she was off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you ever know
+      any one living at Stettin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour, a young man low
+      down in the Education Office, began to discuss what people who lived at
+      Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity?
+      Margaret swept on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses.
+      At least, our cousins do, but aren&rsquo;t particularly rich. The town isn&rsquo;t
+      interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the
+      Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would love
+      the Oder! The river, or rather rivers&mdash;there seem to be dozens of
+      them&mdash;are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest
+      green.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no, it&rsquo;s like music.
+      The course of the Oder is to be like music. It&rsquo;s obliged to remind her of
+      a symphonic poem. The part by the landing-stage is in B minor, if I
+      remember rightly, but lower down things get extremely mixed. There is a
+      slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning mud-banks, and another for
+      the navigable canal, and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major,
+      pianissimo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?&rdquo; asked the man,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They make a great deal of it,&rdquo; replied Margaret, unexpectedly rushing off
+      on a new track. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s affectation to compare the Oder to music,
+      and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take beauty
+      seriously, which we don&rsquo;t, and the average Englishman doesn&rsquo;t, and
+      despises all who do. Now don&rsquo;t say &lsquo;Germans have no taste,&rsquo; or I shall
+      scream. They haven&rsquo;t. But&mdash;but&mdash;such a tremendous but!&mdash;they
+      take poetry seriously. They do take poetry seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything gained by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss it
+      through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking beauty to
+      enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At Heidelberg
+      I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as he repeated
+      some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh&mdash;I, who never repeat
+      poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember one fragment of verse to thrill
+      myself with. My blood boils&mdash;well, I&rsquo;m half German, so put it down
+      to patriotism&mdash;when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the average
+      islander for things Teutonic, whether they&rsquo;re Bocklin or my veterinary
+      surgeon. &lsquo;Oh, Bocklin,&rsquo; they say; &lsquo;he strains after beauty, he peoples
+      Nature with gods too consciously.&rsquo; Of course Bocklin strains, because he
+      wants something&mdash;beauty and all the other intangible gifts that are
+      floating about the world. So his landscapes don&rsquo;t come off, and Leader&rsquo;s
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure that I agree. Do you?&rdquo; said he, turning to Mrs. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She replied: &ldquo;I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;&rdquo; and a
+      chill fell on the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It&rsquo;s such a snub to be
+      told you put things splendidly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech interested me so much.
+      Generally people do not seem quite to like Germany. I have long wanted to
+      hear what is said on the other side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give us your side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no side. But my husband&rdquo;&mdash;her voice softened, the chill
+      increased&mdash;&ldquo;has very little faith in the Continent, and our children
+      have all taken after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in bad form?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to grounds. She was not
+      intellectual, nor even alert, and it was odd that, all the same, she
+      should give the idea of greatness. Margaret, zigzagging with her friends
+      over Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that transcended
+      their own and dwarfed their activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs.
+      Wilcox; there was not even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious
+      or uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life were out
+      of focus; one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she seemed more
+      out of focus than usual, and nearer the line that divides daily life from
+      a life that may be of greater importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will admit, though, that the Continent&mdash;it seems silly to speak
+      of &lsquo;the Continent,&rsquo; but really it is all more like itself than any part of
+      it is like England. England is unique. Do have another jelly first. I was
+      going to say that the Continent, for good or for evil, is interested in
+      ideas. Its Literature and Art have what one might call the kink of the
+      unseen about them, and this persists even through decadence and
+      affectation. There is more liberty of action in England, but for liberty
+      of thought go to bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with
+      humility vital questions that we here think ourselves too good to touch
+      with tongs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not want to go to Prussia,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox &ldquo;not even to see that
+      interesting view that you were describing. And for discussing with
+      humility I am too old. We never discuss anything at Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you ought to!&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Discussion keeps a house alive. It
+      cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot stand without them,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, unexpectedly catching on
+      to the thought, and rousing, for the first and last time, a faint hope in
+      the breasts of the delightful people. &ldquo;It cannot stand without them, and I
+      sometimes think&mdash;But I cannot expect your generation to agree, for
+      even my daughter disagrees with me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind us or her. Do say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and discussion to
+      men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a little silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE extraordinarily
+      strong,&rdquo; said a girl opposite, leaning forward and crumbling her bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too thankful not to
+      have a vote myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t mean the vote, though, did we?&rdquo; supplied Margaret. &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t we
+      differing on something much wider, Mrs. Wilcox? Whether women are to
+      remain what they have been since the dawn of history; or whether, since
+      men have moved forward so far, they too may move forward a little now. I
+      say they may. I would even admit a biological change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse,&rdquo; said the man.
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve turned disgracefully strict.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox also rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested plays. Do you like
+      MacDowell? Do you mind his only having two noises? If you must really go,
+      I&rsquo;ll see you out. Won&rsquo;t you even have coffee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the dining-room closing the door behind them, and as Mrs. Wilcox
+      buttoned up her jacket, she said: &ldquo;What an interesting life you all lead
+      in London!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion. &ldquo;We lead the lives
+      of gibbering monkeys. Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;really&mdash;We have something
+      quiet and stable at the bottom. We really have. All my friends have. Don&rsquo;t
+      pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed it, but forgive me by coming
+      again, alone, or by asking me to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am used to young people,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, and with each word she
+      spoke the outlines of known things grew dim. &ldquo;I hear a great deal of
+      chatter at home, for we, like you, entertain a great deal. With us it is
+      more sport and politics, but&mdash;I enjoyed my lunch very much, Miss
+      Schlegel, dear, and am not pretending, and only wish I could have joined
+      in more. For one thing, I&rsquo;m not particularly well just to-day. For
+      another, you younger people move so quickly that it dazes me. Charles is
+      the same, Dolly the same. But we are all in the same boat, old and young.
+      I never forget that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn emotion, they shook
+      hands. The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret re-entered the
+      dining-room; her friends had been talking over her new friend, and had
+      dismissed her as uninteresting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Several days passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people&mdash;there are many of
+      them&mdash;who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our
+      interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round
+      them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a
+      definite name for such behaviour&mdash;flirting&mdash;and if carried far
+      enough it is punishable by law. But no law&mdash;not public opinion even&mdash;punishes
+      those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they
+      inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as
+      intolerable. Was she one of these?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner&rsquo;s impatience, she wanted
+      everything to be settled up immediately. She mistrusted the periods of
+      quiet that are essential to true growth. Desiring to book Mrs. Wilcox as a
+      friend, she pressed on the ceremony, pencil, as it were, in hand, pressing
+      the more because the rest of the family were away, and the opportunity
+      seemed favourable. But the elder woman would not be hurried. She refused
+      to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to reopen discussion of Helen and
+      Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised as a short-cut. She took her time,
+      or perhaps let time take her, and when the crisis did come all was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come shopping?
+      Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand with the presents.
+      She had taken some more days in bed, and must make up for lost time.
+      Margaret accepted, and at eleven o&rsquo;clock one cheerless morning they
+      started out in a brougham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First of all,&rdquo; began Margaret, &ldquo;we must make a list and tick off the
+      people&rsquo;s names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken up any
+      moment. Have you any ideas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Wilcox rather hopelessly. &ldquo;Everything is sure to be there. I am not a good
+      shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is quite right&mdash;one
+      ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then, and write your own name at
+      the top of the page.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hooray!&rdquo; said Margaret, writing it. &ldquo;How very kind of you to start
+      with me!&rdquo; But she did not want to receive anything expensive. Their
+      acquaintance was singular rather than intimate, and she divined that the
+      Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure on outsiders; the more compact
+      families do. She did not want to be thought a second Helen, who would
+      snatch presents since she could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed
+      like a second Aunt Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity
+      of demeanour was best, and she added: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really want a Yuletide
+      gift, though. In fact, I&rsquo;d rather not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;ve odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that money can
+      buy. I want more people, but no more things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance, Miss
+      Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely fortnight. It
+      has so happened that I have been left alone, and you have stopped me from
+      brooding. I am too apt to brood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is so,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;if I have happened to be of use to you,
+      which I didn&rsquo;t know, you cannot pay me back with anything tangible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of something
+      as we go about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was written
+      opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was white, and when
+      they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At times they passed through a
+      clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s vitality was low that morning, and it was
+      Margaret who decided on a horse for this little girl, a golliwog for that,
+      for the rector&rsquo;s wife a copper warming-tray. &ldquo;We always give the servants
+      money.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, do you, yes, much easier,&rdquo; replied Margaret but felt the
+      grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing from a
+      forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys. Vulgarity
+      reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual exhortation against temperance
+      reform, invited men to &ldquo;Join our Christmas goose club&rdquo;&mdash;one bottle of
+      gin, etc., or two, according to subscription. A poster of a woman in
+      tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little red devils, who had
+      come in again that year, were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards. Margaret
+      was no morbid idealist. She did not wish this spate of business and
+      self-advertisement checked. It was only the occasion of it that struck her
+      with amazement annually. How many of these vacillating shoppers and tired
+      shop-assistants realised that it was a divine event that drew them
+      together? She realised it, though standing outside in the matter. She was
+      not a Christian in the accepted sense; she did not believe that God had
+      ever worked among us as a young artisan. These people, or most of them,
+      believed it, and if pressed, would affirm it in words. But the visible
+      signs of their belief were Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud
+      displaced, a little money spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and
+      forgotten. Inadequate. But in public who shall express the unseen
+      adequately? It is private life that holds out the mirror to infinity;
+      personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints at a personality
+      beyond our daily vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I do like Christmas on the whole,&rdquo; she announced. &ldquo;In its clumsy way,
+      it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it? I am only used to country Christmases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour&mdash;carols at
+      the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids, followed by
+      Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with songs from Helen. The
+      drawing-room does very well for that. We put the tree in the
+      powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted, and with
+      the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty. I wish we might have a
+      powder-closet in our next house. Of course, the tree has to be very small,
+      and the presents don&rsquo;t hang on it. No; the presents reside in a sort of
+      rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You spoke of your &lsquo;next house,&rsquo; Miss Schlegel. Then are you leaving
+      Wickham Place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been there long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All our lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be very sorry to leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father&mdash;&rdquo; She broke
+      off, for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket
+      Stores, and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private greeting cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If possible, something distinctive,&rdquo; she sighed. At the counter she found
+      a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with her insipidly,
+      wasting much time. &ldquo;My husband and our daughter are motoring.&rdquo; &ldquo;Bertha,
+      too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as this. While
+      they talked, she went through a volume of specimen cards, and submitted
+      one for Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s inspection. Mrs. Wilcox was delighted&mdash;so
+      original, words so sweet; she would order a hundred like that, and could
+      never be sufficiently grateful. Then, just as the assistant was booking
+      the order, she said: &ldquo;Do you know, I&rsquo;ll wait. On second thoughts, I&rsquo;ll
+      wait. There&rsquo;s plenty of time still, isn&rsquo;t there, and I shall be able to
+      get Evie&rsquo;s opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were in, she
+      said, &ldquo;But couldn&rsquo;t you get it renewed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lease, I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How very kind
+      of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely something could be done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down Wickham
+      Place, and build flats like yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how horrible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Landlords are horrible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she said vehemently: &ldquo;It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it isn&rsquo;t right.
+      I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do pity you from the
+      bottom of my heart. To be parted from your house, your father&rsquo;s house&mdash;it
+      oughtn&rsquo;t to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather die than&mdash;Oh,
+      poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right, if people mayn&rsquo;t die
+      in the room where they were born? My dear, I am so sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the
+      shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond
+      of ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an
+      ordinary London house. We shall easily find another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again my lack of experience, I suppose!&rdquo; said Margaret, easing away from
+      the subject. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say anything when you take up that line, Mrs.
+      Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me&mdash;foreshortened into a
+      backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming&mdash;wonderfully well read
+      for my age, but incapable&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. &ldquo;Come down with me to Howards End now,&rdquo;
+       she said, more vehemently than ever. &ldquo;I want you to see it. You have never
+      seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put things so
+      wonderfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her
+      companion. &ldquo;Later on I should love it,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s hardly
+      the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we&rsquo;re
+      fresh. Isn&rsquo;t the house shut up, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might I come some other day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. &ldquo;Back to Wickham Place,
+      please!&rdquo; was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind&mdash;the
+      Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That is why I
+      dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town chiefly to shop, but got
+      through nothing, and now he writes that they must cut their tour short,
+      the weather is so bad, and the police-traps have been so bad&mdash;nearly
+      as bad as in Surrey. Ours is such a careful chauffeur, and my husband
+      feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like road-hogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, naturally he&mdash;he isn&rsquo;t a road-hog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to suffer
+      with the lower animals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove homewards. The
+      city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets oppressing like the galleries of
+      a mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the lighted
+      windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was rather a
+      darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to find a more
+      grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a dozen times, but
+      something throttled her. She felt petty and awkward, and her meditations
+      on Christmas grew more cynical. Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is
+      there a single Londoner to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for
+      excitement and for elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had she
+      seen any example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself? She had
+      failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a little queer
+      and imaginative&mdash;she, whose birthright it was to nourish imagination!
+      Better to have accepted, to have tired themselves a little by the journey,
+      than coldly to reply, &ldquo;Might I come some other day?&rdquo; Her cynicism left
+      her. There would be no other day. This shadowy woman would never ask her
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due civilities, and
+      Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up the hall to the lift. As
+      the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an imprisonment The
+      beautiful head disappeared first, still buried in the muff; the long
+      trailing skirt followed. A woman of undefinable rarity was going up
+      heavenward, like a specimen in a bottle. And into what a heaven&mdash;a
+      vault as of hell, sooty black, from which soot descended!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on talking.
+      Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something drove him to do the
+      unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her a long account of the
+      day-school that he sometimes patronised. The account was interesting, and
+      she had often pressed him for it before, but she could not attend now, for
+      her mind was focussed on the invisible. She discerned that Mrs. Wilcox,
+      though a loving wife and mother, had only one passion in life&mdash;her
+      house&mdash;and that the moment was solemn when she invited a friend to
+      share this passion with her. To answer &ldquo;another day&rdquo; was to answer as a
+      fool. &ldquo;Another day&rdquo; will do for brick and mortar, but not for the Holy of
+      Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured. Her own curiosity was
+      slight. She had heard more than enough about it in the summer. The nine
+      windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had no pleasant connections for her,
+      and she would have preferred to spend the afternoon at a concert. But
+      imagination triumphed. While her brother held forth she determined to go,
+      at whatever cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go, too. When lunch was
+      over she stepped over to the flats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs, and took
+      a hansom to King&rsquo;s Cross. She was convinced that the escapade was
+      important, though it would have puzzled her to say why. There was question
+      of imprisonment and escape, and though she did not know the time of the
+      train, she strained her eyes for St. Pancras&rsquo;s clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the clock of King&rsquo;s Cross swung into sight, a second moon in that
+      infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was a train for
+      Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in her agitation for a
+      single. As she did so, a grave and happy voice saluted her and thanked
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come if I still may,&rdquo; said Margaret, laughing nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my house is
+      most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show you my meadow
+      properly except at sunrise. These fogs&rdquo;&mdash;she pointed at the station
+      roof&mdash;&ldquo;never spread far. I dare say they are sitting in the sun in
+      Hertfordshire, and you will never repent joining them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall never repent joining you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood the train,
+      breasting the darkness without. They never reached it. Before imagination
+      could triumph, there were cries of &ldquo;Mother! mother!&rdquo; and a heavy-browed
+      girl darted out of the cloak-room and seized Mrs. Wilcox by the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie!&rdquo; she gasped&mdash;&ldquo;Evie, my pet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl called, &ldquo;Father! I say! look who&rsquo;s here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie, dearest girl, why aren&rsquo;t you in Yorkshire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;motor smash&mdash;changed plans&mdash;father&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Ruth!&rdquo; cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them, &ldquo;what in the name of all
+      that&rsquo;s wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Henry dear!&mdash;here&rsquo;s a lovely surprise&mdash;but let me introduce&mdash;but
+      I think you know Miss Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; he replied, not greatly interested. &ldquo;But how&rsquo;s yourself, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fit as a fiddle,&rdquo; she answered gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but there a
+      wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman himself
+      admits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;But as we&rsquo;ve insured against third party risks, it won&rsquo;t so much
+      matter&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;Cart and car being practically at right angles&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left alone. No one
+      wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King&rsquo;s Cross between her husband and
+      her daughter, listening to both of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The funeral was over. The carriages had rolled away through the soft mud,
+      and only the poor remained. They approached to the newly-dug shaft and
+      looked their last at the coffin, now almost hidden beneath the spadefuls
+      of clay. It was their moment. Most of them were women from the dead
+      woman&rsquo;s district, to whom black garments had been served out by Mr.
+      Wilcox&rsquo;s orders. Pure curiosity had brought others. They thrilled with the
+      excitement of a death, and of a rapid death, and stood in groups or moved
+      between the graves, like drops of ink. The son of one of them, a
+      wood-cutter, was perched high above their heads, pollarding one of the
+      churchyard elms. From where he sat he could see the village of Hilton,
+      strung upon the North Road, with its accreting suburbs; the sunset beyond,
+      scarlet and orange, winking at him beneath brows of grey; the church; the
+      plantations; and behind him an unspoilt country of fields and farms. But
+      he, too, was rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth. He tried to tell
+      his mother down below all that he had felt when he saw the coffin
+      approaching: how he could not leave his work, and yet did not like to go
+      on with it; how he had almost slipped out of the tree, he was so upset;
+      the rooks had cawed, and no wonder&mdash;it was as if rooks knew too. His
+      mother claimed the prophetic power herself&mdash;she had seen a strange
+      look about Mrs. Wilcox for some time. London had done the mischief, said
+      others. She had been a kind lady; her grandmother had been kind, too&mdash;a
+      plainer person, but very kind. Ah, the old sort was dying out! Mr. Wilcox,
+      he was a kind gentleman. They advanced to the topic again and again,
+      dully, but with exaltation. The funeral of a rich person was to them what
+      the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is to the educated. It was Art; though
+      remote from life, it enhanced life&rsquo;s values, and they witnessed it avidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grave-diggers, who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval&mdash;they
+      disliked Charles; it was not a moment to speak of such things, but they
+      did not like Charles Wilcox&mdash;the grave-diggers finished their work
+      and piled up the wreaths and crosses above it. The sun set over Hilton;
+      the grey brows of the evening flushed a little, and were cleft with one
+      scarlet frown. Chattering sadly to each other, the mourners passed through
+      the lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down to the
+      village. The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer, poised above the
+      silence and swaying rhythmically. At last the bough fell beneath his saw.
+      With a grunt, he descended, his thoughts dwelling no longer on death, but
+      on love, for he was mating. He stopped as he passed the new grave; a sheaf
+      of tawny chrysanthemums had caught his eye. &ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t ought to have
+      coloured flowers at buryings,&rdquo; he reflected. Trudging on a few steps, he
+      stopped again, looked furtively at the dusk, turned back, wrenched a
+      chrysanthemum from the sheaf, and hid it in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After him came silence absolute. The cottage that abutted on the
+      churchyard was empty, and no other house stood near. Hour after hour the
+      scene of the interment remained without an eye to witness it. Clouds
+      drifted over it from the west; or the church may have been a ship,
+      high-prowed, steering with all its company towards infinity. Towards
+      morning the air grew colder, the sky clearer, the surface of the earth
+      hard and sparkling above the prostrate dead. The wood-cutter, returning
+      after a night of joy, reflected: &ldquo;They lilies, they chrysants; it&rsquo;s a pity
+      I didn&rsquo;t take them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast. Charles and Evie sat in
+      the dining-room, with Mrs. Charles. Their father, who could not bear to
+      see a face, breakfasted upstairs. He suffered acutely. Pain came over him
+      in spasms, as if it was physical, and even while he was about to eat, his
+      eyes would fill with tears, and he would lay down the morsel untasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remembered his wife&rsquo;s even goodness during thirty years. Not anything
+      in detail&mdash;not courtship or early raptures&mdash;but just the
+      unvarying virtue, that seemed to him a woman&rsquo;s noblest quality. So many
+      women are capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion or frivolity. Not
+      so his wife. Year after year, summer and winter, as bride and mother, she
+      had been the same, he had always trusted her. Her tenderness! Her
+      innocence! The wonderful innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth
+      knew no more of worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her
+      garden, or the grass in her field. Her idea of business&mdash;&ldquo;Henry, why
+      do people who have enough money try to get more money?&rdquo; Her idea of
+      politics&mdash;&ldquo;I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could
+      meet, there would be no more wars,&rdquo; Her idea of religion&mdash;ah, this
+      had been a cloud, but a cloud that passed. She came of Quaker stock, and
+      he and his family, formerly Dissenters, were now members of the Church of
+      England. The rector&rsquo;s sermons had at first repelled her, and she had
+      expressed a desire for &ldquo;a more inward light,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;not so much for
+      myself as for baby&rdquo; (Charles). Inward light must have been granted, for he
+      heard no complaints in later years. They brought up their three children
+      without dispute. They had never disputed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lay under the earth now. She had gone, and as if to make her going the
+      more bitter, had gone with a touch of mystery that was all unlike her.
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me you knew of it?&rdquo; he had moaned, and her faint
+      voice had answered: &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to, Henry&mdash;I might have been wrong&mdash;and
+      every one hates illnesses.&rdquo; He had been told of the horror by a strange
+      doctor, whom she had consulted during his absence from town. Was this
+      altogether just? Without fully explaining, she had died. It was a fault on
+      her part, and&mdash;tears rushed into his eyes&mdash;what a little fault!
+      It was the only time she had deceived him in those thirty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose to his feet and looked out of the window, for Evie had come in
+      with the letters, and he could meet no one&rsquo;s eye. Ah yes&mdash;she had
+      been a good woman&mdash;she had been steady. He chose the word
+      deliberately. To him steadiness included all praise. He himself, gazing at
+      the wintry garden, is in appearance a steady man. His face was not as
+      square as his son&rsquo;s, and, indeed, the chin, though firm enough in outline,
+      retreated a little, and the lips, ambiguous, were curtained by a
+      moustache. But there was no external hint of weakness. The eyes, if
+      capable of kindness and good-fellowship, if ruddy for the moment with
+      tears, were the eyes of one who could not be driven. The forehead, too,
+      was like Charles&rsquo;s. High and straight, brown and polished, merging
+      abruptly into temples and skull, it had the effect of a bastion that
+      protected his head from the world. At times it had the effect of a blank
+      wall. He had dwelt behind it, intact and happy, for fifty years. &ldquo;The
+      post&rsquo;s come, father,&rdquo; said Evie awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks. Put it down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has the breakfast been all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, thanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl glanced at him and at it with constraint. She did not know what
+      to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles says do you want the Times?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ll read it later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ring if you want anything, father, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve all I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having sorted the letters from the circulars, she went back to the
+      dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father&rsquo;s eaten nothing,&rdquo; she announced, sitting down with wrinkled brows
+      behind the tea-urn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles did not answer, but after a moment he ran quickly upstairs, opened
+      the door, and said &ldquo;Look here father, you must eat, you know;&rdquo; and having
+      paused for a reply that did not come, stole down again. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to
+      read his letters first, I think,&rdquo; he said evasively; &ldquo;I dare say he will
+      go on with his breakfast afterwards.&rdquo; Then he took up the Times, and for
+      some time there was no sound except the clink of cup against saucer and of
+      knife on plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mrs. Charles sat between her silent companions terrified at the
+      course of events, and a little bored. She was a rubbishy little creature,
+      and she knew it. A telegram had dragged her from Naples to the death-bed
+      of a woman whom she had scarcely known. A word from her husband had
+      plunged her into mourning. She desired to mourn inwardly as well, but she
+      wished that Mrs. Wilcox, since fated to die, could have died before the
+      marriage, for then less would have been expected of her. Crumbling her
+      toast, and too nervous to ask for the butter, she remained almost
+      motionless, thankful only for this, that her father-in-law was having his
+      breakfast upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Charles spoke. &ldquo;They had no business to be pollarding those elms
+      yesterday,&rdquo; he said to his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must make a note of that,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I am surprised that the
+      rector allowed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it may not be the rector&rsquo;s affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose else could it be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lord of the manor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Butter, Dolly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Evie dear. Charles&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know one could pollard elms. I thought one only pollarded
+      willows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, one can pollard elms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why oughtn&rsquo;t the elms in the churchyard to be pollarded?&rdquo; Charles
+      frowned a little, and turned again to his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another point. I must speak to Chalkeley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, rather; you must complain to Chalkeley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s no good his saying he is not responsible for those men. He is
+      responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, rather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother and sister were not callous. They spoke thus, partly because they
+      desired to keep Chalkeley up to the mark&mdash;a healthy desire in its way&mdash;partly
+      because they avoided the personal note in life. All Wilcoxes did. It did
+      not seem to them of supreme importance. Or it may be as Helen supposed:
+      they realised its importance, but were afraid of it. Panic and emptiness,
+      could one glance behind. They were not callous, and they left the
+      breakfast-table with aching hearts. Their mother never had come in to
+      breakfast. It was in the other rooms, and especially in the garden, that
+      they felt her loss most. As Charles went out to the garage, he was
+      reminded at every step of the woman who had loved him and whom he could
+      never replace. What battles he had fought against her gentle conservatism!
+      How she had disliked improvements, yet how loyally she had accepted them
+      when made! He and his father&mdash;what trouble they had had to get this
+      very garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to yield them the
+      paddock for it&mdash;the paddock that she loved more dearly than the
+      garden itself! The vine&mdash;she had got her way about the vine. It still
+      encumbered the south wall with its unproductive branches. And so with
+      Evie, as she stood talking to the cook. Though she could take up her
+      mother&rsquo;s work inside the house, just as the man could take it up without,
+      she felt that something unique had fallen out of her life. Their grief,
+      though less poignant than their father&rsquo;s, grew from deeper roots, for a
+      wife may be replaced; a mother never. Charles would go back to the office.
+      There was little at Howards End. The contents of his mother&rsquo;s will had
+      long been known to them. There were no legacies, no annuities, none of the
+      posthumous bustle with which some of the dead prolong their activities.
+      Trusting her husband, she had left him everything without reserve. She was
+      quite a poor woman&mdash;the house had been all her dowry, and the house
+      would come to Charles in time. Her watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended to
+      reserve for Paul, while Evie would take the jewellery and lace. How easily
+      she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit laudable, though he did
+      not intend to adopt it himself, whereas Margaret would have seen in it an
+      almost culpable indifference to earthly fame. Cynicism&mdash;not the
+      superficial cynicism that snarls and sneers, but the cynicism that can go
+      with courtesy and tenderness&mdash;that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      will. She wanted not to vex people. That accomplished, the earth might
+      freeze over her for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, there was nothing for Charles to wait for. He could not go on with his
+      honeymoon, so he would go up to London and work&mdash;he felt too
+      miserable hanging about. He and Dolly would have the furnished flat while
+      his father rested quietly in the country with Evie. He could also keep an
+      eye on his own little house, which was being painted and decorated for him
+      in one of the Surrey suburbs, and in which he hoped to install himself
+      soon after Christmas. Yes, he would go up after lunch in his new motor,
+      and the town servants, who had come down for the funeral, would go up by
+      train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found his father&rsquo;s chauffeur in the garage, said &ldquo;Morning&rdquo; without
+      looking at the man&rsquo;s face, and bending over the car, continued: &ldquo;Hullo! my
+      new car&rsquo;s been driven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Charles, getting rather red; &ldquo;and whoever&rsquo;s driven it hasn&rsquo;t
+      cleaned it properly, for there&rsquo;s mud on the axle. Take it off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man went for the cloths without a word. He was a chauffeur as ugly as
+      sin&mdash;not that this did him disservice with Charles, who thought charm
+      in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the little Italian beast with
+      whom they had started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles&mdash;&rdquo; His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost, a
+      dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat forming
+      the capital thereof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One minute, I&rsquo;m busy. Well, Crane, who&rsquo;s been driving it, do you
+      suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know, I&rsquo;m sure, sir. No one&rsquo;s driven it since I&rsquo;ve been back, but,
+      of course, there&rsquo;s the fortnight I&rsquo;ve been away with the other car in
+      Yorkshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mud came off easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles, your father&rsquo;s down. Something&rsquo;s happened. He wants you in the
+      house at once. Oh, Charles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while you were
+      away, Crane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gardener, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; no one&rsquo;s had the motor out, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t, of course, say for the time I&rsquo;ve been in Yorkshire. No more mud
+      now, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart
+      had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it was
+      not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after lunch,
+      he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent
+      story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want was
+      to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was
+      correct, for his wife replied, &ldquo;She wants Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End? Now, Crane, just don&rsquo;t forget to put on the Stepney wheel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, mind you don&rsquo;t forget, for I&mdash;Come, little woman.&rdquo; When they
+      were out of the chauffeur&rsquo;s sight he put his arm round her waist and
+      pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention&mdash;it
+      was what he granted her throughout their happy married life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you haven&rsquo;t listened, Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I keep on telling you&mdash;Howards End. Miss Schlegel&rsquo;s got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got what?&rdquo; said Charles, unclasping her. &ldquo;What the dickens are you
+      talking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, I&rsquo;m in no mood for foolery. It&rsquo;s no morning for it either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you&mdash;I keep on telling you&mdash;Miss Schlegel&mdash;she&rsquo;s
+      got it&mdash;your mother&rsquo;s left it to her&mdash;and you&rsquo;ve all got to move
+      out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HOWARDS END?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HOWARDS END!&rdquo; she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came
+      dashing out of the shubbery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly, go back at once! My father&rsquo;s much annoyed with you. Charles&rdquo;&mdash;she
+      hit herself wildly&mdash;&ldquo;come in at once to father. He&rsquo;s had a letter
+      that&rsquo;s too awful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the
+      gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific
+      vine. He exclaimed, &ldquo;Schlegels again!&rdquo; and as if to complete chaos, Dolly
+      said, &ldquo;Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, all three of you!&rdquo; cried his father, no longer inert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Wilcox&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you not to go out to the garage. I&rsquo;ve heard you all shouting in
+      the garden. I won&rsquo;t have it. Come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can&rsquo;t discuss private matters
+      in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read these. See
+      what you make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession. The
+      first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired her,
+      when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The enclosed&mdash;it
+      was from his mother herself. She had written: &ldquo;To my husband: I should
+      like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we&rsquo;re going to have a talk about this?&rdquo; he remarked, ominously
+      calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let&rsquo;s sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Evie, don&rsquo;t waste time, sit&mdash;down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of yesterday&mdash;indeed,
+      of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed
+      scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings were heard. They were
+      calming themselves. Charles, to steady them further, read the enclosure
+      out loud: &ldquo;A note in my mother&rsquo;s handwriting, in an envelope addressed to
+      my father, sealed. Inside: &lsquo;I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have
+      Howards End.&rsquo; No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron of that
+      nursing home. Now, the question is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly interrupted him. &ldquo;But I say that note isn&rsquo;t legal. Houses ought to
+      be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in front of
+      either ear&mdash;a symptom that she had not yet learnt to respect, and she
+      asked whether she might see the note. Charles looked at his father for
+      permission, who said abstractedly, &ldquo;Give it her.&rdquo; She seized it, and at
+      once exclaimed: &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s only in pencil! I said so. Pencil never
+      counts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, speaking
+      from out of his fortress. &ldquo;We are aware of that. Legally, I should be
+      justified in tearing it up and throwing it into the fire. Of course, my
+      dear, we consider you as one of the family, but it will be better if you
+      do not interfere with what you do not understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated: &ldquo;The
+      question is&mdash;&rdquo; He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table from
+      plates and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the tablecloth. &ldquo;The
+      question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the fortnight we were all away,
+      whether she unduly&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that,&rdquo; said his father, whose nature was nobler than his
+      son&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That she would have&mdash;that it is a case of undue influence. No, to my
+      mind the question is the&mdash;the invalid&rsquo;s condition at the time she
+      wrote.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don&rsquo;t admit it is my
+      mother&rsquo;s writing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you just said it was!&rdquo; cried Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind if I did,&rdquo; he blazed out; &ldquo;and hold your tongue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her handkerchief from
+      her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed her. Evie was scowling like
+      an angry boy. The two men were gradually assuming the manner of the
+      committee-room. They were both at their best when serving on committees.
+      They did not make the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but
+      disposed of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before
+      them now, and on it they turned their well-trained brains. Charles, after
+      a little demur, accepted the writing as genuine, and they passed on to the
+      next point. It is the best&mdash;perhaps the only&mdash;way of dodging
+      emotion. They were the average human article, and had they considered the
+      note as a whole it would have driven them miserable or mad. Considered
+      item by item, the emotional content was minimised, and all went forward
+      smoothly. The clock ticked, the coals blazed higher, and contended with
+      the white radiance that poured in through the windows. Unnoticed, the sun
+      occupied his sky, and the shadows of the tree stems, extraordinarily
+      solid, fell like trenches of purple across the frosted lawn. It was a
+      glorious winter morning. Evie&rsquo;s fox terrier, who had passed for white, was
+      only a dirty grey dog now, so intense was the purity that surrounded him.
+      He was discredited, but the blackbirds that he was chasing glowed with
+      Arabian darkness, for all the conventional colouring of life had been
+      altered. Inside, the clock struck ten with a rich and confident note.
+      Other clocks confirmed it, and the discussion moved towards its close.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To follow it is unnecessary. It is rather a moment when the commentator
+      should step forward. Ought the Wilcoxes to have offered their home to
+      Margaret? I think not. The appeal was too flimsy. It was not legal; it had
+      been written in illness, and under the spell of a sudden friendship; it
+      was contrary to the dead woman&rsquo;s intentions in the past, contrary to her
+      very nature, so far as that nature was understood by them. To them Howards
+      End was a house: they could not know that to her it had been a spirit, for
+      which she sought a spiritual heir. And&mdash;pushing one step farther in
+      these mists&mdash;may they not have decided even better than they
+      supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be
+      bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp
+      of hay with dew on it&mdash;can passion for such things be transmitted
+      where there is no bond of blood? No; the Wilcoxes are not to be blamed.
+      The problem is too terrific, and they could not even perceive a problem.
+      No; it is natural and fitting that after due debate they should tear the
+      note up and throw it on to their dining-room fire. The practical moralist
+      may acquit them absolutely. He who strives to look deeper may acquit them&mdash;almost.
+      For one hard fact remains. They did neglect a personal appeal. The woman
+      who had died did say to them, &ldquo;Do this,&rdquo; and they answered, &ldquo;We will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The incident made a most painful impression on them. Grief mounted into
+      the brain and worked there disquietingly. Yesterday they had lamented:
+      &ldquo;She was a dear mother, a true wife; in our absence she neglected her
+      health and died.&rdquo; To-day they thought: &ldquo;She was not as true, as dear, as
+      we supposed.&rdquo; The desire for a more inward light had found expression at
+      last, the unseen had impacted on the seen, and all that they could say was
+      &ldquo;Treachery.&rdquo; Mrs. Wilcox had been treacherous to the family, to the laws
+      of property, to her own written word. How did she expect Howards End to be
+      conveyed to Miss Schlegel? Was her husband, to whom it legally belonged,
+      to make it over to her as a free gift? Was the said Miss Schlegel to have
+      a life interest in it, or to own it absolutely? Was there to be no
+      compensation for the garage and other improvements that they had made
+      under the assumption that all would be theirs some day? Treacherous!
+      treacherous and absurd! When we think the dead both treacherous and
+      absurd, we have gone far towards reconciling ourselves to their departure.
+      That note, scribbled in pencil, sent through the matron, was
+      unbusinesslike as well as cruel, and decreased at once the value of the
+      woman who had written it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, rising from the table. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have
+      thought it possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother couldn&rsquo;t have meant it,&rdquo; said Evie, still frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my girl, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother believed so in ancestors too&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t like her to leave
+      anything to an outsider, who&rsquo;d never appreciate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The whole thing is unlike her,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;If Miss Schlegel had been
+      poor, if she had wanted a house, I could understand it a little. But she
+      has a house of her own. Why should she want another? She wouldn&rsquo;t have any
+      use for Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That time may prove,&rdquo; murmured Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; asked his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presumably she knows&mdash;mother will have told her. She got twice or
+      three times into the nursing home. Presumably she is awaiting
+      developments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a horrid woman!&rdquo; And Dolly, who had recovered, cried, &ldquo;Why, she may
+      be coming down to turn us out now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles put her right. &ldquo;I wish she would,&rdquo; he said ominously. &ldquo;I could
+      then deal with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So could I,&rdquo; echoed his father, who was feeling rather in the cold.
+      Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral arrangements and in
+      telling him to eat his breakfast, but the boy as he grew up was a little
+      dictatorial, and assumed the post of chairman too readily. &ldquo;I could deal
+      with her, if she comes, but she won&rsquo;t come. You&rsquo;re all a bit hard on Miss
+      Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Paul business was pretty scandalous, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want no more of the Paul business, Charles, as I said at the time, and
+      besides, it is quite apart from this business. Margaret Schlegel has been
+      officious and tiresome during this terrible week, and we have all suffered
+      under her, but upon my soul she&rsquo;s honest. She&rsquo;s NOT in collusion with the
+      matron. I&rsquo;m absolutely certain of it. Nor was she with the doctor, I&rsquo;m
+      equally certain of that. She did not hide anything from us, for up to that
+      very afternoon she was as ignorant as we are. She, like ourselves, was a
+      dupe&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped for a moment. &ldquo;You see, Charles, in her terrible
+      pain your mother put us all in false positions. Paul would not have left
+      England, you would not have gone to Italy, nor Evie and I into Yorkshire,
+      if only we had known. Well, Miss Schlegel&rsquo;s position has been equally
+      false. Take all in all, she has not come out of it badly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie said: &ldquo;But those chrysanthemums&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or coming down to the funeral at all&mdash;&rdquo; echoed Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t she come down? She had the right to, and she stood far back
+      among the Hilton women. The flowers&mdash;certainly we should not have
+      sent such flowers, but they may have seemed the right thing to her, Evie,
+      and for all you know they may be the custom in Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I forget she isn&rsquo;t really English,&rdquo; cried Evie. &ldquo;That would explain a
+      lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a cosmopolitan,&rdquo; said Charles, looking at his watch. &ldquo;I admit I&rsquo;m
+      rather down on cosmopolitans. My fault, doubtless. I cannot stand them,
+      and a German cosmopolitan is the limit. I think that&rsquo;s about all, isn&rsquo;t
+      it? I want to run down and see Chalkeley. A bicycle will do. And, by the
+      way, I wish you&rsquo;d speak to Crane some time. I&rsquo;m certain he&rsquo;s had my new
+      car out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he done it any harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case I shall let it pass. It&rsquo;s not worth while having a row.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles and his father sometimes disagreed. But they always parted with an
+      increased regard for one another, and each desired no doughtier comrade
+      when it was necessary to voyage for a little past the emotions. So the
+      sailors of Ulysses voyaged past the Sirens, having first stopped one
+      another&rsquo;s ears with wool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Charles need not have been anxious. Miss Schlegel had never heard of his
+      mother&rsquo;s strange request. She was to hear of it in after years, when she
+      had built up her life differently, and it was to fit into position as the
+      headstone of the corner. Her mind was bent on other questions now, and by
+      her also it would have been rejected as the fantasy of an invalid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was parting from these Wilcoxes for the second time. Paul and his
+      mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and ebbed out of
+      it for ever. The ripple had left no traces behind; the wave had strewn at
+      her feet fragments torn from the unknown. A curious seeker, she stood for
+      a while at the verge of the sea that tells so little, but tells a little,
+      and watched the outgoing of this last tremendous tide. Her friend had
+      vanished in agony, but not, she believed, in degradation. Her withdrawal
+      had hinted at other things besides disease and pain. Some leave our life
+      with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox had taken the
+      middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She had kept
+      proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her friends, but
+      not too much; she had shut up her heart&mdash;almost, but not entirely. It
+      is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die&mdash;neither as
+      victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye
+      the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last word&mdash;whatever it would be&mdash;had certainly not been said
+      in Hilton churchyard. She had not died there. A funeral is not death, any
+      more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy
+      devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would
+      register the quick motions of man. In Margaret&rsquo;s eyes Mrs. Wilcox had
+      escaped registration. She had gone out of life vividly, her own way, and
+      no dust was so truly dust as the contents of that heavy coffin, lowered
+      with ceremonial until it rested on the dust of the earth, no flowers so
+      utterly wasted as the chrysanthemums that the frost must have withered
+      before morning. Margaret had once said she &ldquo;loved superstition.&rdquo; It was
+      not true. Few women had tried more earnestly to pierce the accretions in
+      which body and soul are enwrapped. The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped her
+      in her work. She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a human
+      being is, and to what he may aspire. Truer relationships gleamed. Perhaps
+      the last word would be hope&mdash;hope even on this side of the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, she could take an interest in the survivors. In spite of her
+      Christmas duties, in spite of her brother, the Wilcoxes continued to play
+      a considerable part in her thoughts. She had seen so much of them in the
+      final week. They were not &ldquo;her sort,&rdquo; they were often suspicious and
+      stupid, and deficient where she excelled; but collision with them
+      stimulated her, and she felt an interest that verged into liking, even for
+      Charles. She desired to protect them, and often felt that they could
+      protect her, excelling where she was deficient. Once past the rocks of
+      emotion, they knew so well what to do, whom to send for; their hands were
+      on all the ropes, they had grit as well as grittiness and she valued grit
+      enormously. They led a life that she could not attain to&mdash;the outer
+      life of &ldquo;telegrams and anger,&rdquo; which had detonated when Helen and Paul had
+      touched in June, and had detonated again the other week. To Margaret this
+      life was to remain a real force. She could not despise it, as Helen and
+      Tibby affected to do. It fostered such virtues as neatness, decision, and
+      obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they have formed our
+      civilisation. They form character, too; Margaret could not doubt it; they
+      keep the soul from becoming sloppy. How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes,
+      when it takes all sorts to make a world?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t brood too much,&rdquo; she wrote to Helen, &ldquo;on the superiority of the
+      unseen to the seen. It&rsquo;s true, but to brood on it is medieval. Our
+      business is not to contrast the two, but to reconcile them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen replied that she had no intention of brooding on such a dull
+      subject. What did her sister take her for? The weather was magnificent.
+      She and the Mosebachs had gone tobogganing on the only hill that Pomerania
+      boasted. It was fun, but over-crowded, for the rest of Pomerania had gone
+      there too. Helen loved the country, and her letter glowed with physical
+      exercise and poetry. She spoke of the scenery, quiet, yet august; of the
+      snow-clad fields, with their scampering herds of deer; of the river and
+      its quaint entrance into the Baltic Sea; of the Oderberge, only three
+      hundred feet high, from which one slid all too quickly back into the
+      Pomeranian plains, and yet these Oderberge were real mountains, with
+      pine-forests, streams, and views complete. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t size that counts so
+      much as the way things are arranged.&rdquo; In another paragraph she referred to
+      Mrs. Wilcox sympathetically, but the news had not bitten into her. She had
+      not realised the accessories of death, which are in a sense more memorable
+      than death itself. The atmosphere of precautions and recriminations, and
+      in the midst a human body growing more vivid because it was in pain; the
+      end of that body in Hilton churchyard; the survival of something that
+      suggested hope, vivid in its turn against life&rsquo;s workaday cheerfulness;&mdash;all
+      these were lost to Helen, who only felt that a pleasant lady could now be
+      pleasant no longer. She returned to Wickham Place full of her own affairs&mdash;she
+      had had another proposal&mdash;and Margaret, after a moment&rsquo;s hesitation,
+      was content that this should be so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposal had not been a serious matter. It was the work of Fraulein
+      Mosebach, who had conceived the large and patriotic notion of winning back
+      her cousins to the Fatherland by matrimony. England had played Paul
+      Wilcox, and lost; Germany played Herr Forstmeister some one&mdash;Helen
+      could not remember his name. Herr Forstmeister lived in a wood, and,
+      standing on the summit of the Oderberge, he had pointed out his house to
+      Helen, or rather, had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay. She
+      had exclaimed, &ldquo;Oh, how lovely! That&rsquo;s the place for me!&rdquo; and in the
+      evening Frieda appeared in her bedroom. &ldquo;I have a message, dear Helen,&rdquo;
+       etc., and so she had, but had been very nice when Helen laughed; quite
+      understood&mdash;a forest too solitary and damp&mdash;quite agreed, but
+      Herr Forstmeister believed he had assurance to the contrary. Germany had
+      lost, but with good-humour; holding the manhood of the world, she felt
+      bound to win. &ldquo;And there will even be some one for Tibby,&rdquo; concluded
+      Helen. &ldquo;There now, Tibby, think of that; Frieda is saving up a little girl
+      for you, in pig-tails and white worsted stockings but the feet of the
+      stockings are pink as if the little girl had trodden in strawberries. I&rsquo;ve
+      talked too much. My head aches. Now you talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby consented to talk. He too was full of his own affairs, for he had
+      just been up to try for a scholarship at Oxford. The men were down, and
+      the candidates had been housed in various colleges, and had dined in hall.
+      Tibby was sensitive to beauty, the experience was new, and he gave a
+      description of his visit that was almost glowing. The august and mellow
+      University, soaked with the richness of the western counties that it has
+      served for a thousand years, appealed at once to the boy&rsquo;s taste; it was
+      the kind of thing he could understand, and he understood it all the better
+      because it was empty. Oxford is&mdash;Oxford; not a mere receptacle for
+      youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than
+      to love one another; such at all events was to be its effect on Tibby. His
+      sisters sent him there that he might make friends, for they knew that his
+      education had been cranky, and had severed him from other boys and men. He
+      made no friends. His Oxford remained Oxford empty, and he took into life
+      with him, not the memory of a radiance, but the memory of a colour scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It pleased Margaret to hear her brother and sister talking. They did not
+      get on overwell as a rule. For a few moments she listened to them, feeling
+      elderly and benign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then something occurred to her, and she interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, I told you about poor Mrs. Wilcox; that sad business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had a correspondence with her son. He was winding up the estate,
+      and wrote to ask me whether his mother had wanted me to have anything. I
+      thought it good of him, considering I knew her so little. I said that she
+      had once spoken of giving me a Christmas present, but we both forgot about
+      it afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope Charles took the hint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;that is to say, her husband wrote later on, and thanked me for
+      being a little kind to her, and actually gave me her silver vinaigrette.
+      Don&rsquo;t you think that is extraordinarily generous? It has made me like him
+      very much. He hopes that this will not be the end of our acquaintance, but
+      that you and I will go and stop with Evie some time in the future. I like
+      Mr. Wilcox. He is taking up his work&mdash;rubber&mdash;it is a big
+      business. I gather he is launching out rather. Charles is in it, too.
+      Charles is married&mdash;a pretty little creature, but she doesn&rsquo;t seem
+      wise. They took on the flat, but now they have gone off to a house of
+      their own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, after a decent pause, continued her account of Stettin. How quickly
+      a situation changes! In June she had been in a crisis; even in November
+      she could blush and be unnatural; now it was January and the whole affair
+      lay forgotten. Looking back on the past six months, Margaret realised the
+      chaotic nature of our daily life, and its difference from the orderly
+      sequence that has been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of
+      false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we
+      nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful career
+      must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the
+      most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of
+      him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our
+      national morality is duly silent. It assumes that preparation against
+      danger is in itself a good, and that men, like nations, are the better for
+      staggering through life fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has
+      scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but
+      not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable,
+      but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a
+      romance, and its essence is romantic beauty. Margaret hoped that for the
+      future she would be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to lead its
+      life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming gracefully on the
+      grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept past them, money had been
+      spent and renewed, reputations won and lost, and the city herself,
+      emblematic of their lives, rose and fell in a continual flux, while her
+      shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the
+      fields of Hertfordshire. This famous building had arisen, that was doomed.
+      To-day Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn of Regent
+      Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of
+      petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each
+      other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw
+      less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the leaves were falling by midsummer;
+      the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an artistic
+      cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future will probably
+      ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town. One can understand
+      the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces, the public has heard a
+      little too much&mdash;they seem Victorian, while London is Georgian&mdash;and
+      those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum
+      swings back to her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualises it
+      as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without purpose, and excitable
+      without love; as a spirit that has altered before it can be chronicled; as
+      a heart that certainly beats, but with no pulsation of humanity. It lies
+      beyond everything; Nature, with all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than
+      do these crowds of men. A friend explains himself; the earth is explicable&mdash;from
+      her we came, and we must return to her. But who can explain Westminster
+      Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning&mdash;the city inhaling&mdash;or
+      the same thoroughfares in the evening&mdash;the city exhaling her
+      exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very
+      stars, the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and
+      stamped with a human face. London is religion&rsquo;s opportunity&mdash;not the
+      decorous religion of theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the
+      continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort&mdash;not any
+      one pompous or tearful&mdash;were caring for us up in the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him, too, away
+      from his moorings, and Margaret&rsquo;s eyes were not opened until the lease of
+      Wickham Place expired. She had always known that it must expire, but the
+      knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event. Then the
+      house was suddenly ringed with pathos. It had seen so much happiness. Why
+      had it to be swept away? In the streets of the city she noted for the
+      first time the architecture of hurry and heard the language of hurry on
+      the mouths of its inhabitants&mdash;clipped words, formless sentences,
+      potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by month things were
+      stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population still rose, but what
+      was the quality of the men born? The particular millionaire who owned the
+      freehold of Wickham Place, and desired to erect Babylonian flats upon it&mdash;what
+      right had he to stir so large a portion of the quivering jelly? He was not
+      a fool&mdash;she had heard him expose Socialism&mdash;but true insight
+      began just where his intelligence ended, and one gathered that this was
+      the case with most millionaires. What right had such men&mdash;But
+      Margaret checked herself. That way lies madness. Thank goodness, she, too,
+      had some money, and could purchase a new home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter vacation,
+      and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk with him. Did
+      he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby didn&rsquo;t know that he did
+      know. Did he at all know what he wanted to do? He was equally uncertain,
+      but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to be quite free of any
+      profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went on sewing for a few minutes
+      before she replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly happy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es.&rdquo; said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious
+      quiver, as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round, through,
+      over, and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped him, and finally
+      dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the Subject under
+      discussion. That bleat of Tibby&rsquo;s infuriated Helen. But Helen was now down
+      in the dining room preparing a speech about political economy. At times
+      her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don&rsquo;t you think? Then
+      there&rsquo;s Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides&rdquo;&mdash;shifting to the
+      general&mdash;&ldquo;every one is the better for some regular work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall stick to it,&rdquo; she continued, smiling. &ldquo;I am not saying it to
+      educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in the last century
+      men have developed the desire for work, and they must not starve it. It&rsquo;s
+      a new desire. It goes with a great deal that&rsquo;s bad, but in itself it&rsquo;s
+      good, and I hope that for women, too, &lsquo;not to work&rsquo; will soon become as
+      shocking as &lsquo;not to be married&rsquo; was a hundred years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no experience of this profound desire to which you allude,&rdquo;
+       enunciated Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we&rsquo;ll leave the subject till you do. I&rsquo;m not going to rattle you
+      round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of the men you like
+      most, and see how they&rsquo;ve arranged them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most,&rdquo; said Tibby faintly, and leant so far back
+      in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m not serious because I don&rsquo;t use the traditional
+      arguments&mdash;making money, a sphere awaiting you, and so on&mdash;all
+      of which are, for various reasons, cant.&rdquo; She sewed on. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m only your
+      sister. I haven&rsquo;t any authority over you, and I don&rsquo;t want to have any.
+      Just to put before you what I think the Truth. You see&rdquo;&mdash;she shook
+      off the pince-nez to which she had recently taken&mdash;&ldquo;in a few years we
+      shall be the same age practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men
+      are so much nicer than women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has nobody arst you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only ninnies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do people ask Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plentifully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about your ninnies, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were men who had nothing better to do,&rdquo; said his sister, feeling
+      that she was entitled to score this point. &ldquo;So take warning; you must
+      work, or else you must pretend to work, which is what I do. Work, work,
+      work if you&rsquo;d save your soul and your body. It is honestly a necessity,
+      dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their
+      defects of temper and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than
+      many who are better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
+      regularly and honestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spare me the Wilcoxes,&rdquo; he moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not. They are the right sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, goodness me, Meg&mdash;!&rdquo; he protested, suddenly sitting up, alert
+      and angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine personality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re as near the right sort as you can imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no&mdash;oh, no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny, but
+      who came back so ill from Nigeria. He&rsquo;s gone out there again, Evie Wilcox
+      tells me&mdash;out to his duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duty&rdquo; always elicited a groan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t want the money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly work&mdash;dull
+      country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh water and food...
+      A nation that can produce men of that sort may well be proud. No wonder
+      England has become an Empire.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;EMPIRE!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t bother over results,&rdquo; said Margaret, a little sadly. &ldquo;They are
+      too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An Empire bores me, so
+      far, but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up. London bores me,
+      but what thousands of splendid people are labouring to make London&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What it is,&rdquo; he sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation. How
+      paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; said Tibby, &ldquo;want civilisation without activity, which, I expect,
+      is what we shall find in the other place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you want that.
+      You can find it at Oxford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stupid&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I&rsquo;m stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I&rsquo;ll even live in Oxford
+      if you like&mdash;North Oxford. I&rsquo;ll live anywhere except Bournemouth,
+      Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge
+      Wells and Surbiton and Bedford. There on no account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;London, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London. However, there&rsquo;s
+      no reason we shouldn&rsquo;t have a house in the country and also a flat in
+      town, provided we all stick together and contribute. Though of course&mdash;Oh,
+      how one does maunder on and to think, to think of the people who are
+      really poor. How do they live? Not to move about the world would kill me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a state of
+      extreme excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dears, what do you think? You&rsquo;ll never guess. A woman&rsquo;s been here
+      asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?&rdquo; (Helen was fond of supplying her own
+      surprise.) &ldquo;Yes, for her husband, and it really is so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not anything to do with Bracknell?&rdquo; cried Margaret, who had lately taken
+      on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives and boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up,
+      Tibby!) It&rsquo;s no one we know. I said, &lsquo;Hunt, my good woman; have a good
+      look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the
+      antimacassars. Husband? husband?&rsquo; Oh, and she so magnificently dressed and
+      tinkling like a chandelier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Helen, what did really happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door
+      like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open.
+      Then we began&mdash;very civilly. &lsquo;I want my husband, what I have reason
+      to believe is here.&rsquo; No&mdash;how unjust one is. She said &lsquo;whom,&rsquo; not
+      &lsquo;what.&rsquo; She got it perfectly. So I said, &lsquo;Name, please?&rsquo; and she said,
+      &lsquo;Lan, Miss,&rsquo; and there we were.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what an extraordinary&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding here.
+      Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my beauty, and
+      never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you were pleased,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; Helen squeaked. &ldquo;A perfectly delightful experience. Oh, Mrs.
+      Lanoline&rsquo;s a dear&mdash;she asked for a husband as if he were an umbrella.
+      She mislaid him Saturday afternoon&mdash;and for a long time suffered no
+      inconvenience. But all night, and all this morning her apprehensions grew.
+      Breakfast didn&rsquo;t seem the same&mdash;no, no more did lunch, and so she
+      strolled up to 2 Wickham Place as being the most likely place for the
+      missing article.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how on earth&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t begin how on earthing. &lsquo;I know what I know,&rsquo; she kept repeating,
+      not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked her what she did
+      know. Some knew what others knew, and others didn&rsquo;t, and then others again
+      had better be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent! She had a face like a
+      silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of orris-root. We chatted pleasantly a
+      little about husbands, and I wondered where hers was too, and advised her
+      to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed that Mr. Lanoline&rsquo;s a
+      notty, notty man, and hasn&rsquo;t no business to go on the lardy-da. But I
+      think she suspected me up to the last. Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about
+      this. Now, Meg, remember&mdash;bags I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bag it by all means,&rdquo; murmured Margaret, putting down her work. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not
+      sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible volcano smoking
+      somewhere, doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so&mdash;she doesn&rsquo;t really mind. The admirable creature
+      isn&rsquo;t capable of tragedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her husband may be, though,&rdquo; said Margaret, moving to the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs.
+      Lanoline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was she pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her figure may have been good once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain between
+      Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned sadly to
+      house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She feared, fantastically,
+      that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil and squalor, into
+      nearer contact with such episodes as these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby and I have again been wondering where we&rsquo;ll live next September,&rdquo;
+       she said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby had better first wonder what he&rsquo;ll do,&rdquo; retorted Helen; and that
+      topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and after tea Helen
+      went on preparing her speech, and Margaret prepared one, too, for they
+      were going out to a discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts
+      were poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint
+      smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had both
+      decayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day, just as they
+      were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called. He was a clerk in the
+      employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company. Thus much from his
+      card. He had come &ldquo;about the lady yesterday.&rdquo; Thus much from Annie, who
+      had shown him into the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cheers, children!&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mrs. Lanoline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not the gay
+      dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless, who had already
+      the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so common in London,
+      and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing presences. One
+      guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy
+      whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who
+      have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit.
+      Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of primitive good
+      looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and
+      the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up
+      the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had
+      worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted
+      whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf
+      that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the
+      good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very
+      well&mdash;the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity
+      with the outsides of books. She knew the very tones in which he would
+      address her. She was only unprepared for an example of her own
+      visiting-card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?&rdquo; said he, uneasily
+      familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I can&rsquo;t say I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that was how it happened, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don&rsquo;t remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a concert at the Queen&rsquo;s Hall. I think you will recollect,&rdquo; he
+      added pretentiously, &ldquo;when I tell you that it included a performance of
+      the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We hear the Fifth practically every time it&rsquo;s done, so I&rsquo;m not sure&mdash;do
+      you remember, Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I don&rsquo;t remember. That&rsquo;s the only Beethoven I ever remember
+      specially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Likely enough,&rdquo; Helen laughed, &ldquo;for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I
+      hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mistake arose out of my card, did it?&rdquo; interposed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the mistake arose&mdash;it was a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and
+      that she could find you?&rdquo; she continued, pushing him forward, for, though
+      he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, calling too&mdash;a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why&mdash;?&rdquo; began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said to my wife,&rdquo; he continued more rapidly &ldquo;I said to Mrs. Bast, &lsquo;I
+      have to pay a call on some friends,&rsquo; and Mrs. Bast said to me, &lsquo;Do go.&rsquo;
+      While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and
+      thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I
+      beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may
+      have inadvertently caused you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No inconvenience,&rdquo; said Helen; &ldquo;but I still don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was
+      obviously lying, and Helen didn&rsquo;t see why he should get off. She had the
+      cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister&rsquo;s pressure, she said, &ldquo;I still
+      don&rsquo;t understand. When did you say you paid this call?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call? What call?&rdquo; said he, staring as if her question had been a foolish
+      one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This afternoon call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the afternoon, of course!&rdquo; he replied, and looked at Tibby to see how
+      the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, &ldquo;Saturday
+      afternoon or Sunday afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;S&mdash;Saturday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; said Helen; &ldquo;and you were still calling on Sunday, when your
+      wife came here. A long visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t call that fair,&rdquo; said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome. There
+      was fight in his eyes. &ldquo;I know what you mean, and it isn&rsquo;t so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t let us mind,&rdquo; said Margaret, distressed again by odours from
+      the abyss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was something else,&rdquo; he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking down.
+      &ldquo;I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was good of you to come and explain,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The rest is naturally
+      no concern of ours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I want&mdash;I wanted&mdash;have you ever read The Ordeal of
+      Richard Feverel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don&rsquo;t you see,
+      like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson&rsquo;s Prince
+      Otto?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I
+      wanted&mdash;&rdquo; He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his
+      culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. &ldquo;I walked all the Saturday
+      night,&rdquo; said Leonard. &ldquo;I walked.&rdquo; A thrill of approval ran through the
+      sisters. But culture closed in again. He asked whether they had ever read
+      E. V. Lucas&rsquo;s Open Road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Helen, &ldquo;No doubt it&rsquo;s another beautiful book, but I&rsquo;d rather hear
+      about your road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I walked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How far?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my watch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you walking alone, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, straightening himself; &ldquo;but we&rsquo;d been talking it over at
+      the office. There&rsquo;s been a lot of talk at the office lately about these
+      things. The fellows there said one steers by the Pole Star, and I looked
+      it up in the celestial atlas, but once out of doors everything gets so
+      mixed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk to me about the Pole Star,&rdquo; interrupted Helen, who was
+      becoming interested. &ldquo;I know its little ways. It goes round and round, and
+      you go round after it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then the trees,
+      and towards morning it got cloudy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room. He knew
+      that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did not want to hear
+      him trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more than they
+      knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm more easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you start from?&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;Do tell us more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the office I said
+      to myself, &lsquo;I must have a walk once in a way. If I don&rsquo;t take this walk
+      now, I shall never take it.&rsquo; I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not good country there, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and being out was
+      the great thing. I did get into woods, too, presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, go on,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it&rsquo;s dark.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you actually go off the roads?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it is that
+      it&rsquo;s more difficult to find one&rsquo;s way.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Bast, you&rsquo;re a born adventurer,&rdquo; laughed Margaret. &ldquo;No professional
+      athlete would have attempted what you&rsquo;ve done. It&rsquo;s a wonder your walk
+      didn&rsquo;t end in a broken neck. Whatever did your wife say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Professional athletes never move without lanterns and compasses,&rdquo; said
+      Helen. &ldquo;Besides, they can&rsquo;t walk. It tires them. Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but the wood. This &lsquo;ere wood. How did you get out of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a good bit
+      uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the road went off
+      into grass, and I got into another wood. That was awful, with gorse
+      bushes. I did wish I&rsquo;d never come, but suddenly it got light&mdash;just
+      while I seemed going under one tree. Then I found a road down to a
+      station, and took the first train I could back to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But was the dawn wonderful?&rdquo; asked Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With unforgettable sincerity he replied, &ldquo;No.&rdquo; The word flew again like a
+      pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had seemed ignoble or
+      literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R. L. S. and the &ldquo;love of the
+      earth&rdquo; and his silk top-hat. In the presence of these women Leonard had
+      arrived, and he spoke with a flow, an exultation, that he had seldom
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so cold
+      too. I&rsquo;m glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more than I can
+      say. And besides&mdash;you can believe me or not as you choose&mdash;I was
+      very hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon&mdash;I meant it to last me all
+      night like other dinners. I never thought that walking would make such a
+      difference. Why, when you&rsquo;re walking you want, as it were, a breakfast and
+      luncheon and tea during the night as well, and I&rsquo;d nothing but a packet of
+      Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn&rsquo;t what you may call
+      enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did stick. I&mdash;I
+      was determined. Oh, hang it all! what&rsquo;s the good&mdash;I mean, the good of
+      living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day, same old game,
+      same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You
+      ought to see once in a way what&rsquo;s going on outside, if it&rsquo;s only nothing
+      particular after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should just think you ought,&rdquo; said Helen, sitting on the edge of
+      the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of a lady&rsquo;s voice recalled him from sincerity, and he said:
+      &ldquo;Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard
+      Jefferies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you&rsquo;re wrong there. It didn&rsquo;t. It came from
+      something far greater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies&mdash;Borrow,
+      Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and the outburst ended
+      in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault is ours, not
+      theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and are not to blame if, in our
+      weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination. And Leonard had
+      reached the destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness
+      covered its amenities, and  its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night.
+      Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see
+      for himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater
+      than Jefferies&rsquo; books&mdash;the  spirit that led Jefferies to write them;
+      and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was part of the
+      eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you don&rsquo;t think I was foolish?&rdquo; he asked becoming again the naive
+      and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens, no!&rdquo; replied Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven help us if we do!&rdquo; replied Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand&mdash;not
+      if I explained for days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it wasn&rsquo;t foolish!&rdquo; cried Helen, her eyes aflame. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve pushed back
+      the boundaries; I think it splendid of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve not been content to dream as we have&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though we have walked, too&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must show you a picture upstairs&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their evening
+      party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bother, not to say dash&mdash;I had forgotten we were dining out; but
+      do, do, come round again and have a talk.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, you must&mdash;do,&rdquo;
+       echoed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: &ldquo;No, I shall not. It&rsquo;s better
+      like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why better?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look back
+      on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life. Really. I
+      mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and there we had
+      better leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s rather a sad view of life, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things so often get spoiled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; flashed Helen, &ldquo;but people don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true
+      imagination and false. What he said wasn&rsquo;t wrong, but it wasn&rsquo;t right, and
+      a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument might
+      be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever. He thanked
+      the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a moment&rsquo;s
+      awkwardness, and then Helen said: &ldquo;Go, then; perhaps you know best; but
+      never forget you&rsquo;re better than Jefferies.&rdquo; And he went. Their hansom
+      caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and vanished
+      with its accomplished load into the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric
+      lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side
+      streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson
+      battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the
+      splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted
+      ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She had never known the
+      clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted
+      wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to
+      brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels&mdash;or,
+      to speak more accurately, his interview with them&mdash;were to fill such
+      a corner, nor was it by any means the first time that he had talked
+      intimately to strangers. The habit was analogous to a debauch, an outlet,
+      though the worst of outlets, for instincts that would not be denied.
+      Terrifying him, it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he
+      was confiding secrets to people whom he had scarcely seen. It brought him
+      many fears and some pleasant memories. Perhaps the keenest happiness he
+      had ever known was during a railway journey to Cambridge, where a
+      decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken to him. They had got into
+      conversation, and gradually Leonard flung reticence aside, told some of
+      his domestic troubles and hinted at the rest. The undergraduate, supposing
+      they could start a friendship, asked him to &ldquo;coffee after hall,&rdquo; which he
+      accepted, but afterwards grew shy, and took care not to stir from the
+      commercial hotel where he lodged. He did not want Romance to collide with
+      the Porphyrion, still less with Jacky, and people with fuller, happier
+      lives are slow to understand this. To the Schlegels, as to the
+      undergraduate, he was an interesting creature, of whom they wanted to see
+      more. But they to him were denizens of Romance, who must keep to the
+      corner he had assigned them, pictures that must not walk out of their
+      frames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His behaviour over Margaret&rsquo;s visiting-card had been typical. His had
+      scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no
+      inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave
+      his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were
+      enough. Here &ldquo;that card&rdquo; had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was untidy,
+      and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that
+      card, eh?&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, don&rsquo;t you wish you knew what that card was?&rdquo; &ldquo;Len, who&rsquo;s
+      Miss Schlegel?&rdquo; etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke, now as a
+      grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It followed them
+      when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It was submitted to third
+      parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it became the battlefield on which
+      the souls of Leonard and his wife contended. Why did he not say, &ldquo;A lady
+      took my umbrella, another gave me this that I might call for my umbrella&rdquo;?
+      Because Jacky would have disbelieved him? Partly, but chiefly because he
+      was sentimental. No affection gathered round the card, but it symbolised
+      the life of culture, that Jacky should never spoil. At night he would say
+      to himself, &ldquo;Well, at all events, she doesn&rsquo;t know about that card. Yah!
+      done her there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear. She drew
+      her own conclusion&mdash;she was only capable of drawing one conclusion&mdash;and
+      in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the Friday Leonard had
+      refused to speak to her, and had spent the evening observing the stars. On
+      the Saturday he went up, as usual, to town, but he came not back Saturday
+      night, nor Sunday morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The inconvenience grew
+      intolerable, and though she was now of a retiring habit, and shy of women,
+      she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned in her absence. The card,
+      the fatal card, was gone from the pages of Ruskin, and he guessed what had
+      happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter. &ldquo;I know
+      where you&rsquo;ve been, but you don&rsquo;t know where I&rsquo;ve been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky sighed, said, &ldquo;Len, I do think you might explain,&rdquo; and resumed
+      domesticity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too silly&mdash;or
+      it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt them. His reticence
+      was not entirely the shoddy article that a business life promotes, the
+      reticence that pretends that nothing is something, and hides behind the
+      Daily Telegraph. The adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an adventure
+      for a clerk to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh at him, you
+      who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle beside you and all
+      the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may laugh who think
+      adventures silly. But do not be surprised if Leonard is shy whenever he
+      meets you, and if the Schlegels rather than Jacky hear about the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent joy. He
+      was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as he journeyed
+      home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of wealth had fallen,
+      and there had been&mdash;he could not phrase it&mdash;a general assertion
+      of the wonder of the world. &ldquo;My conviction,&rdquo; says the mystic, &ldquo;gains
+      infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it,&rdquo; and they had
+      agreed that there was something beyond life&rsquo;s daily grey. He took off his
+      top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed the unknown
+      to be books, literature, clever conversation, culture. One raised oneself
+      by study, and got upsides with the world. But in that quick interchange a
+      new light dawned. Was that &ldquo;something&rdquo; walking in the dark among the
+      suburban hills?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street. London came
+      back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but all whom he passed
+      looked at him with a hostility that was the more impressive because it was
+      unconscious. He put his hat on. It was too big; his head disappeared like
+      a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at the touch of the
+      curly brim. He wore it a little backwards, and its effect was greatly to
+      elongate the face and to bring out the distance between the eyes and the
+      moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism. No one felt uneasy as he
+      titupped along the pavements, the heart of a man ticking fast in his
+      chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor -->
+      <!--  --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they were
+      both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that could
+      stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies, had more
+      kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at one part of
+      the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast and of no one
+      else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues collided, fell
+      ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all. The dinner-party
+      was really an informal discussion club; there was a paper after it, read
+      amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room, but dealing more or
+      less thoughtfully with some topic of general interest. After the paper
+      came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast also figured, appearing now as
+      a bright spot in civilisation, now as a dark spot, according to the
+      temperament of the speaker. The subject of the paper had been, &ldquo;How ought
+      I to dispose of my money?&rdquo; the reader professing to be a millionaire on
+      the point of death, inclined to bequeath her fortune for the foundation of
+      local art galleries, but open to conviction from other sources. The
+      various parts had been assigned beforehand, and some of the speeches were
+      amusing. The hostess assumed the ungrateful role of &ldquo;the millionaire&rsquo;s
+      eldest son,&rdquo; and implored her expiring parent not to dislocate Society by
+      allowing such vast sums to pass out of the family. Money was the fruit of
+      self-denial, and the second generation had a right to profit by the
+      self-denial of the first. What right had &ldquo;Mr. Bast&rdquo; to profit? The
+      National Gallery was good enough for the likes of him. After property had
+      had its say&mdash;a saying that is necessarily ungracious&mdash;the
+      various philanthropists stepped forward. Something must be done for &ldquo;Mr.
+      Bast&rdquo;; his conditions must be improved without impairing his independence;
+      he must have a free library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid
+      in such a way that he did not know it was being paid; it must be made
+      worth his while to join the Territorials; he must be forcibly parted from
+      his uninspiring wife, the money going to her as compensation; he must be
+      assigned a Twin Star, some member of the leisured classes who would watch
+      over him ceaselessly (groans from Helen); he must be given food but no
+      clothes, clothes but no food, a third-return ticket to Venice, without
+      either food or clothes when he arrived there. In short, he might be given
+      anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here Margaret interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Order, order, Miss Schlegel!&rdquo; said the reader of the paper. &ldquo;You are
+      here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the Society for the
+      Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. I cannot
+      have you speaking out of your role. It makes my poor head go round, and I
+      think you forget that I am very ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your head won&rsquo;t go round if only you&rsquo;ll listen to my argument,&rdquo; said
+      Margaret. &ldquo;Why not give him the money itself? You&rsquo;re supposed to have
+      about thirty thousand a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I? I thought I had a million.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that.
+      Still, it doesn&rsquo;t matter. Whatever you&rsquo;ve got, I order you to give as many
+      poor men as you can three hundred a year each.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that would be pauperising them,&rdquo; said an earnest girl, who liked the
+      Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise a man.
+      It is these little driblets, distributed among too many, that do the harm.
+      Money&rsquo;s educational. It&rsquo;s far more educational than the things it buys.&rdquo;
+       There was a protest. &ldquo;In a sense,&rdquo; added Margaret, but the protest
+      continued. &ldquo;Well, isn&rsquo;t the most civilized thing going, the man who has
+      learnt to wear his income properly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly what your Mr. Basts won&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give them a chance. Give them money. Don&rsquo;t dole them out poetry-books and
+      railway-tickets like babies. Give them the wherewithal to buy these
+      things. When your Socialism comes it may be different, and we may think in
+      terms of commodities instead of cash. Till it comes give people cash, for
+      it is the warp of civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The imagination
+      ought to play upon money and realise it vividly, for it&rsquo;s the&mdash;the
+      second most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over and hushed
+      up, there is so little clear thinking&mdash;oh, political economy, of
+      course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes, and
+      admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of
+      independent means. Money: give Mr. Bast money, and don&rsquo;t bother about his
+      ideals. He&rsquo;ll pick up those for himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to
+      misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily life,
+      cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss Schlegel
+      was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what it would
+      profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul. She
+      answered, &ldquo;Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until he had gained a
+      little of the world.&rdquo; Then they said, &ldquo;No, we do not believe it,&rdquo; and she
+      admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul in the
+      superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the deed, but
+      she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this
+      world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to clear and
+      passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had attacked the fabric of
+      Society&mdash;Property, Interest, etc.; she only fixed her eyes on a few
+      human beings, to see how, under present conditions, they could be made
+      happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the many-coloured efforts
+      thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in an
+      universal grey. To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was the
+      utmost she dare hope for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had a bad
+      time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her, and in keeping
+      the administration of the millionaire&rsquo;s money in their own hands. The
+      earnest girl brought forward a scheme of &ldquo;personal supervision and mutual
+      help,&rdquo; the effect of which was to alter poor people until they became
+      exactly like people who were not so poor. The hostess pertinently remarked
+      that she, as eldest son, might surely rank among the millionaire&rsquo;s
+      legatees. Margaret weakly admitted the claim, and another claim was at
+      once set up by Helen, who declared that she had been the millionaire&rsquo;s
+      housemaid for over forty years, overfed and underpaid; was nothing to be
+      done for her, so corpulent and poor? The millionaire then read out her
+      last will and testament, in which she left the whole of her fortune to the
+      Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then she died. The serious parts of the
+      discussion had been of higher merit than the playful&mdash;in a men&rsquo;s
+      debate is the reverse more general?&mdash;but the meeting broke up
+      hilariously enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed to their homes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen and Margaret walked with the earnest girl as far as Battersea Bridge
+      Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she had gone they were
+      conscious of an alleviation, and of the great beauty of the evening. They
+      turned back towards Oakley Street. The lamps and the plane-trees,
+      following the line of the embankment, struck a note of dignity that is
+      rare in English cities. The seats, almost deserted, were here and there
+      occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled out from the
+      houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the rising tide. There
+      is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It is an open space
+      used rightly, a blessing more frequent in Germany than here. As Margaret
+      and Helen sat down, the city behind them seemed to be a vast theatre, an
+      opera-house in which some endless trilogy was performing, and they
+      themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers, who did not mind losing a
+      little of the second act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The earnest girl&rsquo;s train rumbled away over the bridge.
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we won&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people. The
+      discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough with him in a
+      spirit of excitement, but think of rational intercourse. We mustn&rsquo;t play
+      at friendship. No, it&rsquo;s no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mrs. Lanoline, too,&rdquo; Helen yawned. &ldquo;So dull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so, and possibly worse than dull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to know how he got hold of your card.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he said&mdash;something about a concert and an umbrella.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then did the card see the wife&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, come to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes; did you
+      say money is the warp of the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what&rsquo;s the woof?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much what one chooses,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something that isn&rsquo;t
+      money&mdash;one can&rsquo;t say more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walking at night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Tibby, Oxford?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it&rsquo;s that. For
+      Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One&rsquo;s own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was sitting
+      with friends many seats away, heard this, rose to his feet, and strolled
+      along towards the speakers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than people,&rdquo;
+       continued Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Meg? They&rsquo;re so much nicer generally. I&rsquo;d rather think of that
+      forester&rsquo;s house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Forstmeister who lived
+      in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The
+      more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It&rsquo;s one of
+      the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a
+      place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I thought I recognised your voices. Whatever
+      are you both doing down here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit out on
+      Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented this, but
+      Margaret accepted it as part of the good man&rsquo;s equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an age it is since I&rsquo;ve seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in the
+      Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting down
+      between them. &ldquo;Oh, Paul&rsquo;s all right. We had a line from Madeira. He&rsquo;ll be
+      at work again by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh&mdash;&rdquo; said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t the climate of Nigeria too horrible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one&rsquo;s got to go,&rdquo; he said simply. &ldquo;England will never keep her trade
+      overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices. Unless we get firm in
+      West Africa, Ger&mdash;untold complications may follow. Now tell me all
+      your news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ve had a splendid evening,&rdquo; cried Helen, who always woke up at the
+      advent of a visitor. &ldquo;We belong to a kind of club that reads papers,
+      Margaret and I&mdash;all women, but there is a discussion after. This
+      evening it was on how one ought to leave one&rsquo;s money&mdash;whether to
+      one&rsquo;s family, or to the poor, and if so how&mdash;oh, most interesting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man of business smiled. Since his wife&rsquo;s death he had almost doubled
+      his income. He was an important figure at last, a reassuring name on
+      company prospectuses, and life had treated him very well. The world seemed
+      in his grasp as he listened to the River Thames, which still flowed inland
+      from the sea. So wonderful to the girls, it held no mysteries for him. He
+      had helped to shorten its long tidal trough by taking shares in the lock
+      at Teddington, and if he and other capitalists thought good, some day it
+      could be shortened again. With a good dinner inside him and an amiable but
+      academic woman on either flank, he felt that his hands were on all the
+      ropes of life, and that what he did not know could not be worth knowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sounds a most original entertainment!&rdquo; he exclaimed, and laughed in his
+      pleasant way. &ldquo;I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing. But she hasn&rsquo;t
+      the time. She&rsquo;s taken to breeding Aberdeen terriers&mdash;jolly little
+      dogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect we&rsquo;d better be doing the same, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We pretend we&rsquo;re improving ourselves, you see,&rdquo; said Helen a little
+      sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns, and she
+      had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just made
+      would have impressed her favourably. &ldquo;We suppose it a good thing to waste
+      an evening once a fortnight over a debate, but, as my sister says, it may
+      be better to breed dogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all. I don&rsquo;t agree with your sister. There&rsquo;s nothing like a debate
+      to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a
+      youngster. It would have helped me no end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quickness&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I&rsquo;ve missed scoring a point
+      because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven&rsquo;t. Oh, I
+      believe in these discussions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The patronising tone, thought Margaret, came well enough from a man who
+      was old enough to be their father. She had always maintained that Mr.
+      Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had
+      pained her, but it was pleasant to listen to him now, and to watch his
+      thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars. But Helen
+      was nettled. The aim of their debates she implied was Truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, it doesn&rsquo;t much matter what subject you take,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed and said, &ldquo;But this is going to be far better than the
+      debate itself.&rdquo; Helen recovered herself and laughed too. &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t go
+      on,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just put our special case to Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He&rsquo;ll be more lenient to a special case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It&rsquo;s this. We&rsquo;ve just
+      come across a young fellow, who&rsquo;s evidently very poor, and who seems
+      interest&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his profession?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug. He seems
+      interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could help him. He is
+      married to a wife whom he doesn&rsquo;t seem to care for much. He likes books,
+      and what one may roughly call adventure, and if he had a chance&mdash;But
+      he is so poor. He lives a life where all the money is apt to go on
+      nonsense and clothes. One is so afraid that circumstances will be too
+      strong for him and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our debate.
+      He wasn&rsquo;t the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his point. Suppose a
+      millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help such a man. How
+      should he be helped? Should he be given three hundred pounds a year
+      direct, which was Margaret&rsquo;s plan? Most of them thought this would
+      pauperise him. Should he and those like him be given free libraries? I
+      said &lsquo;No!&rsquo; He doesn&rsquo;t want more books to read, but to read books rightly.
+      My suggestion was he should be given something every year towards a summer
+      holiday, but then there is his wife, and they said she would have to go
+      too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think? Imagine that you
+      were a millionaire, and wanted to help the poor. What would you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard
+      indicated, laughed exuberantly. &ldquo;My dear Miss Schlegel, I will not rush in
+      where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not add another plan to
+      the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested. My only
+      contribution is this: let your young friend clear out of the Porphyrion
+      Fire Insurance Company with all possible speed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lowered his voice. &ldquo;This is between friends. It&rsquo;ll be in the Receiver&rsquo;s
+      hands before Christmas. It&rsquo;ll smash,&rdquo; he added, thinking that she had not
+      understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he&rsquo;ll have to get another place!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WILL have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get one now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather than wait, to make sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decidedly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. &ldquo;Naturally the man who&rsquo;s
+      in a situation when he applies stands a better chance, is in a stronger
+      position, that the man who isn&rsquo;t. It looks as if he&rsquo;s worth something. I
+      know by myself&mdash;(this is letting you into the State secrets)&mdash;it
+      affects an employer greatly. Human nature, I&rsquo;m afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t thought of that,&rdquo; murmured Margaret, while Helen said, &ldquo;Our
+      human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people because
+      they&rsquo;re unemployed. The boot man, for instance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how does he clean the boots?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not well,&rdquo; confessed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then do you really advise us to tell this youth&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise nothing,&rdquo; he interrupted, glancing up and down the Embankment,
+      in case his indiscretion had been overheard. &ldquo;I oughtn&rsquo;t to have spoken&mdash;but
+      I happen to know, being more or less behind the scenes. The Porphyrion&rsquo;s a
+      bad, bad concern&mdash;Now, don&rsquo;t say I said so. It&rsquo;s outside the Tariff
+      Ring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I won&rsquo;t say. In fact, I don&rsquo;t know what that means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought an insurance company never smashed,&rdquo; was Helen&rsquo;s contribution.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t the others always run in and save them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re thinking of reinsurance,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox mildly. &ldquo;It is exactly
+      there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to undercut, has been
+      badly hit by a long series of small fires, and it hasn&rsquo;t been able to
+      reinsure. I&rsquo;m afraid that public companies don&rsquo;t save one another for
+      love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Human nature,&rsquo; I suppose,&rdquo; quoted Helen, and he laughed and agreed that
+      it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks, like every one
+      else, found it extremely difficult to get situations in these days, he
+      replied, &ldquo;Yes, extremely,&rdquo; and rose to rejoin his friends. He knew by his
+      own office&mdash;seldom a vacant post, and hundreds of applicants for it;
+      at present no vacant post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how&rsquo;s Howards End looking?&rdquo; said Margaret, wishing to change the
+      subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to think one
+      wanted to get something out of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s let.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really. And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea? How strange are
+      the ways of Fate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; it&rsquo;s let unfurnished. We&rsquo;ve moved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie never told
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn&rsquo;t settled. We only moved a
+      week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place, and we held on for
+      him to have his holiday there; but, really, it is impossibly small.
+      Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you&rsquo;ve been up to it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As far as the house, never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don&rsquo;t really do,
+      spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among the
+      wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and
+      attempted a rockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it didn&rsquo;t
+      do&mdash;no, it didn&rsquo;t do. You remember, your sister will remember, the
+      farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old woman
+      never would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the bottom. And,
+      inside the house, the beams&mdash;and the staircase through a door&mdash;picturesque
+      enough, but not a place to live in.&rdquo; He glanced over the parapet
+      cheerfully. &ldquo;Full tide. And the position wasn&rsquo;t right either. The
+      neighbourhood&rsquo;s getting suburban. Either be in London or out of it, I say;
+      so we&rsquo;ve taken a house in Ducie Street, close to Sloane Street, and a
+      place right down in Shropshire&mdash;Oniton Grange. Ever heard of Oniton?
+      Do come and see us&mdash;right away from everywhere, up towards Wales.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a change!&rdquo; said Margaret. But the change was in her own voice, which
+      had become most sad. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine Howards End or Hilton without you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hilton isn&rsquo;t without us,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Charles is there still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still?&rdquo; said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles&rsquo;s. &ldquo;But I
+      thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that Christmas&mdash;one
+      Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire Mrs. Charles from our
+      windows very often. Wasn&rsquo;t it Epsom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap&rdquo;&mdash;his
+      voice dropped&mdash;&ldquo;thought I should be lonely. I didn&rsquo;t want him to
+      move, but he would, and took a house at the other end of Hilton, down by
+      the Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they all are, a very jolly party&mdash;he
+      and she and the two grandchildren.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I manage other people&rsquo;s affairs so much better than they manage them
+      themselves,&rdquo; said Margaret as they shook hands. &ldquo;When you moved out of
+      Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it. I should have
+      kept so remarkable a place in the family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t sold it, and don&rsquo;t mean to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but none of you are there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ve got a splendid tenant&mdash;Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If Charles
+      ever wanted it&mdash;but he won&rsquo;t. Dolly is so dependent on modern
+      conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End. We like it in a
+      way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. One must
+      have one thing or the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And some people are lucky enough to have both. You&rsquo;re doing yourself
+      proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And mine,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do remind Evie to come and see us&mdash;2 Wickham Place. We shan&rsquo;t be
+      there very long, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, too, on the move?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next September,&rdquo; Margaret sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one moving! Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and watched it
+      sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her lover; she herself was
+      probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is it worth while attempting the
+      past when there is this continual flux even in the hearts of men?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen roused her by saying: &ldquo;What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has
+      grown! I have very little use for him in these days. However, he did tell
+      us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr. Bast as soon as ever we get
+      home, and tell him to clear out of it at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do; yes, that&rsquo;s worth doing. Let us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Leonard accepted the invitation to tea next Saturday. But he was right;
+      the visit proved a conspicuous failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sugar?&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cake?&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;The big cake or the little deadlies? I&rsquo;m afraid you
+      thought my letter rather odd, but we&rsquo;ll explain&mdash;we aren&rsquo;t odd,
+      really&mdash;nor affected, really. We&rsquo;re over-expressive&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a lady&rsquo;s lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian, still
+      less a Frenchman, in whose blood there runs the very spirit of persiflage
+      and of gracious repartee. His wit was the Cockney&rsquo;s; it opened no doors
+      into imagination, and Helen was drawn up short by &ldquo;The more a lady has to
+      say, the better,&rdquo; administered waggishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ladies brighten&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know. The darlings are regular sunbeams. Let me give you a plate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you like your work?&rdquo; interposed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying into his
+      work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he had at last
+      penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing upon its walls, and
+      so were the very tea-cups, with their delicate borders of wild
+      strawberries. But he would not let romance interfere with his life. There
+      is the devil to pay then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well enough,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your company is the Porphyrion, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s so.&rdquo;&mdash;becoming rather offended. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny how things
+      get round.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why funny?&rdquo; asked Helen, who did not follow the workings of his mind. &ldquo;It
+      was written as large as life on your card, and considering we wrote to you
+      there, and that you replied on the stamped paper&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance Companies?&rdquo;
+       pursued Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends on what you call big.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean by big, a solid, well-established concern, that offers a
+      reasonably good career to its employes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t say&mdash;some would tell you one thing and others another,&rdquo;
+       said the employee uneasily. &ldquo;For my own part&rdquo;&mdash;he shook his head&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      only believe half I hear. Not that even; it&rsquo;s safer. Those clever ones
+      come to the worse grief, I&rsquo;ve often noticed. Ah, you can&rsquo;t be too
+      careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drank, and wiped his moustache, which was going to be one of those
+      moustaches that always droop into tea-cups&mdash;more bother than they&rsquo;re
+      worth, surely, and not fashionable either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I quite agree, and that&rsquo;s why I was curious to know; is it a solid,
+      well-established concern?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard had no idea. He understood his own corner of the machine, but
+      nothing beyond it. He desired to confess neither knowledge nor ignorance,
+      and under these circumstances, another motion of the head seemed safest.
+      To him, as to the British public, the Porphyrion was the Porphyrion of the
+      advertisement&mdash;a giant, in the classical style, but draped
+      sufficiently, who held in one hand a burning torch, and pointed with the
+      other to St. Paul&rsquo;s and Windsor Castle. A large sum of money was inscribed
+      below, and you drew your own conclusions. This giant caused Leonard to do
+      arithmetic and write letters, to explain the regulations to new clients,
+      and re-explain them to old ones. A giant was of an impulsive morality&mdash;one
+      knew that much. He would pay for Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s hearthrug with ostentatious
+      haste, a large claim he would repudiate quietly, and fight court by court.
+      But his true fighting weight, his antecedents, his amours with other
+      members of the commercial Pantheon&mdash;all these were as uncertain to
+      ordinary mortals as were the escapades of Zeus. While the gods are
+      powerful, we learn little about them. It is only in the days of their
+      decadence that a strong light beats into heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were told the Porphyrion&rsquo;s no go,&rdquo; blurted Helen. &ldquo;We wanted to tell
+      you; that&rsquo;s why we wrote.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured,&rdquo; said
+      Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Leonard had his clue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He must praise the Porphyrion. &ldquo;You can tell your friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that
+      he&rsquo;s quite wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was fatal. The
+      Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were genuinely glad that
+      they had been misinformed. To them nothing was fatal but evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wrong, so to speak,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How &lsquo;so to speak&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean I wouldn&rsquo;t say he&rsquo;s right altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was a blunder. &ldquo;Then he is right partly,&rdquo; said the elder woman,
+      quick as lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard replied that every one was right partly, if it came to that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Bast, I don&rsquo;t understand business, and I dare say my questions are
+      stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern &lsquo;right&rsquo; or &lsquo;wrong&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard sat back with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said before
+      Christmas&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And advised you to clear out of it,&rdquo; concluded Helen. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see
+      why he should know better than you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew nothing about
+      the thing at all. But a commercial training was too strong for him. Nor
+      could he say it was a bad thing, for this would be giving it away; nor yet
+      that it was good, for this would be giving it away equally. He attempted
+      to suggest that it was something between the two, with vast possibilities
+      in either direction, but broke down under the gaze of four sincere eyes.
+      And yet he scarcely distinguished between the two sisters. One was more
+      beautiful and more lively, but &ldquo;the Miss Schlegels&rdquo; still remained a
+      composite Indian god, whose waving arms and contradictory speeches were
+      the product of a single mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can but see,&rdquo; he remarked, adding, &ldquo;as Ibsen says, &lsquo;things happen.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       He was itching to talk about books and make the most of his romantic hour.
+      Minute after minute slipped away, while the ladies, with imperfect skill,
+      discussed the subject of reinsurance or praised their anonymous friend.
+      Leonard grew annoyed&mdash;perhaps rightly. He made vague remarks about
+      not being one of those who minded their affairs being talked over by
+      others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have shown more tact.
+      Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed here. They cannot see
+      why we should shroud our incomes and our prospects in a veil. &ldquo;How much
+      exactly have you, and how much do you expect to have next June?&rdquo; And these
+      were women with a theory, who held that reticence about money matters is
+      absurd, and that life would be truer if each would state the exact size of
+      the golden island upon which he stands, the exact stretch of warp over
+      which he throws the woof that is not money. How can we do justice to the
+      pattern otherwise?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came nearer.
+      At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in, reciting the names of
+      books feverishly. There was a moment of piercing joy when Margaret said,
+      &ldquo;So YOU like Carlyle&rdquo; and then the door opened, and &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox, Miss
+      Wilcox&rdquo; entered, preceded by two prancing puppies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!&rdquo; screamed Helen,
+      falling on her hands and knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We brought the little fellows round,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bred &rsquo;em myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to be going now,&rdquo; said Leonard sourly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But play with puppies a little first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Ahab, that&rsquo;s Jezebel,&rdquo; said Evie, who was one of those who name
+      animals after the less successful characters of Old Testament history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to be going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba&mdash;Must you be really? Good-bye!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come again,&rdquo; said Helen from the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Leonard&rsquo;s gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was the good of
+      it? He said roundly: &ldquo;No, I shan&rsquo;t; I knew it would be a failure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Most people would have let him go. &ldquo;A little mistake. We tried knowing
+      another class&mdash;impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted
+      friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted, &ldquo;I call
+      that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me like that for?&rdquo;
+       and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed to a vulgar row.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ask me why I turn on you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want to have me here for?&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To help you, you silly boy!&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t shout.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want your patronage. I don&rsquo;t want your tea. I was quite happy.
+      What do you want to unsettle me for?&rdquo; He turned to Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;I put it
+      to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have my brain picked?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength that he
+      could so well command. &ldquo;Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel? Can we be of any
+      use, or shall we go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Margaret ignored him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive what I
+      take to be an invitation from these&mdash;ladies&rdquo; (he drawled the word).
+      &ldquo;I come, and it&rsquo;s to have my brain picked. I ask you, is it fair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highly unfair,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who knew that
+      her father was becoming dangerous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There! Not content
+      with&rdquo;&mdash;pointing at Margaret&mdash;&ldquo;you can&rsquo;t deny it.&rdquo; His voice
+      rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky. &ldquo;But as soon
+      as I&rsquo;m useful it&rsquo;s a very different thing. &lsquo;Oh yes, send for him.
+      Cross-question him. Pick his brains.&rsquo; Oh yes. Now, take me on the whole,
+      I&rsquo;m a quiet fellow: I&rsquo;m law-abiding, I don&rsquo;t wish any unpleasantness; but
+      I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You,&rdquo; said Margaret&mdash;&ldquo;you&mdash;you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      More laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw the sunrise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all&mdash;away
+      past books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a real home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fail to see the connection,&rdquo; said Leonard, hot with stupid anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I.&rdquo; There was a pause. &ldquo;You were that last Sunday&mdash;you are
+      this to-day. Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We wanted to
+      help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did not have you here out
+      of charity&mdash;which bores us&mdash;but because we hoped there would be
+      a connection between last Sunday and other days. What is the good of your
+      stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our
+      daily lives? They have never entered into mine, but into yours, we thought&mdash;Haven&rsquo;t
+      we all to struggle against life&rsquo;s daily greyness, against pettiness,
+      against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion? I struggle by
+      remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering some place&mdash;some
+      beloved place or tree&mdash;we thought you one of these.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, if there&rsquo;s been any misunderstanding,&rdquo; mumbled Leonard, &ldquo;all I
+      can do is to go. But I beg to state&mdash;&rdquo; He paused. Ahab and Jezebel
+      danced at his boots and made him look ridiculous. &ldquo;You were picking my
+      brain for official information&mdash;I can prove it&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; He
+      blew his nose and left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I help you now?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, turning to Margaret. &ldquo;May I have
+      one quiet word with him in the hall?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, go after him&mdash;do anything&mdash;anything&mdash;to make the
+      noodle understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But really&mdash;&rdquo; said their visitor. &ldquo;Ought she to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At once she went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed. &ldquo;I would have chimed in, but I felt that you could polish him
+      off for yourselves&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t interfere. You were splendid, Miss
+      Schlegel&mdash;absolutely splendid. You can take my word for it, but there
+      are very few women who could have managed him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; said Margaret distractedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me,&rdquo; cried
+      Evie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; chuckled her father; &ldquo;all that part about &lsquo;mechanical
+      cheerfulness&rsquo;&mdash;oh, fine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry,&rdquo; said Margaret, collecting herself. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a nice creature
+      really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been most unpleasant for
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I didn&rsquo;t mind.&rdquo; Then he changed his mood. He asked if he might speak
+      as an old friend, and, permission given, said: &ldquo;Oughtn&rsquo;t you really to be
+      more careful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen. &ldquo;Do you
+      realise that it&rsquo;s all your fault?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the young man whom we were to warn against the Porphyrion. We
+      warn him, and&mdash;look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. &ldquo;I hardly consider that a fair deduction,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Obviously unfair,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I was only thinking how tangled things
+      are. It&rsquo;s our fault mostly&mdash;neither yours nor his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not his?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, you are too kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you. I know
+      the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered the room I saw
+      you had not been treating him properly. You must keep that type at a
+      distance. Otherwise they forget themselves. Sad, but true. They aren&rsquo;t our
+      sort, and one must face the fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit it willingly,&rdquo; said Margaret, who was pacing up and down the
+      room. &ldquo;A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he suspect you of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of wanting to make money out of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One touch of
+      thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just the senseless fear
+      that does make men intolerable brutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful, Miss
+      Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such people in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to him frankly. &ldquo;Let me explain exactly why we like this man,
+      and want to see him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do. Firstly, because he cares for physical adventure, just as you do.
+      Yes, you go motoring and shooting; he would like to go camping out.
+      Secondly, he cares for something special IN adventure. It is quickest to
+      call that special something poetry&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s one of that writer sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;oh no! I mean he may be, but it would be loathsome stuff. His
+      brain is filled with the husks of books, culture&mdash;horrible; we want
+      him to wash out his brain and go to the real thing. We want to show him
+      how he may get upsides with life. As I said, either friends or the
+      country, some&rdquo;&mdash;she hesitated&mdash;&ldquo;either some very dear person or
+      some very dear place seems necessary to relieve life&rsquo;s daily grey, and to
+      show that it is grey. If possible, one should have both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox. He let them run past. Others he
+      caught and criticised with admirable lucidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This young bounder
+      has a life of his own. What right have you to conclude it is an
+      unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, &lsquo;grey&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and
+      interests&mdash;wife, children, snug little home. That&rsquo;s where we
+      practical fellows&rdquo; he smiled&mdash;&ldquo;are more tolerant than you
+      intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on
+      fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to
+      look after his own affairs. I quite grant&mdash;I look at the faces of the
+      clerks in my own office, and observe them to be dull, but I don&rsquo;t know
+      what&rsquo;s going on beneath. So, by the way, with London. I have heard you
+      rail against London, Miss Schlegel, and it seems a funny thing to say but
+      I was very angry with you. What do you know about London? You only see
+      civilisation from the outside. I don&rsquo;t say in your case, but in too many
+      cases that attitude leads to morbidity, discontent, and Socialism.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She admitted the strength of his position, though it undermined
+      imagination. As he spoke, some outposts of poetry and perhaps of sympathy
+      fell ruining, and she retreated to what she called her &ldquo;second line&rdquo;&mdash;to
+      the special facts of the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His wife is an old bore,&rdquo; she said simply. &ldquo;He never came home last
+      Saturday night because he wanted to be alone, and she thought he was with
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With YOU?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; Evie tittered. &ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t got the cosy home that you assumed. He
+      needs outside interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty young man!&rdquo; cried the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty?&rdquo; said Margaret, who hated naughtiness more than sin. &ldquo;When
+      you&rsquo;re married Miss Wilcox, won&rsquo;t you want outside interests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has apparently got them,&rdquo; put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was tramping in Surrey, if you mean that,&rdquo; said Margaret, pacing away
+      rather crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I dare say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Wilcox, he was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M&mdash;m&mdash;m&mdash;m!&rdquo; from Mr. Wilcox, who thought the episode
+      amusing, if risque. With most ladies he would not have discussed it, but
+      he was trading on Margaret&rsquo;s reputation as an emancipated woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said so, and about such a thing he wouldn&rsquo;t lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both began to laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where I differ from you. Men lie about their positions and
+      prospects, but not about a thing of that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, excuse me, but I know the type.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said before&mdash;he isn&rsquo;t a type. He cares about adventures rightly.
+      He&rsquo;s certain that our smug existence isn&rsquo;t all. He&rsquo;s vulgar and
+      hysterical and bookish, but don&rsquo;t think that sums him up. There&rsquo;s manhood
+      in him as well. Yes, that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m trying to say. He&rsquo;s a real man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke their eyes met, and it was as if Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s defences fell.
+      She saw back to the real man in him. Unwittingly she had touched his
+      emotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman and two men&mdash;they had formed the magic triangle of sex, and
+      the male was thrilled to jealousy, in case the female was attracted by
+      another male. Love, say the ascetics, reveals our shameful kinship with
+      the beasts. Be it so: one can bear that; jealousy is the real shame. It is
+      jealousy, not love, that connects us with the farmyard intolerably, and
+      calls up visions of two angry cocks and a complacent hen. Margaret crushed
+      complacency down because she was civilised. Mr. Wilcox, uncivilised,
+      continued to feel anger long after he had rebuilt his defences, and was
+      again presenting a bastion to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, you&rsquo;re a pair of dear creatures, but you really MUST be
+      careful in this uncharitable world. What does your brother say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely he has some opinion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He laughs, if I remember correctly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very clever, isn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; said Evie, who had met and detested Tibby at
+      Oxford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, pretty well&mdash;but I wonder what Helen&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very young to undertake this sort of thing,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret went out to the landing. She heard no sound, and Mr. Bast&rsquo;s
+      topper was missing from the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen!&rdquo; she called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; replied a voice from the library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You in there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;he&rsquo;s gone some time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret went to her. &ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;re all alone,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;it&rsquo;s all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come back to the Wilcoxes and tell me later&mdash;Mr. W much concerned,
+      and slightly titillated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast! he wanted
+      to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a muddle of a man,
+      and yet so worth pulling through. I like him extraordinarily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well done,&rdquo; said Margaret, kissing her, &ldquo;but come into the drawing-room
+      now, and don&rsquo;t talk about him to the Wilcoxes. Make light of the whole
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that reassured their visitor&mdash;this
+      hen at all events was fancy-free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s gone with my blessing,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and now for puppies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they drove away, Mr. Wilcox said to his daughter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as clever as
+      you make &rsquo;em, but unpractical&mdash;God bless me! One of these days
+      they&rsquo;ll go too far. Girls like that oughtn&rsquo;t to live alone in London.
+      Until they marry, they ought to have some one to look after them. We must
+      look in more often&mdash;we&rsquo;re better than no one. You like them, don&rsquo;t
+      you, Evie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie replied: &ldquo;Helen&rsquo;s right enough, but I can&rsquo;t stand the toothy one. And
+      I shouldn&rsquo;t have called either of them girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth under
+      sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the Wilcoxes could
+      do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present, puppies and her father
+      were the only things she loved, but the net of matrimony was being
+      prepared for her, and a few days later she was attracted to a Mr. Percy
+      Cahill, an uncle of Mrs. Charles&rsquo;s, and he was attracted to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor. When a
+      move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake
+      at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all their belongings
+      would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books,
+      that had rumbled down to them through the generations, must rumble forward
+      again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push,
+      and send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father&rsquo;s books&mdash;they
+      never read them, but they were their father&rsquo;s, and must be kept. There was
+      the marble-topped chiffonier&mdash;their mother had set store by it, they
+      could not remember why. Round every knob and cushion in the house gathered
+      a sentiment that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to
+      the dead, a prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came to think
+      of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The feudal ownership
+      of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables is
+      reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the civilisation
+      of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes
+      accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in
+      this the secret of their imaginative poverty. The Schlegels were certainly
+      the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It had helped to balance their
+      lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is their ground-landlord
+      spiritually the richer. He has built flats on its site, his motor-cars
+      grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism more trenchant. But he has spilt
+      the precious distillation of the years, and no chemistry of his can give
+      it back to society again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house before they
+      left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She enjoyed this visit,
+      and wanted to have her mind at ease for it. Swanage, though dull, was
+      stable, and this year she longed more than usual for its fresh air and for
+      the magnificent downs that guard it on the north. But London thwarted her;
+      in its atmosphere she could not concentrate. London only stimulates, it
+      cannot sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface for a house
+      without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying for many a
+      thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break loose from
+      culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it would be a sin to
+      miss, and invitations which it would never do to refuse. At last she grew
+      desperate; she resolved that she would go nowhere and be at home to no one
+      until she found a house, and broke the resolution in half an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to Simpson&rsquo;s
+      restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss Wilcox, asking her
+      to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming and the three would have such a jolly
+      chat, and perhaps end up at the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong regard
+      for Evie, and no desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised that
+      Helen, who had been far funnier about Simpson&rsquo;s, had not been asked
+      instead. But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone. She must
+      know Evie Wilcox better than she supposed, and declaring that she &ldquo;simply
+      must,&rdquo; she accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring fiercely
+      at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her heart failed her anew.
+      Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since her engagement. Her voice was
+      gruffer, her manner more downright, and she was inclined to patronise the
+      more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this.
+      Depressed at her isolation, she saw not only houses and furniture, but the
+      vessel of life itself slipping past her, with people like Evie and Mr.
+      Cahill on board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and one of them came to
+      her at Simpson&rsquo;s in the Strand. As she trod the staircase, narrow, but
+      carpeted thickly, as she entered the eating-room, where saddles of mutton
+      were being trundled up to expectant clergymen, she had a strong, if
+      erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come
+      out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature,
+      and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged. Then
+      came a little surprise. &ldquo;Father might be of the party&mdash;yes, father
+      was.&rdquo; With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to greet him, and her
+      feeling of loneliness vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d get round if I could,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Evie told me of her little
+      plan, so I just slipped in and secured a table. Always secure a table
+      first. Evie, don&rsquo;t pretend you want to sit by your old father, because you
+      don&rsquo;t. Miss Schlegel, come in my side, out of pity. My goodness, but you
+      look tired! Been worrying round after your young clerks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, after houses,&rdquo; said Margaret, edging past him into the box. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+      hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s good. What&rsquo;ll you have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fish pie,&rdquo; said she, with a glance at the menu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s not a bit the
+      thing to go for here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go for something for me, then,&rdquo; said Margaret, pulling off her gloves.
+      Her spirits were rising, and his reference to Leonard Bast had warmed her
+      curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saddle of mutton,&rdquo; said he after profound reflection; &ldquo;and cider to
+      drink. That&rsquo;s the type of thing. I like this place, for a joke, once in a
+      way. It is so thoroughly Old English. Don&rsquo;t you agree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Margaret, who didn&rsquo;t. The order was given, the joint rolled
+      up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s direction, cut the meat where it
+      was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on
+      sirloin, but admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and Evie
+      soon fell into a conversation of the &ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t; yes, you did&rdquo; type&mdash;conversation
+      which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in it, neither desires
+      nor deserves the attention of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere&rsquo;s my motto.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it does make life more human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the East, if you tip, they
+      remember you from year&rsquo;s end to year&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been in the East?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport and business to
+      Cyprus; some military society of a sort there. A few piastres, properly
+      distributed, help to keep one&rsquo;s memory green. But you, of course, think
+      this shockingly cynical. How&rsquo;s your discussion society getting on? Any new
+      Utopias lately?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m house-hunting, Mr. Wilcox, as I&rsquo;ve already told you once. Do you
+      know of any houses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what&rsquo;s the point of being practical if you can&rsquo;t find two
+      distressed females a house? We merely want a small house with large rooms,
+      and plenty of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn house-agent for her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want a new home in September, and some one must find it. I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Percy, do you know of anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say I do,&rdquo; said Mr. Cahill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How like you! You&rsquo;re never any good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good. Oh, come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you aren&rsquo;t. Miss Schlegel, is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops at Margaret, swept
+      away on its habitual course. She sympathised with it now, for a little
+      comfort had restored her geniality. Speech and silence pleased her
+      equally, and while Mr. Wilcox made some preliminary inquiries about
+      cheese, her eyes surveyed the restaurant, and aired its well-calculated
+      tributes to the solidity of our past. Though no more Old English than the
+      works of Kipling, it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly that her
+      criticism was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing for imperial
+      purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or Tom Jones. Scraps of
+      their talk jarred oddly on the ear. &ldquo;Right you are! I&rsquo;ll cable out to
+      Uganda this evening,&rdquo; came from the table behind. &ldquo;Their Emperor wants
+      war; well, let him have it,&rdquo; was the opinion of a clergyman. She smiled at
+      such incongruities. &ldquo;Next time,&rdquo; she said to Mr. Wilcox, &ldquo;you shall come
+      to lunch with me at Mr. Eustace Miles&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you&rsquo;d hate it,&rdquo; she said, pushing her glass towards him for some more
+      cider. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all proteids and body buildings, and people come up to you
+      and beg your pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub at mine for hours.
+      Nor of an astral plane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had heard of astral planes, and censured them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so. Luckily it was Helen&rsquo;s aura, not mine, and she had to chaperone
+      it and do the politenesses. I just sat with my handkerchief in my mouth
+      till the man went.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny experiences seem to come to you two girls. No one&rsquo;s ever asked me
+      about my&mdash;what d&rsquo;ye call it? Perhaps I&rsquo;ve not got one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re bound to have one, but it may be such a terrible colour that no
+      one dares mention it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, though, Miss Schlegel, do you really believe in the supernatural
+      and all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too difficult a question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&rsquo;s that? Gruyere or Stilton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gruyere, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better have Stilton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stilton. Because, though I don&rsquo;t believe in auras, and think Theosophy&rsquo;s
+      only a halfway-house&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;Yet there may be something in it all the same,&rdquo; he concluded, with
+      a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not even that. It may be halfway in the wrong direction. I can&rsquo;t explain.
+      I don&rsquo;t believe in all these fads, and yet I don&rsquo;t like saying that I
+      don&rsquo;t believe in them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed unsatisfied, and said: &ldquo;So you wouldn&rsquo;t give me your word that
+      you DON&rsquo;T hold with astral bodies and all the rest of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could,&rdquo; said Margaret, surprised that the point was of any importance
+      to him. &ldquo;Indeed, I will. When I talked about scrubbing my aura, I was only
+      trying to be funny. But why do you want this settled?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mr. Wilcox, you do know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am,&rdquo; &ldquo;No, you&rsquo;re not,&rdquo; burst from the lovers opposite. Margaret
+      was silent for a moment, and then changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&rsquo;s your house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much the same as when you honoured it last week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean Ducie Street. Howards End, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why &lsquo;of course&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you turn out your tenant and let it to us? We&rsquo;re nearly demented.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me think. I wish I could help you. But I thought you wanted to be in
+      town. One bit of advice: fix your district, then fix your price, and then
+      don&rsquo;t budge. That&rsquo;s how I got both Ducie Street and Oniton. I said to
+      myself, &lsquo;I mean to be exactly here,&rsquo; and I was, and Oniton&rsquo;s a place in a
+      thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do budge. Gentlemen seem to mesmerise houses&mdash;cow them with an
+      eye, and up they come, trembling. Ladies can&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s the houses that are
+      mesmerising me. I&rsquo;ve no control over the saucy things. Houses are alive.
+      No?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m out of my depth,&rdquo; he said, and added: &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you talk rather like
+      that to your office boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I?&mdash;I mean I did, more or less. I talk the same way to every one&mdash;or
+      try to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know. And how much of it do you suppose he understood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s his lookout. I don&rsquo;t believe in suiting my conversation to my
+      company. One can doubtless hit upon some medium of exchange that seems to
+      do well enough, but it&rsquo;s no more like the real thing than money is like
+      food. There&rsquo;s no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower classes, and
+      they pass it back to you, and this you call &lsquo;social intercourse&rsquo; or
+      &lsquo;mutual endeavour,&rsquo; when it&rsquo;s mutual priggishness if it&rsquo;s anything. Our
+      friends at Chelsea don&rsquo;t see this. They say one ought to be at all costs
+      intelligible, and sacrifice&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lower classes,&rdquo; interrupted Mr. Wilcox, as it were thrusting his hand
+      into her speech. &ldquo;Well, you do admit that there are rich and poor. That&rsquo;s
+      something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not reply. Was he incredibly stupid, or did he understand
+      her better than she understood herself?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in a few years there
+      would be rich and poor again just the same. The hard-working man would
+      come to the top, the wastrel sink to the bottom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one admits that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Socialists don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Socialists do. Yours mayn&rsquo;t; but I strongly suspect yours of being not
+      Socialists, but ninepins, which you have constructed for your own
+      amusement. I can&rsquo;t imagine any living creature who would bowl over quite
+      so easily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have resented this had she not been a woman. But women may say
+      anything&mdash;it was one of his holiest beliefs&mdash;and he only
+      retorted, with a gay smile: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care. You&rsquo;ve made two damaging
+      admissions, and I&rsquo;m heartily with you in both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In time they finished lunch, and Margaret, who had excused herself from
+      the Hippodrome, took her leave. Evie had scarcely addressed her, and she
+      suspected that the entertainment had been planned by the father. He and
+      she were advancing out of their respective families towards a more
+      intimate acquaintance. It had begun long ago. She had been his wife&rsquo;s
+      friend and, as such, he had given her that silver vinaigrette as a
+      memento. It was pretty of him to have given that vinaigrette, and he had
+      always preferred her to Helen&mdash;unlike most men. But the advance had
+      been astonishing lately. They had done more in a week than in two years,
+      and were really beginning to know each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not forget his promise to sample Eustace Miles, and asked him as
+      soon as she could secure Tibby as his chaperon. He came, and partook of
+      body-building dishes with humility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning the Schlegels left for Swanage. They had not succeeded in
+      finding a new home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As they were seated at Aunt Juley&rsquo;s breakfast-table at The Bays, parrying
+      her excessive hospitality and enjoying the view of the bay, a letter came
+      for Margaret and threw her into perturbation. It was from Mr. Wilcox. It
+      announced an &ldquo;important change&rdquo; in his plans. Owing to Evie&rsquo;s marriage, he
+      had decided to give up his house in Ducie Street, and was willing to let
+      it on a yearly tenancy. It was a businesslike letter, and stated frankly
+      what he would do for them and what he would not do. Also the rent. If they
+      approved, Margaret was to come up AT ONCE&mdash;the words were underlined,
+      as is necessary when dealing with women&mdash;and to go over the house
+      with him. If they disapproved, a wire would oblige, as he should put it
+      into the hands of an agent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter perturbed, because she was not sure what it meant. If he liked
+      her, if he had manoeuvred to get her to Simpson&rsquo;s, might this be a
+      manoeuvre to get her to London, and result in an offer of marriage? She
+      put it to herself as indelicately as possible, in the hope that her brain
+      would cry, &ldquo;Rubbish, you&rsquo;re a self-conscious fool!&rdquo; But her brain only
+      tingled a little and was silent, and for a time she sat gazing at the
+      mincing waves, and wondering whether the news would seem strange to the
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as she began speaking, the sound of her own voice reassured her.
+      There could be nothing in it. The replies also were typical, and in the
+      burr of conversation her fears vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t go though&mdash;&rdquo; began her hostess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I needn&rsquo;t, but hadn&rsquo;t I better? It&rsquo;s really getting rather serious. We
+      let chance after chance slip, and the end of it is we shall be bundled out
+      bag and baggage into the street. We don&rsquo;t know what we WANT, that&rsquo;s the
+      mischief with us&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we have no real ties,&rdquo; said Helen, helping herself to toast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shan&rsquo;t I go up to town to-day, take the house if it&rsquo;s the least possible,
+      and then come down by the afternoon train to-morrow, and start enjoying
+      myself. I shall be no fun to myself or to others until this business is
+      off my mind.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you won&rsquo;t do anything rash, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing rash to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who ARE the Wilcoxes?&rdquo; said Tibby, a question that sounds silly, but was
+      really extremely subtle as his aunt found to her cost when she tried to
+      answer it. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t MANAGE the Wilcoxes; I don&rsquo;t see where they come IN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more do I,&rdquo; agreed Helen. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny that we just don&rsquo;t lose sight of
+      them. Out of all our hotel acquaintances, Mr. Wilcox is the only one who
+      has stuck. It is now over three years, and we have drifted away from far
+      more interesting people in that time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Interesting people don&rsquo;t get one houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meg, if you start in your honest-English vein, I shall throw the treacle
+      at you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a better vein than the cosmopolitan,&rdquo; said Margaret, getting up.
+      &ldquo;Now, children, which is it to be? You know the Ducie Street house. Shall
+      I say yes or shall I say no? Tibby love&mdash;which? I&rsquo;m specially anxious
+      to pin you both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all depends on what meaning you attach to the word &lsquo;possible&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends on nothing of the sort. Say &lsquo;yes.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say &lsquo;no.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that our race
+      is degenerating. We cannot settle even this little thing; what will it be
+      like when we have to settle a big one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be as easy as eating,&rdquo; returned Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of father. How could he settle to leave Germany as he did,
+      when he had fought for it as a young man, and all his feelings and friends
+      were Prussian? How could he break loose with Patriotism and begin aiming
+      at something else? It would have killed me. When he was nearly forty he
+      could change countries and ideals&mdash;and we, at our age, can&rsquo;t change
+      houses. It&rsquo;s humiliating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father may have been able to change countries,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt with
+      asperity, &ldquo;and that may or may not be a good thing. But he could change
+      houses no better than you can, in fact, much worse. Never shall I forget
+      what poor Emily suffered in the move from Manchester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;I told you so. It is the little things one
+      bungles at. The big, real ones are nothing when they come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect&mdash;in fact, you
+      weren&rsquo;t there. But the furniture was actually in the vans and on the move
+      before the lease for Wickham Place was signed, and Emily took train with
+      baby&mdash;who was Margaret then&mdash;and the smaller luggage for London,
+      without so much as knowing where her new home would be. Getting away from
+      that house may be hard, but it is nothing to the misery that we all went
+      through getting you into it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, with her mouth full, cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s the man who beat the Austrians, and the Danes, and the French,
+      and who beat the Germans that were inside himself. And we&rsquo;re like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak for yourself,&rdquo; said Tibby. &ldquo;Remember that I am cosmopolitan,
+      please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen may be right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen might be right, but she did not go up to London. Margaret did that.
+      An interrupted holiday is the worst of the minor worries, and one may be
+      pardoned for feeling morbid when a business letter snatches one away from
+      the sea and friends. She could not believe that her father had ever felt
+      the same. Her eyes had been troubling her lately, so that she could not
+      read in the train and it bored her to look at the landscape, which she had
+      seen but yesterday. At Southampton she &ldquo;waved&rdquo; to Frieda; Frieda was on
+      her way down to join them at Swanage, and Mrs. Munt had calculated that
+      their trains would cross. But Frieda was looking the other way, and
+      Margaret travelled on to town feeling solitary and old-maidish. How like
+      an old maid to fancy that Mr. Wilcox was courting her! She had once
+      visited a spinster&mdash;poor, silly, and unattractive&mdash;whose mania
+      it was that every man who approached her fell in love. How Margaret&rsquo;s
+      heart had bled for the deluded thing! How she had lectured, reasoned, and
+      in despair acquiesced! &ldquo;I may have been deceived by the curate, my dear,
+      but the young fellow who brings the midday post really is fond of me, and
+      has, as a matter of fact&mdash;&rdquo; It had always seemed to her the most
+      hideous corner of old age, yet she might be driven into it herself by the
+      mere pressure of virginity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox met her at Waterloo himself. She felt certain that he was not
+      the same as usual; for one thing, he took offence at everything she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is awfully kind of you,&rdquo; she began, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s not going
+      to do. The house has not been built that suits the Schlegel family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Have you come up determined not to deal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly? In that case let&rsquo;s be starting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lingered to admire the motor, which was new, and a fairer creature
+      than the vermilion giant that had borne Aunt Juley to her doom three years
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presumably it&rsquo;s very beautiful,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How do you like it, Crane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, let&rsquo;s be starting,&rdquo; repeated her host. &ldquo;How on earth did you know
+      that my chauffeur was called Crane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I know Crane; I&rsquo;ve been for a drive with Evie once. I know that
+      you&rsquo;ve got a parlourmaid called Milton. I know all sorts of things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie!&rdquo; he echoed in injured tones. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t see her. She&rsquo;s gone out
+      with Cahill. It&rsquo;s no fun, I can tell you, being left so much alone. I&rsquo;ve
+      got my work all day&mdash;indeed, a great deal too much of it&mdash;but
+      when I come home in the evening, I tell you, I can&rsquo;t stand the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my absurd way, I&rsquo;m lonely too,&rdquo; Margaret replied. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s heart-breaking
+      to leave one&rsquo;s old home. I scarcely remember anything before Wickham
+      Place, and Helen and Tibby were born there. Helen says&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, too, feel lonely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Horribly. Hullo, Parliament&rsquo;s back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously. The more important ropes
+      of life lay elsewhere. &ldquo;Yes, they are talking again,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But you
+      were going to say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only some rubbish about furniture. Helen says it alone endures while men
+      and houses perish, and that in the end the world will be a desert of
+      chairs and sofas&mdash;just imagine it!&mdash;rolling through infinity
+      with no one to sit upon them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister always likes her little joke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; my brother says `No,&rsquo; to Ducie Street. It&rsquo;s no fun
+      helping us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not as unpractical as you pretend. I shall never believe it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed. But she was&mdash;quite as unpractical. She could not
+      concentrate on details. Parliament, the Thames, the irresponsive
+      chauffeur, would flash into the field of house-hunting, and all demand
+      some comment or response. It is impossible to see modern life steadily and
+      see it whole, and she had chosen to see it whole. Mr. Wilcox saw steadily.
+      He never bothered over the mysterious or the private. The Thames might run
+      inland from the sea, the chauffeur might conceal all passion and
+      philosophy beneath his unhealthy skin. They knew their own business, and
+      he knew his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she liked being with him. He was not a rebuke, but a stimulus, and
+      banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior, he preserved a gift that
+      she supposed herself to have already lost&mdash;not youth&rsquo;s creative
+      power, but its self-confidence and optimism. He was so sure that it was a
+      very pleasant world. His complexion was robust, his hair had receded but
+      not thinned, the thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had compared to
+      brandy-balls had an agreeable menace in them, whether they were turned
+      towards the slums or towards the stars. Some day&mdash;in the millennium&mdash;there
+      may be no need for his type. At present, homage is due to it from those
+      who think themselves superior, and who possibly are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At all events you responded to my telegram promptly,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, even I know a good thing when I see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you don&rsquo;t despise the goods of this world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens, no! Only idiots and prigs do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad, very glad,&rdquo; he repeated, suddenly softening and turning to
+      her, as if the remark had pleased him. &ldquo;There is so much cant talked in
+      would-be intellectual circles. I am glad you don&rsquo;t share it. Self-denial
+      is all very well as a means of strengthening the character. But I can&rsquo;t
+      stand those people who run down comforts. They have usually some axe to
+      grind. Can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Comforts are of two kinds,&rdquo; said Margaret, who was keeping herself in
+      hand&mdash;&ldquo;those we can share with others, like fire, weather, or music;
+      and those we can&rsquo;t&mdash;food, food, for instance. It depends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean reasonable comforts, of course. I shouldn&rsquo;t like to think that you&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He bent nearer; the sentence died unfinished. Margaret&rsquo;s head turned very
+      stupid, and the inside of it seemed to revolve like the beacon in a
+      lighthouse. He did not kiss her, for the hour was half-past twelve, and
+      the car was passing by the stables of Buckingham Palace. But the
+      atmosphere was so charged with emotion that people only seemed to exist on
+      her account, and she was surprised that Crane did not realise this, and
+      turn round. Idiot though she might be, surely Mr. Wilcox was more&mdash;how
+      should one put it?&mdash;more psychological than usual. Always a good
+      judge of character for business purposes, he seemed this afternoon to
+      enlarge his field, and to note qualities outside neatness, obedience, and
+      decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to go over the whole house,&rdquo; she announced when they arrived. &ldquo;As
+      soon as I get back to Swanage, which will be to-morrow afternoon, I&rsquo;ll
+      talk it over once more with Helen and Tibby, and wire you &lsquo;yes&rsquo; or &lsquo;no.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right. The dining-room.&rdquo; And they began their survey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dining-room was big, but over-furnished. Chelsea would have moaned
+      aloud. Mr. Wilcox had eschewed those decorative schemes that wince, and
+      relent, and refrain, and achieve beauty by sacrificing comfort and pluck.
+      After so much self-colour and self-denial, Margaret viewed with relief the
+      sumptuous dado, the frieze, the gilded wall-paper, amid whose foliage
+      parrots sang. It would never do with her own furniture, but those heavy
+      chairs, that immense sideboard loaded with presentation plate, stood up
+      against its pressure like men. The room suggested men, and Margaret, keen
+      to derive the modern capitalist from the warriors and hunters of the past,
+      saw it as an ancient guest-hall, where the lord sat at meat among his
+      thanes. Even the Bible&mdash;the Dutch Bible that Charles had brought back
+      from the Boer War&mdash;fell into position. Such a room admitted loot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now the entrance-hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrance-hall was paved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we fellows smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather. It was as if a motor-car
+      had spawned. &ldquo;Oh, jolly!&rdquo; said Margaret, sinking into one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do like it?&rdquo; he said, fixing his eyes on her upturned face, and
+      surely betraying an almost intimate note. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all rubbish not making
+      oneself comfortable. Isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es. Semi-rubbish. Are those Cruikshanks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gillrays. Shall we go on upstairs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does all this furniture come from Howards End?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Howards End furniture has all gone to Oniton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does&mdash;However, I&rsquo;m concerned with the house, not the furniture. How
+      big is this smoking-room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty by fifteen. No, wait a minute. Fifteen and a half.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well. Mr. Wilcox, aren&rsquo;t you ever amused at the solemnity with which
+      we middle classes approach the subject of houses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They proceeded to the drawing-room. Chelsea managed better here. It was
+      sallow and ineffective. One could visualise the ladies withdrawing to it,
+      while their lords discussed life&rsquo;s realities below, to the accompaniment
+      of cigars. Had Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s drawing-room at Howards End looked thus? Just
+      as this thought entered Margaret&rsquo;s brain, Mr. Wilcox did ask her to be his
+      wife, and the knowledge that she had been right so overcame her that she
+      nearly fainted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the proposal was not to rank among the world&rsquo;s great love scenes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel&rdquo;&mdash;his voice was firm&mdash;&ldquo;I have had you up on false
+      pretences. I want to speak about a much more serious matter than a house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret almost answered: &ldquo;I know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could you be induced to share my&mdash;is it probable&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Wilcox!&rdquo; she interrupted, taking hold of the piano and averting
+      her eyes. &ldquo;I see, I see. I will write to you afterwards if I may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to stammer. &ldquo;Miss Schlegel&mdash;Margaret you don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes! Indeed, yes!&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am asking you to be my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So deep already was her sympathy, that when he said, &ldquo;I am asking you to
+      be my wife,&rdquo; she made herself give a little start. She must show surprise
+      if he expected it. An immense joy came over her. It was indescribable. It
+      had nothing to do with humanity, and most resembled the all-pervading
+      happiness of fine weather. Fine weather is due to the sun, but Margaret
+      could think of no central radiance here. She stood in his drawing-room
+      happy, and longing to give happiness. On leaving him she realised that the
+      central radiance had been love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t offended, Miss Schlegel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I be offended?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s pause. He was anxious to get rid of her, and she knew
+      it. She had too much intuition to look at him as he struggled for
+      possessions that money cannot buy. He desired comradeship and affection,
+      but he feared them, and she, who had taught herself only to desire, and
+      could have clothed the struggle with beauty, held back, and hesitated with
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;You will have a letter from me&mdash;I am
+      going back to Swanage to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, and it&rsquo;s you I thank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may order the motor round, mayn&rsquo;t I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be most kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I had written. Ought I to have written?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just one question&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. He looked a little bewildered as they parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They parted without shaking hands; she had kept the interview, for his
+      sake, in tints of the quietest grey. She thrilled with happiness ere she
+      reached her house. Others had loved her in the past, if one apply to their
+      brief desires so grave a word, but the others had been &ldquo;ninnies&rdquo;&mdash;young
+      men who had nothing to do, old men who could find nobody better. And she
+      had often &lsquo;loved,&rsquo; too, but only so far as the facts of sex demanded: mere
+      yearnings for the masculine sex to be dismissed for what they were worth,
+      with a sigh. Never before had her personality been touched. She was not
+      young or very rich, and it amazed her that a man of any standing should
+      take her seriously. As she sat, trying to do accounts in her empty house,
+      amidst beautiful pictures and noble books, waves of emotion broke, as if a
+      tide of passion was flowing through the night air. She shook her head,
+      tried to concentrate her attention, and failed. In vain did she repeat:
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve been through this sort of thing before.&rdquo; She had never been
+      through it; the big machinery, as opposed to the little, had been set in
+      motion, and the idea that Mr. Wilcox loved, obsessed her before she came
+      to love him in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She would come to no decision yet. &ldquo;Oh, sir, this is so sudden&rdquo;&mdash;that
+      prudish phrase exactly expressed her when her time came. Premonitions are
+      not preparation. She must examine more closely her own nature and his; she
+      must talk it over judicially with Helen. It had been a strange love-scene&mdash;the
+      central radiance unacknowledged from first to last. She, in his place,
+      would have said Ich liebe dich, but perhaps it was not his habit to open
+      the heart. He might have done it if she had pressed him&mdash;as a matter
+      of duty, perhaps; England expects every man to open his heart once; but
+      the effort would have jarred him, and never, if she could avoid it, should
+      he lose those defences that he had chosen to raise against the world. He
+      must never be bothered with emotional talk, or with a display of sympathy.
+      He was an elderly man now, and it would be futile and impudent to correct
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox strayed in and out, ever a welcome ghost; surveying the scene,
+      thought Margaret, without one hint of bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If one wanted to show a foreigner England, perhaps the wisest course would
+      be to take him to the final section of the Purbeck Hills, and stand him on
+      their summit, a few miles to the east of Corfe. Then system after system
+      of our island would roll together under his feet. Beneath him is the
+      valley of the Frome, and all the wild lands that come tossing down from
+      Dorchester, black and gold, to mirror their gorse in the expanses of
+      Poole. The valley of the Stour is beyond, unaccountable stream, dirty at
+      Blandford, pure at Wimborne&mdash;the Stour, sliding out of fat fields, to
+      marry the Avon beneath the tower of Christ church. The valley of the Avon&mdash;invisible,
+      but far to the north the trained eye may see Clearbury Ring that guards
+      it, and the imagination may leap beyond that on to Salisbury Plain itself,
+      and beyond the Plain to all the glorious downs of Central England. Nor is
+      Suburbia absent. Bournemouth&rsquo;s ignoble coast cowers to the right,
+      heralding the pine-trees that mean, for all their beauty, red houses, and
+      the Stock Exchange, and extend to the gates of London itself. So
+      tremendous is the City&rsquo;s trail! But the cliffs of Freshwater it shall
+      never touch, and the island will guard the Island&rsquo;s purity till the end of
+      time. Seen from the west the Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of beauty.
+      It is as if a fragment of England floated forward to greet the foreigner&mdash;chalk
+      of our chalk, turf of our turf, epitome of what will follow. And behind
+      the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the nations, and Portsmouth, a
+      latent fire, and all around it, with double and treble collision of tides,
+      swirls the sea. How many villages appear in this view! How many castles!
+      How many churches, vanished or triumphant! How many ships, railways, and
+      roads! What incredible variety of men working beneath that lucent sky to
+      what final end! The reason fails, like a wave on the Swanage beach; the
+      imagination swells, spreads, and deepens, until it becomes geographic and
+      encircles England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Frieda Mosebach, now Frau Architect Liesecke, and mother to her
+      husband&rsquo;s baby, was brought up to these heights to be impressed, and,
+      after a prolonged gaze, she said that the hills were more swelling here
+      than in Pomerania, which was true, but did not seem to Mrs. Munt apposite.
+      Poole Harbour was dry, which led her to praise the absence of muddy
+      foreshore at Friedrich Wilhelms Bad, Rugen, where beech-trees hang over
+      the tideless Baltic, and cows may contemplate the brine. Rather unhealthy
+      Mrs. Munt thought this would be, water being safer when it moved about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your English lakes&mdash;Vindermere, Grasmere they, then, unhealthy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and
+      different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great
+      deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an aquarium.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An aquarium! Oh, MEESIS Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh aquariums
+      stink less than salt? Why, then Victor, my brother-in-law, collected many
+      tadpoles&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;You are not to say &lsquo;stink,&rsquo;&rdquo; interrupted Helen; &ldquo;at
+      least, you may say it, but you must pretend you are being funny while you
+      say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then &lsquo;smell.&rsquo; And the mud of your Pool down there&mdash;does it not
+      smell, or may I say &lsquo;stink,&rsquo; ha, ha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There always has been mud in Poole Harbour,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, with a
+      slight frown. &ldquo;The rivers bring it down, and a most valuable
+      oyster-fishery depends upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that is so,&rdquo; conceded Frieda; and another international incident was
+      closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Bournemouth is,&rsquo;&rdquo; resumed their hostess, quoting a local rhyme to which
+      she was much attached&mdash;&ldquo;&lsquo;Bournemouth is, Poole was, and Swanage is to
+      be the most important town of all and biggest of the three.&rsquo; Now, Frau
+      Liesecke, I have shown you Bournemouth, and I have shown you Poole, so let
+      us walk backward a little, and look down again at Swanage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley, wouldn&rsquo;t that be Meg&rsquo;s train?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour, and now was bearing
+      southwards towards them over the black and the gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, dearest Margaret, I do hope she won&rsquo;t be overtired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I do wonder&mdash;I do wonder whether she&rsquo;s taken the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she hasn&rsquo;t been hasty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I&mdash;oh, SO do I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it be as beautiful as Wickham Place?&rdquo; Frieda asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think it would. Trust Mr. Wilcox for doing himself proud. All
+      those Ducie Street houses are beautiful in their modern way, and I can&rsquo;t
+      think why he doesn&rsquo;t keep on with it. But it&rsquo;s really for Evie that he
+      went there, and now that Evie&rsquo;s going to be married&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve never seen Miss Wilcox, Frieda. How absurdly matrimonial you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But sister to that Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to that Charles,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt with feeling. &ldquo;Oh, Helen, Helen,
+      what a time that was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen laughed. &ldquo;Meg and I haven&rsquo;t got such tender hearts. If there&rsquo;s a
+      chance of a cheap house, we go for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now look, Frau Liesecke, at my niece&rsquo;s train. You see, it is coming
+      towards us&mdash;coming, coming; and, when it gets to Corfe, it will
+      actually go THROUGH the downs, on which we are standing, so that, if we
+      walk over, as I suggested, and look down on Swanage, we shall see it
+      coming on the other side. Shall we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frieda assented, and in a few minutes they had crossed the ridge and
+      exchanged the greater view for the lesser. Rather a dull valley lay below,
+      backed by the slope of the coastward downs. They were looking across the
+      Isle of Purbeck and on to Swanage, soon to be the most important town of
+      all, and ugliest of the three. Margaret&rsquo;s train reappeared as promised,
+      and was greeted with approval by her aunt. It came to a standstill in the
+      middle distance, and there it had been planned that Tibby should meet her,
+      and drive her, and a tea-basket, up to join them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; continued Helen to her cousin, &ldquo;the Wilcoxes collect houses as
+      your Victor collects tadpoles. They have, one, Ducie Street; two, Howards
+      End, where my great rumpus was; three, a country seat in Shropshire; four,
+      Charles has a house in Hilton; and five, another near Epsom; and six, Evie
+      will have a house when she marries, and probably a pied-a-terre in the
+      country&mdash;which makes seven. Oh yes, and Paul a hut in Africa makes
+      eight. I wish we could get Howards End. That was something like a dear
+      little house! Didn&rsquo;t you think so, Aunt Juley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had too much to do, dear, to look at it,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, with a
+      gracious dignity. &ldquo;I had everything to settle and explain, and Charles
+      Wilcox to keep in his place besides. It isn&rsquo;t likely I should remember
+      much. I just remember having lunch in your bedroom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, so do I. But, oh dear, dear, how dreadful it all seems! And in the
+      autumn there began that anti-Pauline movement&mdash;you, and Frieda, and
+      Meg, and Mrs. Wilcox, all obsessed with the idea that I might yet marry
+      Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You yet may,&rdquo; said Frieda despondently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen shook her head. &ldquo;The Great Wilcox Peril will never return. If I&rsquo;m
+      certain of anything it&rsquo;s of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One is certain of nothing but the truth of one&rsquo;s own emotions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The remark fell damply on the conversation. But Helen slipped her arm
+      round her cousin, somehow liking her the better for making it. It was not
+      an original remark, nor had Frieda appropriated it passionately, for she
+      had a patriotic rather than a philosophic mind. Yet it betrayed that
+      interest in the universal which the average Teuton possesses and the
+      average Englishman does not. It was, however illogically, the good, the
+      beautiful, the true, as opposed to the respectable, the pretty, the
+      adequate. It was a landscape of Bocklin&rsquo;s beside a landscape of Leader&rsquo;s,
+      strident and ill-considered, but quivering into supernatural life. It
+      sharpened idealism, stirred the soul. It may have been a bad preparation
+      for what followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look!&rdquo; cried Aunt Juley, hurrying away from generalities over the narrow
+      summit of the down. &ldquo;Stand where I stand, and you will see the pony-cart
+      coming. I see the pony-cart coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood and saw the pony-cart coming. Margaret and Tibby were presently
+      seen coming in it. Leaving the outskirts of Swanage, it drove for a little
+      through the budding lanes, and then began the ascent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got the house?&rdquo; they shouted, long before she could possibly
+      hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen ran down to meet her. The highroad passed over a saddle, and a track
+      went thence at right angles alone the ridge of the down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got the house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a nuisance! So we&rsquo;re as we were?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She got out, looking tired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some mystery,&rdquo; said Tibby. &ldquo;We are to be enlightened presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret came close up to her and whispered that she had had a proposal of
+      marriage from Mr. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was amused. She opened the gate on to the downs so that her brother
+      might lead the pony through. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just like a widower,&rdquo; she remarked.
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve cheek enough for anything, and invariably select one of their
+      first wife&rsquo;s friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret&rsquo;s face flashed despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That type&mdash;&rdquo; She broke off with a cry. &ldquo;Meg, not anything wrong with
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait one minute,&rdquo; said Margaret, whispering always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ve never conceivably&mdash;you&rsquo;ve never&mdash;&rdquo; She pulled
+      herself together. &ldquo;Tibby, hurry up through; I can&rsquo;t hold this gate
+      indefinitely. Aunt Juley! I say, Aunt Juley, make the tea, will you, and
+      Frieda; we&rsquo;ve got to talk houses, and will come on afterwards.&rdquo; And then,
+      turning her face to her sister&rsquo;s, she burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was stupefied. She heard herself saying, &ldquo;Oh, really&mdash;&rdquo; She
+      felt herself touched with a hand that trembled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; sobbed Helen, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t, Meg, don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; She seemed incapable of
+      saying any other word. Margaret, trembling herself, led her forward up the
+      road, till they strayed through another gate on to the down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t do such a thing! I tell you not to&mdash;don&rsquo;t! I know&mdash;don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panic and emptiness,&rdquo; sobbed Helen. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret thought, &ldquo;Helen is a little selfish. I have never behaved
+      like this when there has seemed a chance of her marrying.&rdquo; She said: &ldquo;But
+      we would still see each other very&mdash;often, and you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a thing like that,&rdquo; sobbed Helen. And she broke right away and
+      wandered distractedly upwards, stretching her hands towards the view and
+      crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened to you?&rdquo; called Margaret, following through the wind that
+      gathers at sundown on the northern slopes of hills. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s stupid!&rdquo; And
+      suddenly stupidity seized her, and the immense landscape was blurred. But
+      Helen turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s happened to either of us,&rdquo; said Margaret, wiping her
+      eyes. &ldquo;We must both have gone mad.&rdquo; Then Helen wiped hers, and they even
+      laughed a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; I&rsquo;ll sit down if you&rsquo;ll sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There. (One kiss.) Now, whatever, whatever is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean what I said. Don&rsquo;t; it wouldn&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Helen, stop saying &lsquo;don&rsquo;t&rsquo;! It&rsquo;s ignorant. It&rsquo;s as if your head
+      wasn&rsquo;t out of the slime. &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t&rsquo; is probably what Mrs. Bast says all the
+      day to Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about it first, and meanwhile perhaps I&rsquo;ll have got my head out
+      of the slime.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s better. Well, where shall I begin? When I arrived at Waterloo&mdash;no,
+      I&rsquo;ll go back before that, because I&rsquo;m anxious you should know everything
+      from the first. The &lsquo;first&rsquo; was about ten days ago. It was the day Mr.
+      Bast came to tea and lost his temper. I was defending him, and Mr. Wilcox
+      became jealous about me, however slightly. I thought it was the
+      involuntary thing, which men can&rsquo;t help any more than we can. You know&mdash;at
+      least, I know in my own case&mdash;when a man has said to me, &lsquo;So-and-so&rsquo;s
+      a pretty girl,&rsquo; I am seized with a momentary sourness against So-and-so,
+      and long to tweak her ear. It&rsquo;s a tiresome feeling, but not an important
+      one, and one easily manages it. But it wasn&rsquo;t only this in Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      case, I gather now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret considered. &ldquo;It is wonderful knowing that a real man cares for
+      you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The mere fact of that grows more tremendous. Remember,
+      I&rsquo;ve known and liked him steadily for nearly three years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But loved him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret peered into her past. It is pleasant to analyse feelings while
+      they are still only feelings, and unembodied in the social fabric. With
+      her arm round Helen, and her eyes shifting over the view, as if this
+      country or that could reveal the secret of her own heart, she meditated
+      honestly, and said, &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;of that I&rsquo;m pretty sure. Indeed, I began the moment
+      he spoke to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have settled to marry him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had, but am wanting a long talk about it now. What is it against him,
+      Helen? You must try and say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, in her turn, looked outwards. &ldquo;It is ever since Paul,&rdquo; she said
+      finally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what has Mr. Wilcox to do with Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he was there, they were all there that morning when I came down to
+      breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened&mdash;the man who loved me
+      frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I knew it was
+      impossible, because personal relations are the important thing for ever
+      and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She poured the sentence forth in one breath, but her sister understood it,
+      because it touched on thoughts that were familiar between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s foolish. In the first place, I disagree about the outer life.
+      Well, we&rsquo;ve often argued that. The real point is that there is the widest
+      gulf between my love-making and yours. Yours was romance; mine will be
+      prose. I&rsquo;m not running it down&mdash;a very good kind of prose, but well
+      considered, well thought out. For instance, I know all Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      faults. He&rsquo;s afraid of emotion. He cares too much about success, too
+      little about the past. His sympathy lacks poetry, and so isn&rsquo;t sympathy
+      really. I&rsquo;d even say&rdquo;&mdash;she looked at the shining lagoons&mdash;&ldquo;that,
+      spiritually, he&rsquo;s not as honest as I am. Doesn&rsquo;t that satisfy you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it doesn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;It makes me feel worse and worse. You must
+      be mad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret made a movement of irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t intend him, or any man or any woman, to be all my life&mdash;good
+      heavens, no! There are heaps of things in me that he doesn&rsquo;t, and shall
+      never, understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical union, before
+      the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between married
+      couples and the world. She was to keep her independence more than do most
+      women as yet. Marriage was to alter her fortunes rather than her
+      character, and she was not far wrong in boasting that she understood her
+      future husband. Yet he did alter her character&mdash;a little. There was
+      an unforeseen surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours of life, a
+      social pressure that would have her think conjugally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So with him,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;There are heaps of things in him&mdash;more
+      especially things that he does that will always be hidden from me. He has
+      all those public qualities which you so despise and which enable all this&mdash;&rdquo;
+       She waved her hand at the landscape, which confirmed anything. &ldquo;If
+      Wilcoxes hadn&rsquo;t worked and died in England for thousands of years, you and
+      I couldn&rsquo;t sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no
+      trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even.
+      Just savagery. No&mdash;perhaps not even that. Without their spirit life
+      might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to
+      draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it. There are times when
+      it seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to me, and to all women. So one kissed Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s brutal,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Mine is an absolutely different case.
+      I&rsquo;ve thought things out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes no difference thinking things out. They come to the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rubbish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long silence, during which the tide returned into Poole
+      Harbour. &ldquo;One would lose something,&rdquo; murmured Helen, apparently to
+      herself. The water crept over the mud-flats towards the gorse and the
+      blackened heather. Branksea Island lost its immense foreshores, and became
+      a sombre episode of trees. Frome was forced inward towards Dorchester,
+      Stour against Wimborne, Avon towards Salisbury, and over the immense
+      displacement the sun presided, leading it to triumph ere he sank to rest.
+      England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy
+      through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with contrary
+      motion, blew stronger against her rising seas. What did it mean? For what
+      end are her fair complexities, her changes of soil, her sinuous coast?
+      Does she belong to those who have moulded her and made her feared by other
+      lands, or to those who have added nothing to her power, but have somehow
+      seen her, seen the whole island at once, lying as a jewel in a silver sea,
+      sailing as a ship of souls, with all the brave world&rsquo;s fleet accompanying
+      her towards eternity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the
+      world&rsquo;s waters, when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble, slips in. Whom does
+      Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover? Yet his impact deluges a
+      hundred shores. No doubt the disturbance is really the spirit of the
+      generations, welcoming the new generation, and chafing against the
+      ultimate Fate, who holds all the seas in the palm of her hand. But Love
+      cannot understand this. He cannot comprehend another&rsquo;s infinity; he is
+      conscious only of his own&mdash;flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble that
+      asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and time.
+      He knows that he will survive at the end of things, and be gathered by
+      Fate as a jewel from the slime, and be handed with admiration round the
+      assembly of the gods. &ldquo;Men did produce this&rdquo; they will say, and, saying,
+      they will give men immortality. But meanwhile&mdash;what agitations
+      meanwhile! The foundations of Property and Propriety are laid bare, twin
+      rocks; Family Pride flounders to the surface, puffing and blowing and
+      refusing to be comforted; Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty
+      ground swell. Then the lawyers are aroused&mdash;cold brood&mdash;and
+      creep out of their holes. They do what they can; they tidy up Property and
+      Propriety, reassure Theology and Family Pride. Half-guineas are poured on
+      the troubled waters, the lawyers creep back, and, if all has gone well,
+      Love joins one man and woman together in Matrimony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had expected the disturbance, and was not irritated by it. For a
+      sensitive woman she had steady nerves, and could bear with the incongruous
+      and the grotesque; and, besides, there was nothing excessive about her
+      love-affair. Good-humour was the dominant note of her relations with Mr.
+      Wilcox, or, as I must now call him, Henry. Henry did not encourage
+      romance, and she was no girl to fidget for it. An acquaintance had become
+      a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted
+      in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than
+      reveal a new one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this spirit she promised to marry him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in Swanage on the morrow bearing the engagement ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They greeted one another with a hearty cordiality that impressed Aunt
+      Juley. Henry dined at The Bays, but had engaged a bedroom in the principal
+      hotel; he was one of those men who know the principal hotel by instinct.
+      After dinner he asked Margaret if she wouldn&rsquo;t care for a turn on the
+      Parade. She accepted, and could not repress a little tremor; it would be
+      her first real love scene. But as she put on her hat she burst out
+      laughing. Love was so unlike the article served up in books; the joy,
+      though genuine was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery. For one
+      thing, Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time they talked about the ring; then she said: &ldquo;Do you remember the
+      Embankment at Chelsea? It can&rsquo;t be ten days ago.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;And you and your sister were head and ears deep
+      in some Quixotic scheme. Ah well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I little thought then, certainly. Did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about that; I shouldn&rsquo;t like to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, was it earlier?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Did you think of me this way earlier!
+      How extraordinarily interesting, Henry! Tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Henry had no intention of telling. Perhaps he could not have told, for
+      his mental states became obscure as soon as he had passed through them. He
+      misliked the very word &ldquo;interesting,&rdquo; connoting it with wasted energy and
+      even with morbidity. Hard facts were enough for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think of it,&rdquo; she pursued. &ldquo;No; when you spoke to me in the
+      drawing-room, that was practically the first. It was all so different from
+      what it&rsquo;s supposed to be. On the stage, or in books, a proposal is&mdash;how
+      shall I put it?&mdash;a full-blown affair, a kind of bouquet; it loses its
+      literal meaning. But in life a proposal really is a proposal&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+     <p>
+     &ldquo;&mdash;a suggestion, a seed,&rdquo; she concluded; and the thought flew away
+     into darkness.
+     </p>
+     <p>
+     &ldquo;I was thinking, if you didn’t mind, that we ought to spend this evening
+     in a business talk; there will be so much to settle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;I think so too.  Tell me, in the first place, how did you get on with Tibby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;With your brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;Yes, during cigarettes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+     <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so glad,&rdquo; she answered, a little surprised. &ldquo;What did you talk
+      about? Me, presumably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Greece too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greece was a very good card, Henry. Tibby&rsquo;s only a boy still, and one has
+      to pick and choose subjects a little. Well done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was telling him I have shares in a currant-farm near Calamata.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a delightful thing to have shares in! Can&rsquo;t we go there for our
+      honeymoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To eat the currants. And isn&rsquo;t there marvellous scenery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moderately, but it&rsquo;s not the kind of place one could possibly go to with
+      a lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No hotels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some ladies do without hotels. Are you aware that Helen and I have walked
+      alone over the Apennines, with our luggage on our backs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t aware, and, if I can manage it, you will never do such a thing
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said more gravely: &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t found time for a talk with Helen yet,
+      I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do, before you go. I am so anxious you two should be friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister and I have always hit it off,&rdquo; he said negligently. &ldquo;But
+      we&rsquo;re drifting away from our business. Let me begin at the beginning. You
+      know that Evie is going to marry Percy Cahill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly&rsquo;s uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. The girl&rsquo;s madly in love with him. A very good sort of fellow,
+      but he demands&mdash;and rightly&mdash;a suitable provision with her. And
+      in the second place you will naturally understand, there is Charles.
+      Before leaving town, I wrote Charles a very careful letter. You see, he
+      has an increasing family and increasing expenses, and the I. and W. A. is
+      nothing particular just now, though capable of development.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; murmured Margaret, looking out to sea, and not
+      understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles being the elder son, some day Charles will have Howards End; but
+      I am anxious, in my own happiness, not to be unjust to others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; she began, and then gave a little cry. &ldquo;you mean money.
+      How stupid I am! Of course not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough, he winced a little at the word. &ldquo;Yes, Money, since you put
+      it so frankly. I am determined to be just to all&mdash;just to you, just
+      to them. I am determined that my children shall have me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be generous to them,&rdquo; she said sharply. &ldquo;Bother justice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am determined&mdash;and have already written to Charles to that effect&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how much have you got?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much have you a year? I&rsquo;ve six hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My income?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. We must begin with how much you have, before we can settle how much
+      you can give Charles. Justice, and even generosity, depend on that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must say you&rsquo;re a downright young woman,&rdquo; he observed, patting her arm
+      and laughing a little. &ldquo;What a question to spring on a fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know your income? Or don&rsquo;t you want to tell it me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right&rdquo;&mdash;now she patted him&mdash;&ldquo;don&rsquo;t tell me. I don&rsquo;t
+      want to know. I can do the sum just as well by proportion. Divide your
+      income into ten parts. How many parts would you give to Evie, how many to
+      Charles, how many to Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is, my dear, I hadn&rsquo;t any intention of bothering you with
+      details. I only wanted to let you know that&mdash;well, that something
+      must be done for the others, and you&rsquo;ve understood me perfectly, so let&rsquo;s
+      pass on to the next point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we&rsquo;ve settled that,&rdquo; said Margaret, undisturbed by his strategic
+      blunderings. &ldquo;Go ahead; give away all you can, bearing in mind that I&rsquo;ve a
+      clear six hundred. What a mercy it is to have all this money about one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve none too much, I assure you; you&rsquo;re marrying a poor man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen wouldn&rsquo;t agree with me here,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;Helen daren&rsquo;t slang
+      the rich, being rich herself, but she would like to. There&rsquo;s an odd
+      notion, that I haven&rsquo;t yet got hold of, running about at the back of her
+      brain, that poverty is somehow &lsquo;real.&rsquo; She dislikes all organisation, and
+      probably confuses wealth with the technique of wealth. Sovereigns in a
+      stocking wouldn&rsquo;t bother her; cheques do. Helen is too relentless. One
+      can&rsquo;t deal in her high-handed manner with the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s this other point, and then I must go back to my hotel and write
+      some letters. What&rsquo;s to be done now about the house in Ducie Street?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep it on&mdash;at least, it depends. When do you want to marry me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her voice, as too often, and some youths, who were also taking
+      the evening air, overheard her. &ldquo;Getting a bit hot, eh?&rdquo; said one. Mr.
+      Wilcox turned on them, and said sharply, &ldquo;I say!&rdquo; There was silence. &ldquo;Take
+      care I don&rsquo;t report you to the police.&rdquo; They moved away quietly enough,
+      but were only biding their time, and the rest of the conversation was
+      punctuated by peals of ungovernable laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lowering his voice and infusing a hint of reproof into it, he said: &ldquo;Evie
+      will probably be married in September. We could scarcely think of anything
+      before then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The earlier the nicer, Henry. Females are not supposed to say such
+      things, but the earlier the nicer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about September for us too?&rdquo; he asked, rather dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right. Shall we go into Ducie Street ourselves in September? Or shall we
+      try to bounce Helen and Tibby into it? That&rsquo;s rather an idea. They are so
+      unbusinesslike, we could make them do anything by judicious management.
+      Look here&mdash;yes. We&rsquo;ll do that. And we ourselves could live at Howards
+      End or Shropshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He blew out his cheeks. &ldquo;Heavens! how you women do fly round! My head&rsquo;s in
+      a whirl. Point by point, Margaret. Howards End&rsquo;s impossible. I let it to
+      Hamar Bryce on a three years&rsquo; agreement last March. Don&rsquo;t you remember?
+      Oniton. Well, that is much, much too far away to rely on entirely. You
+      will be able to be down there entertaining a certain amount, but we must
+      have a house within easy reach of Town. Only Ducie Street has huge
+      drawbacks. There&rsquo;s a mews behind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not help laughing. It was the first she had heard of the
+      mews behind Ducie Street. When she was a possible tenant it had suppressed
+      itself, not consciously, but automatically. The breezy Wilcox manner,
+      though genuine, lacked the clearness of vision that is imperative for
+      truth. When Henry lived in Ducie Street he remembered the mews; when he
+      tried to let he forgot it; and if any one had remarked that the mews must
+      be either there or not, he would have felt annoyed, and afterwards have
+      found some opportunity of stigmatising the speaker as academic. So does my
+      grocer stigmatise me when I complain of the quality of his sultanas, and
+      he answers in one breath that they are the best sultanas, and how can I
+      expect the best sultanas at that price? It is a flaw inherent in the
+      business mind, and Margaret may do well to be tender to it, considering
+      all that the business mind has done for England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, in summer especially, the mews is a serious nuisance. The
+      smoking-room, too, is an abominable little den. The house opposite has
+      been taken by operatic people. Ducie Street&rsquo;s going down, it&rsquo;s my private
+      opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How sad! It&rsquo;s only a few years since they built those pretty houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shows things are moving. Good for trade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate this continual flux of London. It is an epitome of us at our worst&mdash;eternal
+      formlessness; all the qualities, good, bad, and indifferent, streaming
+      away&mdash;streaming, streaming for ever. That&rsquo;s why I dread it so. I
+      mistrust rivers, even in scenery. Now, the sea&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;High tide, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hoy toid&rdquo;&mdash;from the promenading youths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And these are the men to whom we give the vote,&rdquo; observed Mr. Wilcox,
+      omitting to add that they were also the men to whom he gave work as clerks&mdash;work
+      that scarcely encouraged them to grow into other men. &ldquo;However, they have
+      their own lives and interests. Let&rsquo;s get on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned as he spoke, and prepared to see her back to The Bays. The
+      business was over. His hotel was in the opposite direction, and if he
+      accompanied her his letters would be late for the post. She implored him
+      not to come, but he was obdurate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A nice beginning, if your aunt saw you slip in alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I always do go about alone. Considering I&rsquo;ve walked over the
+      Apennines, it&rsquo;s common sense. You will make me so angry. I don&rsquo;t the least
+      take it as a compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed, and lit a cigar. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t meant as a compliment, my dear. I
+      just won&rsquo;t have you going about in the dark. Such people about too! It&rsquo;s
+      dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I look after myself? I do wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, Margaret; no wheedling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret had
+      too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as
+      masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might
+      tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal. Disdaining the heroic
+      outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill, she
+      misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility
+      for Weakness. He supposed her &ldquo;as clever as they make them,&rdquo; but no more,
+      not realising that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and
+      approving of what she found there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life,
+      their happiness had been assured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked ahead briskly. The parade and the road after it were well
+      lighted, but it was darker in Aunt Juley&rsquo;s garden. As they were going up
+      by the side-paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr. Wilcox, who was in
+      front, said &ldquo;Margaret&rdquo; rather huskily, turned, dropped his cigar, and took
+      her in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at once, and
+      kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own. It
+      was their first kiss, and when it was over he saw her safely to the door
+      and rang the bell for her but disappeared into the night before the maid
+      answered it. On looking back, the incident displeased her. It was so
+      isolated. Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it, and,
+      worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to passion
+      he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped, after her
+      complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had hurried
+      away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded of Helen and Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Charles had just been scolding his Dolly. She deserved the scolding, and
+      had bent before it, but her head, though bloody was unsubdued and her
+      chirrupings began to mingle with his retreating thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve waked the baby. I knew you would. (Rum-ti-foo,
+      Rackety-tackety-Tompkin!) I&rsquo;m not responsible for what Uncle Percy does,
+      nor for anybody else or anything, so there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who asked him while I was away? Who asked my sister down to meet him? Who
+      sent them out in the motor day after day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles, that reminds me of some poem.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it indeed? We shall all be dancing to a very different music
+      presently. Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could simply scratch that woman&rsquo;s eyes out, and to say it&rsquo;s my fault is
+      most unfair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s your fault, and five months ago you admitted it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tootle, tootle, playing on the pootle!&rdquo; exclaimed Dolly, suddenly
+      devoting herself to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all very well to turn the conversation, but father would never have
+      dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there to make him comfortable. But
+      you must needs start match-making. Besides, Cahill&rsquo;s too old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, if you&rsquo;re going to be rude to Uncle Percy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel always meant to get hold of Howards End, and, thanks to
+      you, she&rsquo;s got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call the way you twist things round and make them hang together most
+      unfair. You couldn&rsquo;t have been nastier if you&rsquo;d caught me flirting. Could
+      he, diddums?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in a bad hole, and must make the best of it. I shall answer the
+      pater&rsquo;s letter civilly. He&rsquo;s evidently anxious to do the decent thing. But
+      I do not intend to forget these Schlegels in a hurry. As long as they&rsquo;re
+      on their best behaviour&mdash;Dolly, are you listening?&mdash;we&rsquo;ll
+      behave, too. But if I find them giving themselves airs or monopolising my
+      father, or at all ill-treating him, or worrying him with their artistic
+      beastliness, I intend to put my foot down, yes, firmly. Taking my mother&rsquo;s
+      place! Heaven knows what poor old Paul will say when the news reaches
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles&rsquo;s garden at Hilton. He
+      and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding them
+      placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition of
+      Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a
+      third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this
+      peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature
+      as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the
+      rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion.
+      Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts,
+      unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is
+      born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober
+      against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of
+      these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his
+      friends shall find easy-going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s soul. From boyhood he had
+      neglected them. &ldquo;I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside.&rdquo;
+       Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had
+      reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete
+      asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the
+      sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is desirable
+      only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The words that
+      were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the
+      words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St. Francis
+      into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints and
+      love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed
+      of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here that Margaret
+      hoped to help him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her
+      own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own
+      soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of
+      her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be
+      exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no
+      longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation
+      that is life to either, will die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good
+      &ldquo;talking.&rdquo; By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their
+      lives with beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was never
+      prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness. He
+      simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He never
+      noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was not
+      interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and shades
+      that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones,
+      the collisions, the illimitable views. Once&mdash;on another occasion&mdash;she
+      scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: &ldquo;My motto
+      is Concentrate. I&rsquo;ve no intention of frittering away my strength on that
+      sort of thing.&rdquo; &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t frittering away the strength,&rdquo; she protested.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s enlarging the space in which you may be strong.&rdquo; He answered:
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a clever little woman, but my motto&rsquo;s Concentrate.&rdquo; And this
+      morning he concentrated with a vengeance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes
+      were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was
+      with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.
+      &ldquo;Here we all are!&rdquo; she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her
+      sister&rsquo;s in the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are. Good-morning, Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen replied, &ldquo;Good-morning, Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy. Do you
+      remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his head was young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had a letter too. Not a nice one&mdash;I want to talk it over with
+      you&rdquo;; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had given him her
+      word; the triangle of sex was broken for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks to your hint, he&rsquo;s clearing out of the Porphyrion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bad business that Porphyrion,&rdquo; he said absently, as he took his own
+      letter out of his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a BAD&mdash;&rdquo; she exclaimed, dropping his hand. &ldquo;Surely, on Chelsea
+      Embankment&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons.
+      Good-morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don&rsquo;t
+      we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a BAD business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. My letter&rsquo;s about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered abroad, and
+      wants to sublet it&mdash;I am far from sure that I shall give him
+      permission. There was no clause in the agreement. In my opinion,
+      subletting is a mistake. If he can find me another tenant, whom I consider
+      suitable, I may cancel the agreement. Morning, Schlegel. Don&rsquo;t you think
+      that&rsquo;s better than subletting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the whole
+      party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was the bourgeois
+      little bay, which must have yearned all through the centuries for just
+      such a watering-place as Swanage to be built on its margin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waves were colourless, and the Bournemouth steamer gave a further
+      touch of insipidity, drawn up against the pier and hooting wildly for
+      excursionists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When there is a sublet I find that damage&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do excuse me, but about the Porphyrion. I don&rsquo;t feel easy&mdash;might I
+      just bother you, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner was so serious that he stopped, and asked her a little sharply
+      what she wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said on Chelsea Embankment, surely, that it was a bad concern, so we
+      advised this clerk to clear out. He writes this morning that he&rsquo;s taken
+      our advice, and now you say it&rsquo;s not a bad concern.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A clerk who clears out of any concern, good or bad, without securing a
+      berth somewhere else first, is a fool, and I&rsquo;ve no pity for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has not done that. He&rsquo;s going into a bank in Camden Town, he says. The
+      salary&rsquo;s much lower, but he hopes to manage&mdash;a branch of Dempster&rsquo;s
+      Bank. Is that all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dempster! Why goodness me, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More right than the Porphyrion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, yes; safe as houses&mdash;safer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very many thanks. I&rsquo;m sorry&mdash;if you sublet&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he sublets, I shan&rsquo;t have the same control. In theory there should be
+      no more damage done at Howards End; in practice there will be. Things may
+      be done for which no money can compensate. For instance, I shouldn&rsquo;t want
+      that fine wych-elm spoilt. It hangs&mdash;Margaret, we must go and see the
+      old place some time. It&rsquo;s pretty in its way. We&rsquo;ll motor down and have
+      lunch with Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should enjoy that,&rdquo; said Margaret bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about next Wednesday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wednesday? No, I couldn&rsquo;t well do that. Aunt Juley expects us to stop
+      here another week at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can give that up now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Er&mdash;no,&rdquo; said Margaret, after a moment&rsquo;s thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that&rsquo;ll be all right. I&rsquo;ll speak to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This visit is a high solemnity. My aunt counts on it year after year. She
+      turns the house upside down for us; she invites our special friends&mdash;she
+      scarcely knows Frieda, and we can&rsquo;t leave her on her hands. I missed one
+      day, and she would be so hurt if I didn&rsquo;t stay the full ten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll say a word to her. Don&rsquo;t you bother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, I won&rsquo;t go. Don&rsquo;t bully me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want to see the house, though?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much&mdash;I&rsquo;ve heard so much about it, one way or the other. Aren&rsquo;t
+      there pigs&rsquo; teeth in the wych-elm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;PIGS TEETH?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you chew the bark for toothache.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a rum notion! Of course not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I have confused it with some other tree. There are still a great
+      number of sacred trees in England, it seems.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he left her to intercept Mrs. Munt, whose voice could be heard in the
+      distance; to be intercepted himself by Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh. Mr. Wilcox, about the Porphyrion&mdash;&rdquo; she began and went scarlet
+      all over her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; called Margaret, catching them up. &ldquo;Dempster&rsquo;s Bank&rsquo;s
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad, and would smash before
+      Christmas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I? It was still outside the Tariff Ring, and had to take rotten
+      policies. Lately it came in&mdash;safe as houses now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, the fellow needn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;and needn&rsquo;t have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced
+      salary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He only says &lsquo;reduced,&rsquo;&rdquo; corrected Margaret, seeing trouble ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it a
+      deplorable misfortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going steadily on,
+      but the last remark made him say: &ldquo;What? What&rsquo;s that? Do you mean that I&rsquo;m
+      responsible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re ridiculous, Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to think&mdash;&rdquo; He looked at his watch. &ldquo;Let me explain the
+      point to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a business concern
+      is conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought to keep the public informed
+      stage by stage. The Porphyrion, according to you, was bound to say, &lsquo;I am
+      trying all I can to get into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that I shall
+      succeed, but it is the only thing that will save me from insolvency, and I
+      am trying.&rsquo; My dear Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that your point? A man who had little money has less&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the day&rsquo;s work. It&rsquo;s part of
+      the battle of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man who had little money&mdash;&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;has less, owing to us.
+      Under these circumstances I consider &lsquo;the battle of life&rsquo; a happy
+      expression.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh come, come!&rdquo; he protested pleasantly, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re not to blame. No one&rsquo;s
+      to blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is no one to blame for anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say that, but you&rsquo;re taking it far too seriously. Who is this
+      fellow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have told you about the fellow twice already,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;You have
+      even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an extravagant
+      imbecile. He is capable of better things. We&mdash;we, the upper classes&mdash;thought
+      we would help him from the height of our superior knowledge&mdash;and
+      here&rsquo;s the result!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his finger. &ldquo;Now, a word of advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I require no more advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A word of advice. Don&rsquo;t take up that sentimental attitude over the poor.
+      See that she doesn&rsquo;t, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one&rsquo;s sorry for
+      them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to
+      pinch in places, and it&rsquo;s absurd to pretend that any one is responsible
+      personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed
+      him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk&rsquo;s
+      loss of salary. It&rsquo;s just the shoe pinching&mdash;no one can help it; and
+      it might easily have been worse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen quivered with indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means subscribe to charities&mdash;subscribe to them largely&mdash;but
+      don&rsquo;t get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good
+      deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no
+      Social Question&mdash;except for a few journalists who try to get a living
+      out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been
+      and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No,
+      no. You can&rsquo;t. There always have been rich and poor. I&rsquo;m no fatalist.
+      Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces&rdquo;
+       (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the
+      personal), &ldquo;and there always will be rich and poor. You can&rsquo;t deny it&rdquo;
+       (and now it was a respectful voice)&mdash;&ldquo;and you can&rsquo;t deny that, in
+      spite of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Owing to God, I suppose,&rdquo; flashed Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You grab the dollars. God does the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God in
+      that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he left her for the
+      quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, &ldquo;She rather reminds me of
+      Dolly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen looked out at the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ever discuss political economy with Henry,&rdquo; advised her sister.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll only end in a cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with
+      religion,&rdquo; said Helen slowly. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like those men. They are scientific
+      themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the
+      salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace
+      their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good&mdash;it is always
+      that sloppy &lsquo;somehow&rsquo; will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way
+      the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Brits of today
+      are in pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But oh, Meg, what a theory!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;m an old maid,&rdquo; said Helen, biting her lip. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think why
+      I go on like this myself.&rdquo; She shook off her sister&rsquo;s hand and went into
+      the house. Margaret, distressed at the day&rsquo;s beginning, followed the
+      Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She saw that Helen&rsquo;s nerves were
+      exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of politeness.
+      There might at any minute be a real explosion, which even Henry would
+      notice. Henry must be removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret!&rdquo; her aunt called. &ldquo;Magsy! It isn&rsquo;t true, surely, what Mr.
+      Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not &lsquo;want,&rsquo;&rdquo; was Margaret&rsquo;s prompt reply; &ldquo;but there is so much to be
+      settled, and I do want to see the Charles&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?&rdquo;
+       said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. &ldquo;Without going once more up Nine Barrows
+      Down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, &ldquo;Good! I did the breaking of the ice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either shoulder, and
+      looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was behind their competent
+      stare? She knew, but was not disquieted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the evening before
+      she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough scolding. She censured
+      her, not for disapproving of the engagement, but for throwing over her
+      disapproval a veil of mystery. Helen was equally frank. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said,
+      with the air of one looking inwards, &ldquo;there is a mystery. I can&rsquo;t help it.
+      It&rsquo;s not my fault. It&rsquo;s the way life has been made.&rdquo; Helen in those days
+      was over-interested in the subconscious self. She exaggerated the Punch
+      and Judy aspect of life, and spoke of mankind as puppets, whom an
+      invisible showman twitches into love and war. Margaret pointed out that if
+      she dwelt on this she, too, would eliminate the personal. Helen was silent
+      for a minute, and then burst into a queer speech, which cleared the air.
+      &ldquo;Go on and marry him. I think you&rsquo;re splendid; and if any one can pull it
+      off, you will.&rdquo; Margaret denied that there was anything to &ldquo;pull off,&rdquo; but
+      she continued: &ldquo;Yes, there is, and I wasn&rsquo;t up to it with Paul. I can do
+      only what&rsquo;s easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I can&rsquo;t, and won&rsquo;t,
+      attempt difficult relations. If I marry, it will either be a man who&rsquo;s
+      strong enough to boss me or whom I&rsquo;m strong enough to boss. So I shan&rsquo;t
+      ever marry, for there aren&rsquo;t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do
+      marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say &lsquo;Jack
+      Robinson.&rsquo; There! Because I&rsquo;m uneducated. But you, you&rsquo;re different;
+      you&rsquo;re a heroine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean to keep proportion, and that&rsquo;s heroic, it&rsquo;s Greek, and I don&rsquo;t
+      see why it shouldn&rsquo;t succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help
+      him. Don&rsquo;t ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I&rsquo;m going
+      my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I mean to
+      dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no concessions to
+      Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me. I mean to love you
+      more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up something real, because
+      it is purely spiritual. There&rsquo;s no veil of mystery over us. Unreality and
+      mystery begin as soon as one touches the body. The popular view is, as
+      usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers are over tangible things&mdash;money,
+      husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered,
+      &ldquo;Perhaps.&rdquo; All vistas close in the unseen&mdash;no one doubts it&mdash;but
+      Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of
+      speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret
+      grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but
+      she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so
+      readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is
+      everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this
+      side and on that, to hit the truth. &ldquo;Yes, I see, dear; it&rsquo;s about half-way
+      between,&rdquo; Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being
+      alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by
+      continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the
+      final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight,
+      but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry.
+      She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be
+      civil to him in company? &ldquo;I definitely dislike him, but I&rsquo;ll do what I
+      can,&rdquo; promised Helen. &ldquo;Do what you can with my friends in return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that
+      they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible
+      to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when
+      the inner life actually &ldquo;pays,&rdquo; when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for
+      no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still
+      rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future.
+      Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against
+      estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following morning, at eleven o&rsquo;clock, she presented herself at the
+      offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to
+      go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described it, and
+      the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa itself had
+      hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to
+      the office cleared things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of
+      ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no
+      possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets, of
+      little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or wire, of little rabbits. And
+      even when she penetrated to the inner depths, she found only the ordinary
+      table and Turkey carpet, and though the map over the fireplace did depict
+      a helping of West Africa, it was a very ordinary map. Another map hung
+      opposite, on which the whole continent appeared, looking like a whale
+      marked out for a blubber, and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry&rsquo;s
+      voice came through it, dictating a &ldquo;strong&rdquo; letter. She might have been at
+      the Porphyrion, or Dempster&rsquo;s Bank, or her own wine-merchant&rsquo;s. Everything
+      seems just alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial
+      side of the company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always
+      had been one of her difficulties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One minute!&rdquo; called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched a bell,
+      the effect of which was to produce Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles had written his father an adequate letter&mdash;more adequate than
+      Evie&rsquo;s, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he greeted his
+      future stepmother with propriety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that my wife&mdash;how do you do?&mdash;will give you a decent
+      lunch,&rdquo; was his opening. &ldquo;I left instructions, but we live in a
+      rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had
+      a look at Howards End. I wonder what you&rsquo;ll think of the place. I wouldn&rsquo;t
+      touch it with tongs myself. Do sit down! It&rsquo;s a measly little place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall enjoy seeing it,&rdquo; said Margaret, feeling, for the first time,
+      shy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad last Monday without
+      even arranging for a charwoman to clear up after him. I never saw such a
+      disgraceful mess. It&rsquo;s unbelievable. He wasn&rsquo;t in the house a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve more than a little bone to pick with Bryce,&rdquo; called Henry from the
+      inner chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did he go so suddenly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Invalid type; couldn&rsquo;t sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fiddlesticks!&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. &ldquo;He had the impudence
+      to put up notice-boards without as much as saying with your leave or by
+      your leave. Charles flung them down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I flung them down,&rdquo; said Charles modestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one, too. He, and he
+      in person, is responsible for the upkeep of that house for the next three
+      years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The keys are at the farm; we wouldn&rsquo;t have the keys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Mr. Bryce like?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no right to sublet; to
+      have defined him further was a waste of time. On his misdeeds they
+      descanted profusely, until the girl who had been typing the strong letter
+      came out with it. Mr. Wilcox added his signature. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;ll be off,&rdquo; said
+      he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret, awaited her.
+      Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in a moment the offices of the
+      Imperial and West African Rubber Company faded away. But it was not an
+      impressive drive. Perhaps the weather was to blame, being grey and banked
+      high with weary clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely intended for
+      motorists. Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly through Westmoreland
+      that he missed it? and if Westmoreland can be missed, it will fare ill
+      with a county whose delicate structure particularly needs the attentive
+      eye. Hertfordshire is England at its quietest, with little emphasis of
+      river and hill; it is England meditative. If Drayton were with us again to
+      write a new edition of his incomparable poem, he would sing the nymphs of
+      Hertfordshire as indeterminate of feature, with hair obfuscated by the
+      London smoke. Their eyes would be sad, and averted from their fate towards
+      the Northern flats, their leader not Isis or Sabrina, but the slowly
+      flowing Lea. No glory of raiment would be theirs, no urgency of dance; but
+      they would be real nymphs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had hoped, for the Great
+      North Road was full of Easter traffic. But he went quite quick enough for
+      Margaret, a poor-spirited creature, who had chickens and children on the
+      brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re all right,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll learn&mdash;like the
+      swallows and the telegraph-wires.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but, while they&rsquo;re learning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The motor&rsquo;s come to stay,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;One must get about. There&rsquo;s a
+      pretty church&mdash;oh, you aren&rsquo;t sharp enough. Well, look out, if the
+      road worries you&mdash;right outward at the scenery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at the scenery. It heaved and merged like porridge. Presently
+      it congealed. They had arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles&rsquo;s house on the left; on the right the swelling forms of the Six
+      Hills. Their appearance in such a neighbourhood surprised her. They
+      interrupted the stream of residences that was thickening up towards
+      Hilton. Beyond them she saw meadows and a wood, and beneath them she
+      settled that soldiers of the best kind lay buried. She hated war and liked
+      soldiers&mdash;it was one of her amiable inconsistencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here was Dolly, dressed up to the nines, standing at the door to greet
+      them, and here were the first drops of the rain. They ran in gaily, and
+      after a long wait in the drawing-room, sat down to the rough-and-ready
+      lunch, every dish of which concealed or exuded cream. Mr. Bryce was the
+      chief topic of conversation. Dolly described his visit with the key, while
+      her father-in-law gave satisfaction by chaffing her and contradicting all
+      she said. It was evidently the custom to laugh at Dolly. He chaffed
+      Margaret too, and Margaret roused from a grave meditation was pleased and
+      chaffed him back. Dolly seemed surprised and eyed her curiously. After
+      lunch the two children came down. Margaret disliked babies, but hit it off
+      better with the two-year-old, and sent Dolly into fits of laughter by
+      talking sense to him. &ldquo;Kiss them now, and come away,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox. She
+      came, but refused to kiss them; it was such hard luck on the little
+      things, she said, and though Dolly proffered Chorly-worly and
+      Porgly-woggles in turn, she was obdurate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time it was raining steadily. The car came round with the hood up,
+      and again she lost all sense of space. In a few minutes they stopped, and
+      Crane opened the door of the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you suppose?&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little porch was close up against her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we there already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and her impetus
+      carried her to the front-door. She was about to open it, when Henry said:
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s no good; it&rsquo;s locked. Who&rsquo;s got the key?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the farm, no one
+      replied. He also wanted to know who had left the front gate open, since a
+      cow had strayed in from the road, and was spoiling the croquet lawn. Then
+      he said rather crossly: &ldquo;Margaret, you wait in the dry. I&rsquo;ll go down for
+      the key. It isn&rsquo;t a hundred yards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mayn&rsquo;t I come too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I shall be back before I&rsquo;m gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had risen. For the
+      second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described, there the
+      tennis lawn, there the hedge that would be glorious with dog-roses in
+      June, but the vision now was of black and palest green. Down by the
+      dell-hole more vivid colours were awakening, and Lent lilies stood
+      sentinel on its margin, or advanced in battalions over the grass. Tulips
+      were a tray of jewels. She could not see the wych-elm tree, but a branch
+      of the celebrated vine, studded with velvet knobs had covered the perch.
+      She was struck by the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been in a
+      garden where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds she was idly
+      plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why had poor Mr. Bryce
+      fled from all this beauty? For she had already decided that the place was
+      beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty cow! Go away!&rdquo; cried Margaret to the cow, but without
+      indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harder came the rain, pouring out of a windless sky, and spattering up
+      from the notice-boards of the house-agents, which lay in a row on the lawn
+      where Charles had hurled them. She must have interviewed Charles in
+      another world&mdash;where one did have interviews. How Helen would revel
+      in such a notion! Charles dead, all people dead, nothing alive but houses
+      and gardens. The obvious dead, the intangible alive, and no connection at
+      all between them! Margaret smiled. Would that her own fancies were as
+      clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly with the world!
+      Smiling and sighing, she laid her hand upon the door. It opened. The house
+      was not locked up at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. Ought she to wait for Henry? He felt strongly about
+      property, and might prefer to show her over himself. On the other hand, he
+      had told her to keep in the dry, and the porch was beginning to drip. So
+      she went in, and the draught from inside slammed the door behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desolation greeted her. Dirty finger-prints were on the hall-windows, flue
+      and rubbish on its unwashed boards. The civilisation of luggage had been
+      here for a month, and then decamped. Dining-room and drawing-room&mdash;right
+      and left&mdash;were guessed only by their wallpapers. They were just rooms
+      where one could shelter from the rain. Across the ceiling of each ran a
+      great beam. The dining-room and hall revealed theirs openly, but the
+      drawing-room&rsquo;s was match-boarded&mdash;because the facts of life must be
+      concealed from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room, and hall&mdash;how petty
+      the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms where children could play
+      and friends shelter from the rain. Yes, and they were beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she opened one of the doors opposite&mdash;there were two&mdash;and
+      exchanged wall-papers for whitewash. It was the servants&rsquo; part, though she
+      scarcely realised that: just rooms again, where friends might shelter. The
+      garden at the back was full of flowering cherries and plums. Farther on
+      were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines. Yes, the meadow was
+      beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the sense of space which
+      the motor had tried to rob from her. She remembered again that ten square
+      miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile, that a thousand
+      square miles are not practically the same as heaven. The phantom of
+      bigness, which London encourages, was laid for ever when she paced from
+      the hall at Howards End to its kitchen and heard the rain run this way and
+      that where the watershed of the roof divided it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising half Wessex from the ridge of the
+      Purbeck Downs, and saying: &ldquo;You will have to lose something.&rdquo; She was not
+      so sure. For instance she would double her kingdom by opening the door
+      that concealed the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her father; of the
+      two supreme nations, streams of whose life warmed her blood, but,
+      mingling, had cooled her brain. She paced back into the hall, and as she
+      did so the house reverberated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Henry?&rdquo; she called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no answer, but the house reverberated again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, have you got in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at first, then loudly,
+      martially. It dominated the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is afraid.
+      Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of drums seemed to
+      deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was descending, with figure erect, with
+      face impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret stammered: &ldquo;I&mdash;Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In fancy, of course&mdash;in fancy. You had her way of walking.
+      Good-day.&rdquo; And the old woman passed out into the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It gave her quite a turn,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident
+      to Dolly at tea-time. &ldquo;None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of
+      course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery&mdash;she
+      frightened you, didn&rsquo;t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch of
+      weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the stairs
+      with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make
+      the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old
+      maids do.&rdquo; He lit a cigarette. &ldquo;It is their last resource. Heaven knows
+      what she was doing in the place; but that&rsquo;s Bryce&rsquo;s business, not mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t as foolish as you suggest,&rdquo; said Margaret &ldquo;She only startled me,
+      for the house had been silent so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you take her for a spook?&rdquo; asked Dolly, for whom &ldquo;spooks&rdquo;&rsquo; and &ldquo;going
+      to church&rdquo; summarised the unseen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She really did frighten you,&rdquo; said Henry, who was far from discouraging
+      timidity in females. &ldquo;Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated
+      classes are so stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?&rdquo; Margaret asked, and found herself
+      looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly&rsquo;s drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume
+      things. She assumed you&rsquo;d know who she was. She left all the Howards End
+      keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you&rsquo;d seen them as you came in,
+      that you&rsquo;d lock up the house when you&rsquo;d done, and would bring them on down
+      to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of
+      education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss
+      Avery once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have disliked it, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,&rdquo; said Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined
+      to learn a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his
+      grandmother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As usual, you&rsquo;ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant great-grandmother&mdash;the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house.
+      Weren&rsquo;t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a
+      farm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife
+      was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never
+      mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past.
+      Dolly was&mdash;for the following reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then hadn&rsquo;t Mrs. Wilcox a brother&mdash;or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he
+      popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said &lsquo;No.&rsquo; Just imagine, if she&rsquo;d
+      said &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; she would have been Charles&rsquo;s aunt. (Oh, I say, that&rsquo;s rather
+      good! &lsquo;Charlie&rsquo;s Aunt&rsquo;! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the
+      man went out and was killed. Yes, I&rsquo;m certain I&rsquo;ve got it right now. Tom
+      Howard&mdash;he was the last of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe so,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox negligently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say! Howards End&mdash;Howards Ended!&rdquo; cried Dolly.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m rather on the spot this evening, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d ask whether Crane&rsquo;s ended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go&mdash;Dolly&rsquo;s a good
+      little woman,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;but a little of her goes a long way. I
+      couldn&rsquo;t live near her if you paid me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox
+      could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had
+      the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white
+      man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was
+      impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton. His
+      objections to the house were plain as daylight now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car had
+      been trickling muddy water over Charles&rsquo;s. The downpour had surely
+      penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless
+      civilisation. &ldquo;Curious mounds,&rdquo; said Henry, &ldquo;but in with you now; another
+      time.&rdquo; He had to be up in London by seven&mdash;if possible, by
+      six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees,
+      houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness, and
+      she was at Wickham Place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her all the
+      year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars,
+      and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She
+      recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty,
+      and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise England. She
+      failed&mdash;visions do not come when we try, though they may come through
+      trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on
+      this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable.
+      Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was groping
+      after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon. It had
+      certainly come through the house and old Miss Avery. Through them: the
+      notion of &ldquo;through&rdquo; persisted; her mind trembled towards a conclusion
+      which only the unwise have put into words. Then, veering back into warmth,
+      it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys
+      of spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property, and
+      had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He had
+      sketched the history of the little estate. &ldquo;It is so unlucky,&rdquo; ran the
+      monologue, &ldquo;that money wasn&rsquo;t put into it about fifty years ago. Then it
+      had four&mdash;five&mdash;times the land&mdash;thirty acres at least. One
+      could have made something out of it then&mdash;a small park, or at all
+      events shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road.
+      What&rsquo;s the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and
+      even that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things&mdash;yes,
+      and the house too. Oh, it was no joke.&rdquo; She saw two women as he spoke, one
+      old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them
+      greet him as a deliverer. &ldquo;Mismanagement did it&mdash;besides, the days
+      for small farms are over. It doesn&rsquo;t pay&mdash;except with intensive
+      cultivation. Small holdings, back to the land&mdash;ah! philanthropic
+      bunkum. Take it as a rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the
+      land you see (they were standing at an upper window, the only one which
+      faced west) belongs to the people at the Park&mdash;they made their pile
+      over copper&mdash;good chaps. Avery&rsquo;s Farm, Sishe&rsquo;s&mdash;what they call
+      the Common, where you see that ruined oak&mdash;one after the other fell
+      in, and so did this, as near as is no matter.&rdquo; But Henry had saved it as near as is no matter,
+      without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved it, and she loved
+      him for the deed. &ldquo;When I had more control I did what I could&mdash;sold
+      off the two and a half animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated
+      tools; pulled down the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don&rsquo;t know how
+      many guelder-roses and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the old
+      kitchen into a hall, and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was. Garage
+      and so on came later. But one could still tell it&rsquo;s been an old farm. And
+      yet it isn&rsquo;t the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew.&rdquo; No, it
+      wasn&rsquo;t; and if he did not quite understand it, the artistic crew would
+      still less; it was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window
+      was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory. It
+      was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these roles do the
+      English excel. It was a comrade bending over the house, strength and
+      adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers tenderness, and the
+      girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned, became in the end
+      evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float in the air. It was a
+      comrade. House and tree transcended any similes of sex. Margaret thought
+      of them now, and was to think of them through many a windy night and
+      London day, but to compare either to man, to woman, always dwarfed the
+      vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human. Their message was not of
+      eternity, but of hope on this side of the grave. As she stood in the one,
+      gazing at the other, truer relationship had gleamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They entered the
+      garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s surprise she was right. Teeth,
+      pigs&rsquo; teeth, could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree&mdash;just the
+      white tips of them showing. &ldquo;Extraordinary!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Who told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard of it one winter in London,&rdquo; was her answer, for she, too,
+      avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Evie heard of her father&rsquo;s engagement when she was in for a tennis
+      tournament, and her play went simply to pot. That she should marry and
+      leave him had seemed natural enough; that he, left alone, should do the
+      same was deceitful; and now Charles and Dolly said that it was all her
+      fault. &ldquo;But I never dreamt of such a thing,&rdquo; she grumbled. &ldquo;Dad took me to
+      call now and then, and made me ask her to Simpson&rsquo;s. Well, I&rsquo;m altogether
+      off dad.&rdquo; It was also an insult to their mother&rsquo;s memory; there they were
+      agreed, and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s lace and
+      jewellery &ldquo;as a protest.&rdquo; Against what it would protest she was not clear;
+      but being only eighteen, the idea of renunciation appealed to her, the
+      more as she did not care for jewellery or lace. Dolly then suggested that
+      she and Uncle Percy should pretend to break off their engagement, and then
+      perhaps Mr. Wilcox would quarrel with Miss Schlegel, and break off his; or
+      Paul might be cabled for. But at this point Charles told them not to talk
+      nonsense. So Evie settled to marry as soon as possible; it was no good
+      hanging about with these Schlegels eyeing her. The date of her wedding was
+      consequently put forward from September to August, and in the intoxication
+      of presents she recovered much of her good-humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret found that she was expected to figure at this function, and to
+      figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said Henry, for her to
+      get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be there, and all the Cahills
+      and the Fussells, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox, had
+      fortunately got back from her tour round the world. Henry she loved, but
+      his set promised to be another matter. He had not the knack of surrounding
+      himself with nice people&mdash;indeed, for a man of ability and virtue his
+      choice had been singularly unfortunate; he had no guiding principle beyond
+      a certain preference for mediocrity; he was content to settle one of the
+      greatest things in life haphazard, and so, while his investments went
+      right, his friends generally went wrong. She would be told, &ldquo;Oh,
+      So-and-so&rsquo;s a good sort&mdash;a thundering good sort,&rdquo; and find, on
+      meeting him, that he was a brute or a bore. If Henry had shown real
+      affection, she would have understood, for affection explains everything.
+      But he seemed without sentiment. The &ldquo;thundering good sort&rdquo; might at any
+      moment become &ldquo;a fellow for whom I never did have much use, and have less
+      now,&rdquo; and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion. Margaret had done the same
+      as a schoolgirl. Now she never forgot any one for whom she had once cared;
+      she connected, though the connection might be bitter, and she hoped that
+      some day Henry would do the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie was not to be married from Ducie Street. She had a fancy for
+      something rural, and, besides, no one would be in London then, so she left
+      her boxes for a few weeks at Oniton Grange, and her banns were duly
+      published in the parish church, and for a couple of days the little town,
+      dreaming between the ruddy hills, was roused by the clang of our
+      civilisation, and drew up by the roadside to let the motors pass. Oniton
+      had been a discovery of Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s&mdash;a discovery of which he was not
+      altogether proud. It was up towards the Welsh border, and so difficult of
+      access that he had concluded it must be something special. A ruined castle
+      stood in the grounds. But having got there, what was one to do? The
+      shooting was bad, the fishing indifferent, and womenfolk reported the
+      scenery as nothing much. The place turned out to be in the wrong part of
+      Shropshire, and though he never ran down his own property to others, he
+      was only waiting to get it off his hands, and then to let fly. Evie&rsquo;s
+      marriage was its last appearance in public. As soon as a tenant was found,
+      it became a house for which he never had had much use, and had less now,
+      and, like Howards End, faded into Limbo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on Margaret Oniton was destined to make a lasting impression. She
+      regarded it as her future home, and was anxious to start straight with the
+      clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see something of the local life. It was
+      a market-town&mdash;as tiny a one as England possesses&mdash;and had for
+      ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the Celt.
+      In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted
+      her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington, her senses
+      were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one of her
+      innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, or the things that happened
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The London party only numbered eight&mdash;the Fussells, father and son,
+      two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady Edser, Mrs.
+      Warrington Wilcox and her daughter, and, lastly, the little girl, very
+      smart and quiet, who figures at so many weddings, and who kept a watchful
+      eye on Margaret, the bride-elect. Dolly was absent&mdash;a domestic event
+      detained her at Hilton; Paul had cabled a humorous message; Charles was to
+      meet them with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury; Helen had refused her
+      invitation; Tibby had never answered his. The management was excellent, as
+      was to be expected with anything that Henry undertook; one was conscious
+      of his sensible and generous brain in the background. They were his guests
+      as soon as they reached the train; a special label for their luggage; a
+      courier; a special lunch; they had only to look pleasant and, where
+      possible, pretty. Margaret thought with dismay of her own nuptials&mdash;presumably
+      under the management of Tibby. &ldquo;Mr. Theobald Schlegel and Miss Helen
+      Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs. Plynlimmon&rsquo;s company on the occasion
+      of the marriage of their sister Margaret.&rdquo; The formula was incredible, but
+      it must soon be printed and sent, and though Wickham Place need not
+      compete with Oniton, it must feed its guests properly, and provide them
+      with sufficient chairs. Her wedding would either be ramshackly or
+      bourgeois&mdash;she hoped the latter. Such an affair as the present,
+      staged with a deftness that was almost beautiful, lay beyond her powers
+      and those of her friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background
+      for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing could
+      have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows for some
+      ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the servant,
+      they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford, they caught
+      books or bag-purses in the act of tumbling on to the floor. Yet there was
+      nothing finicking about their politeness&mdash;it had the public-school
+      touch, and, though sedulous, was virile. More battles than Waterloo have
+      been won on our playing-fields, and Margaret bowed to a charm of which she
+      did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the Oxford colleges were
+      identified wrongly. &ldquo;Male and female created He them&rdquo;; the journey to
+      Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement, and the long glass
+      saloon, that moved so easily and felt so comfortable, became a
+      forcing-house for the idea of sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Shrewsbury came fresh air. Margaret was all for sight-seeing, and while
+      the others were finishing their tea at the Raven, she annexed a motor and
+      hurried over the astonishing city. Her chauffeur was not the faithful
+      Crane, but an Italian, who dearly loved making her late. Charles, watch in
+      hand, though with a level brow, was standing in front of the hotel when
+      they returned. It was perfectly all right, he told her; she was by no
+      means the last. And then he dived into the coffee-room, and she heard him
+      say, &ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake, hurry the women up; we shall never be off,&rdquo; and
+      Albert Fussell reply, &ldquo;Not I; I&rsquo;ve done my share,&rdquo; and Colonel Fussell
+      opine that the ladies were getting themselves up to kill. Presently Myra
+      (Mrs. Warrington&rsquo;s daughter) appeared, and as she was his cousin, Charles
+      blew her up a little; she had been changing her smart travelling hat for a
+      smart motor hat. Then Mrs. Warrington herself, leading the quiet child;
+      the two Anglo-Indian ladies were always last. Maids, courier, heavy
+      luggage, had already gone on by a branch-line to a station nearer Oniton,
+      but there were five hat-boxes and four dressing-bags to be packed, and
+      five dust-cloaks to be put on, and to be put off at the last moment,
+      because Charles declared them not necessary. The men presided over
+      everything with unfailing good-humour. By half-past five the party was
+      ready, and went out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire. Though robbed of half
+      its magic by swift movement, it still conveyed the sense of hills. They
+      were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn eastward and make it an
+      English stream, and the sun, sinking over the Sentinels of Wales, was
+      straight in their eyes. Having picked up another guest, they turned
+      southward, avoiding the greater mountains, but conscious of an occasional
+      summit, rounded and mild, whose colouring differed in quality from that of
+      the lower earth, and whose contours altered more slowly. Quiet mysteries
+      were in progress behind those tossing horizons: the West, as ever, was
+      retreating with some secret which may not be worth the discovery, but
+      which no practical man will ever discover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spoke of Tariff Reform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies. Like many other critics
+      of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only
+      exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn the
+      Mother Country against trifling with young Titans. &ldquo;They threaten to cut
+      the painter,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and where shall we be then? Miss Schlegel,
+      you&rsquo;ll undertake to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform? It is our last
+      hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side, and they began to
+      quote from their respective handbooks while the motor carried them deep
+      into the hills. Curious these were rather than impressive, for their
+      outlines lacked beauty, and the pink fields on their summits suggested the
+      handkerchiefs of a giant spread out to dry. An occasional outcrop of rock,
+      an occasional wood, an occasional &ldquo;forest,&rdquo; treeless and brown, all hinted
+      at wildness to follow, but the main colour was an agricultural green. The
+      air grew cooler; they had surmounted the last gradient, and Oniton lay
+      below them with its church, its radiating houses, its castle, its
+      river-girt peninsula. Close to the castle was a grey mansion
+      unintellectual but kindly, stretching with its grounds across the
+      peninsula&rsquo;s neck&mdash;the sort of mansion that was built all over England
+      in the beginning of the last century, while architecture was still an
+      expression of the national character. That was the Grange, remarked
+      Albert, over his shoulder, and then he jammed the brake on, and the motor
+      slowed down and stopped. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; said he, turning round. &ldquo;Do you mind
+      getting out&mdash;by the door on the right. Steady on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Warrington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the car behind them drew up, and the voice of Charles was heard
+      saying: &ldquo;Get the women out at once.&rdquo; There was a concourse of males, and
+      Margaret and her companions were hustled out and received into the second
+      car. What had happened? As it started off again, the door of a cottage
+      opened, and a girl screamed wildly at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; the ladies cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking. Then he said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      all right. Your car just touched a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But stop!&rdquo; cried Margaret, horrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t hurt him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t really hurt him?&rdquo; asked Myra.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do PLEASE stop!&rdquo; said Margaret, leaning forward. She was standing up in
+      the car, the other occupants holding her knees to steady her. &ldquo;I want to
+      go back, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles took no notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve left Mr. Fussell behind,&rdquo; said another; &ldquo;and Angelo, and Crane.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but no woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect a little of&rdquo;&mdash;Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm&mdash;&ldquo;will
+      be more to the point than one of us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The insurance company see to that,&rdquo; remarked Charles, &ldquo;and Albert will do
+      the talking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to go back, though, I say!&rdquo; repeated Margaret, getting angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles took no notice. The motor, loaded with refugees, continued to
+      travel very slowly down the hill. &ldquo;The men are there,&rdquo; chorused the
+      others. &ldquo;They will see to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The men CAN&rsquo;T see to it. Oh, this is ridiculous! Charles, I ask you to
+      stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stopping&rsquo;s no good,&rdquo; drawled Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car. She fell on
+      her knees, cut her gloves, shook her hat over her ear. Cries of alarm
+      followed her. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve hurt yourself,&rdquo; exclaimed Charles, jumping after
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;ve hurt myself!&rdquo; she retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I ask what&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to ask,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your hand&rsquo;s bleeding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in for a frightful row from the pater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have thought of that sooner, Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman in revolt
+      who was hobbling away from him&mdash;and the sight was too strange to
+      leave any room for anger. He recovered himself when the others caught them
+      up: their sort he understood. He commanded them to go back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; he called. &ldquo;It was a cat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; exclaimed Charles triumphantly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only a rotten cat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got room in your car for a little un? I cut as soon as I saw it wasn&rsquo;t a
+      dog; the chauffeurs are tackling the girl.&rdquo; But Margaret walked forward
+      steadily. Why should the chauffeurs tackle the girl? Ladies sheltering
+      behind men, men sheltering behind servants&mdash;the whole system&rsquo;s wrong,
+      and she must challenge it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel! &rsquo;Pon my word, you&rsquo;ve hurt your hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going to see,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you wait, Mr. Fussell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The second motor came round the corner. &ldquo;It is all right, madam,&rdquo; said
+      Crane in his turn. He had taken to calling her madam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s all right? The cat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, madam. The girl will receive compensation for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was a very ruda girla,&rdquo; said Angelo from the third motor
+      thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t you have been rude?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Italian spread out his hands, implying that he had not thought of
+      rudeness, but would produce it if it pleased her. The situation became
+      absurd. The gentlemen were again buzzing round Miss Schlegel with offers
+      of assistance, and Lady Edser began to bind up her hand. She yielded,
+      apologising slightly, and was led back to the car, and soon the landscape
+      resumed its motion, the lonely cottage disappeared, the castle swelled on
+      its cushion of turf, and they had arrived. No doubt she had disgraced
+      herself. But she felt their whole journey from London had been unreal.
+      They had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were dust, and a
+      stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had been killed
+      had lived more deeply than they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Henry,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I have been so naughty,&rdquo; for she had decided
+      to take up this line. &ldquo;We ran over a cat. Charles told me not to jump out,
+      but I would, and look!&rdquo; She held out her bandaged hand. &ldquo;Your poor Meg
+      went such a flop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered. In evening dress, he was standing to welcome
+      his guests in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thinking it was a dog,&rdquo; added Mrs. Warrington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, a dog&rsquo;s a companion!&rdquo; said Colonel Fussell. &ldquo;
+      A dog&rsquo;ll remember you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you hurt yourself, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to speak about; and it&rsquo;s my left hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, hurry up and change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She obeyed, as did the others. Mr. Wilcox then turned to his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Charles, what&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles was absolutely honest. He described what he believed to have
+      happened. Albert had flattened out a cat, and Miss Schlegel had lost her
+      nerve, as any woman might. She had been got safely into the other car, but
+      when it was in motion had leapt out again, in spite of all that they could
+      say. After walking a little on the road, she had calmed down and had said
+      that she was sorry. His father accepted this explanation, and neither knew
+      that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it. It fitted in too well
+      with their view of feminine nature. In the smoking-room, after dinner, the
+      Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel had jumped it out of
+      devilry. Well he remembered as a young man, in the harbour of Gibraltar
+      once, how a girl&mdash;a handsome girl, too&mdash;had jumped overboard for
+      a bet. He could see her now, and all the lads overboard after her. But
+      Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much more probably nerves in Miss
+      Schlegel&rsquo;s case. Charles was depressed. That woman had a tongue. She would
+      bring worse disgrace on his father before she had done with them. He
+      strolled out on to the castle mound to think the matter over. The evening
+      was exquisite. On three sides of him a little river whispered, full of
+      messages from the West; above his head the ruins made patterns against the
+      sky. He carefully reviewed their dealings with this family, until he
+      fitted Helen, and Margaret, and Aunt Juley into an orderly conspiracy.
+      Paternity had made him suspicious. He had two children to look after, and
+      more coming, and day by day they seemed less likely to grow up rich men.
+      &ldquo;It is all very well,&rdquo; he reflected, &ldquo;the pater&rsquo;s saying that he will be
+      just to all, but one can&rsquo;t be just indefinitely. Money isn&rsquo;t elastic.
+      What&rsquo;s to happen if Evie has a family? And, come to that, so may the
+      pater. There&rsquo;ll not be enough to go round, for there&rsquo;s none coming in,
+      either through Dolly or Percy. It&rsquo;s damnable!&rdquo; He looked enviously at the
+      Grange, whose windows poured light and laughter. First and last, this
+      wedding would cost a pretty penny. Two ladies were strolling up and down
+      the garden terrace, and as the syllables &ldquo;Imperialism&rdquo; were wafted to his
+      ears, he guessed that one of them was his aunt. She might have helped him,
+      if she too had not had a family to provide for. &ldquo;Every one for himself,&rdquo;
+       he repeated&mdash;a maxim which had cheered him in the past, but which
+      rang grimly enough among the ruins of Oniton. He lacked his father&rsquo;s
+      ability in business, and so had an ever higher regard for money; unless he
+      could inherit plenty, he feared to leave his children poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into the
+      meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that gleamed on
+      her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the gleam should betray him. She
+      climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as if she was
+      stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for a moment
+      Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out to tempt
+      him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong man&rsquo;s
+      necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not purge
+      himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to his
+      father, and his sister&rsquo;s wedding-guest, kept on her way without noticing
+      him, and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point. But what was
+      she doing? Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and catching her
+      dress in brambles and burrs? As she edged round the keep, she must have
+      got to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she exclaimed, &ldquo;Hullo!
+      Who&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saxon or Celt?&rdquo; she continued, laughing in the darkness. &ldquo;But it doesn&rsquo;t
+      matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me. I love this
+      place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad that this will be my
+      home. Ah, dear&rdquo;&mdash;she was now moving back towards the house&mdash;&ldquo;what
+      a comfort to have arrived!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That woman means mischief,&rdquo; thought Charles, and compressed his lips. In
+      a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was getting damp.
+      Mists were rising from the river, and presently it became invisible,
+      though it whispered more loudly. There had been a heavy downpour in the
+      Welsh hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather promised well,
+      and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that Margaret
+      watched it. Presently she saw the keep, and the sun painted the rubble
+      gold, and charged the white sky with blue. The shadow of the house
+      gathered itself together, and fell over the garden. A cat looked up at her
+      window and mewed. Lastly the river appeared, still holding the mists
+      between its banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as far as a
+      hill, which cut off its upper reaches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved it, but it
+      was rather its romantic tension that held her. The rounded Druids of whom
+      she had caught glimpses in her drive, the rivers hurrying down from them
+      to England, the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills, thrilled
+      her with poetry. The house was insignificant, but the prospect from it
+      would be an eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she would have
+      to stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a rural life.
+      Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish had dined with
+      them last night, and she found that he was a friend of her father&rsquo;s, and
+      so knew what to find in her. She liked him. He would introduce her to the
+      town. While, on her other side, Sir James Bidder sat, repeating that she
+      only had to give the word, and he would whip up the county families for
+      twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was Garden Seeds, had promised
+      what he could perform, she doubted, but so long as Henry mistook them for
+      the county families when they did call, she was content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were going
+      for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their bathing-suits.
+      She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that the
+      day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their
+      contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be
+      found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while
+      the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the
+      garden. Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three people
+      were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders and
+      counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret wanted to
+      jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought paddling would benefit
+      his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired adventure, he took a walk in
+      the dark. But these athletes seemed paralysed. They could not bathe
+      without their appliances, though the morning sun was calling and the last
+      mists were rising from the dimpling stream. Had they found the life of the
+      body after all? Could not the men whom they despised as milksops beat
+      them, even on their own ground?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day&mdash;no
+      worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense. Her reflections
+      were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come out to speak to the cat,
+      but was now watching her watch the men. She called, &ldquo;Good-morning, dear,&rdquo;
+       a little sharply. Her voice spread consternation. Charles looked round,
+      and though completely attired in indigo blue, vanished into the shed, and
+      was seen no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Wilcox is up&mdash;&rdquo; the child whispered, and then became
+      unintelligible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; it sounded like, &ldquo;&mdash;cut-yoke&mdash;sack-back&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;On the bed&mdash;tissue-paper&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit would be
+      seemly, she went to Evie&rsquo;s room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a
+      petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the
+      other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed, they
+      sang, and the dog barked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could not feel
+      that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was missing in her
+      equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie gasped: &ldquo;Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag just
+      then!&rdquo; Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and was, in
+      Margaret&rsquo;s eyes, the only member of their party who dodged emotion
+      successfully. She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss of
+      his daughter or to the presence of his future wife. Yet he dwelt intact,
+      only issuing orders occasionally&mdash;orders that promoted the comfort of
+      his guests. He inquired after her hand; he set her to pour out the coffee
+      and Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came down there was a
+      moment&rsquo;s awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate their places.
+      &ldquo;Burton,&rdquo; called Henry, &ldquo;serve tea and coffee from the sideboard!&rdquo; It
+      wasn&rsquo;t genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort&mdash;the sort that is as
+      useful as the genuine, and saves even more situations at Board meetings.
+      Henry treated a marriage like a funeral, item by item, never raising his
+      eyes to the whole, and &ldquo;Death, where is thy sting? Love, where is thy
+      victory?&rdquo; one would exclaim at the close.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was always best
+      to approach him formally. She asked for the interview, because he was
+      going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and she was returning to Helen in
+      town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, dear,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Of course, I have the time. What do you
+      want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was afraid something had gone wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate. She
+      heard him with interest. Her surface could always respond to his without
+      contempt, though all her deeper being might be yearning to help him. She
+      had abandoned any plan of action. Love is the best, and the more she let
+      herself love him, the more chance was there that he would set his soul in
+      order. Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair weather by the
+      walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that its sweetness would
+      surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each parting of the thatched
+      lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude the tenderness that kills the Monk
+      and the Beast at a single blow. Disappointed a hundred times, she still
+      hoped. She loved him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness.
+      Whether he droned trivialities, as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the
+      twilight, she could pardon him, she could respond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there is this nasty curve,&rdquo; she suggested, &ldquo;couldn&rsquo;t we walk to the
+      church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us might very well
+      go on first, and that would mean fewer carriages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can&rsquo;t have ladies walking through the Market Square. The Fussells
+      wouldn&rsquo;t like it; they were awfully particular at Charles&rsquo;s wedding. My&mdash;she&mdash;our
+      party was anxious to walk, and certainly the church was just round the
+      corner, and I shouldn&rsquo;t have minded; but the Colonel made a great point of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You men shouldn&rsquo;t be so chivalrous,&rdquo; said Margaret thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then announced that,
+      unless she had anything special to say, he must visit the wine-cellar, and
+      they went off together in search of Burton. Though clumsy and a little
+      inconvenient, Oniton was a genuine country-house. They clattered down
+      flagged passages, looking into room after room, and scaring unknown maids
+      from the performance of obscure duties. The wedding-breakfast must be in
+      readiness when they come back from church, and tea would be served in the
+      garden. The sight of so many agitated and serious people made Margaret
+      smile, but she reflected that they were paid to be serious, and enjoyed
+      being agitated. Here were the lower wheels of the machine that was tossing
+      Evie up into nuptial glory. A little boy blocked their way with pig-pails.
+      His mind could not grasp their greatness, and he said: &ldquo;By your leave; let
+      me pass, please.&rdquo; Henry asked him where Burton was. But the servants were
+      so new that they did not know one another&rsquo;s names. In the still-room sat
+      the band, who had stipulated for champagne as part of their fee, and who
+      were already drinking beer. Scents of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled
+      with cries. Margaret knew what had happened there, for it happened at
+      Wickham Place. One of the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was
+      throwing cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon the
+      butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the
+      cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her wine at the
+      bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the sight. &ldquo;We shall never
+      get through it!&rdquo; she cried, and the two men were suddenly drawn into
+      brotherhood, and exchanged smiles. She felt as if she had again jumped out
+      of the car while it was moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small business
+      to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an establishment. She must
+      remain herself, for his sake as well as her own, since a shadowy wife
+      degrades the husband whom she accompanies; and she must assimilate for
+      reasons of common honesty, since she had no right to marry a man and make
+      him uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of Home. The loss of
+      Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession. Howards End had
+      repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new sanctities among
+      these hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the wedding,
+      which seemed a small affair when compared with the preparations for it.
+      Everything went like one o&rsquo;clock. Mr. Cahill materialised out of space,
+      and was waiting for his bride at the church door. No one dropped the ring
+      or mispronounced the responses, or trod on Evie&rsquo;s train, or cried. In a
+      few minutes the clergymen performed their duty, the register was signed,
+      and they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous curve by
+      the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not been married at
+      all, and that the Norman church had been intent all the time on other
+      business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were more documents to sign at the house, and the breakfast to eat,
+      and then a few more people dropped in for the garden party. There had been
+      a great many refusals, and after all it was not a very big affair&mdash;not
+      as big as Margaret&rsquo;s would be. She noted the dishes and the strips of red
+      carpet, that outwardly she might give Henry what was proper. But inwardly
+      she hoped for something better than this blend of Sunday church and
+      fox-hunting. If only some one had been upset! But this wedding had gone
+      off so particularly well&mdash;&ldquo;quite like a durbar&rdquo; in the opinion of
+      Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the wasted day lumbered forward, the bride and bridegroom drove off,
+      yelling with laughter, and for the second time the sun retreated towards
+      the hills of Wales. Henry, who was more tired than he owned, came up to
+      her in the castle meadow, and, in tones of unusual softness, said that he
+      was pleased. Everything had gone off so well. She felt that he was
+      praising her, too, and blushed; certainly she had done all she could with
+      his intractable friends, and had made a special point of kotowing to the
+      men. They were breaking camp this evening; only the Warringtons and quiet
+      child would stay the night, and the others were already moving towards the
+      house to finish their packing. &ldquo;I think it did go off well,&rdquo; she agreed.
+      &ldquo;Since I had to jump out of the motor, I&rsquo;m thankful I lighted on my left
+      hand. I am so very glad about it, Henry dear; I only hope that the guests
+      at ours may be half as comfortable. You must all remember that we have no
+      practical person among us, except my aunt, and she is not used to
+      entertainments on a large scale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; he said gravely. &ldquo;Under the circumstances, it would be better to
+      put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley&rsquo;s, or even to go to
+      some hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You desire a hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, because&mdash;well, I mustn&rsquo;t interfere with you. No doubt you want
+      to be married from your old home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My old home&rsquo;s falling into pieces, Henry. I only want my new. Isn&rsquo;t it a
+      perfect evening&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Alexandrina isn&rsquo;t bad&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Alexandrina,&rdquo; she echoed, more occupied with the threads of smoke
+      that were issuing from their chimneys, and ruling the sunlit slopes with
+      parallels of grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s off Curzon Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it? Let&rsquo;s be married from off Curzon Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just where the
+      river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland must lie above the
+      bend, and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles&rsquo;s
+      bathing-shed. She gazed so long that her eyes were dazzled, and when they
+      moved back to the house, she could not recognise the faces of people who
+      were coming out of it. A parlour-maid was preceding them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are those people?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re callers!&rdquo; exclaimed Henry. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too late for callers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps they&rsquo;re town people who want to see the wedding presents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not at home yet to townees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, hide among the ruins, and if I can stop them, I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret went forward, smiling socially. She supposed that these were
+      unpunctual guests, who would have to be content with vicarious civility,
+      since Evie and Charles were gone, Henry tired, and the others in their
+      rooms. She assumed the airs of a hostess; not for long. For one of the
+      group was Helen&mdash;Helen in her oldest clothes, and dominated by that
+      tense, wounding excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery
+      days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she called. &ldquo;Oh, what&rsquo;s wrong? Is Tibby ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen spoke to her two companions, who fell back. Then she bore forward
+      furiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re starving!&rdquo; she shouted. &ldquo;I found them starving!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? Why have you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Basts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Helen!&rdquo; moaned Margaret. &ldquo;Whatever have you done now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has lost his place. He has been turned out of his bank. Yes, he&rsquo;s done
+      for. We upper classes have ruined him, and I suppose you&rsquo;ll tell me it&rsquo;s
+      the battle of life. Starving. His wife is ill. Starving. She fainted in
+      the train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, are you mad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps. Yes. If you like, I&rsquo;m mad. But I&rsquo;ve brought them. I&rsquo;ll stand
+      injustice no longer. I&rsquo;ll show up the wretchedness that lies under this
+      luxury, this talk of impersonal forces, this cant about God doing what
+      we&rsquo;re too slack to do ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you actually brought two starving people from London to Shropshire,
+      Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was checked. She had not thought of this, and her hysteria abated.
+      &ldquo;There was a restaurant car on the train,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be absurd. They aren&rsquo;t starving, and you know it. Now, begin from
+      the beginning. I won&rsquo;t have such theatrical nonsense. How dare you! Yes,
+      how dare you!&rdquo; she repeated, as anger filled her, &ldquo;bursting in to Evie&rsquo;s
+      wedding in this heartless way. My goodness! but you&rsquo;ve a perverted notion
+      of philanthropy. Look&rdquo;&mdash;she indicated the house&mdash;&ldquo;servants,
+      people out of the windows. They think it&rsquo;s some vulgar scandal, and I must
+      explain, &lsquo;Oh no, it&rsquo;s only my sister screaming, and only two hangers-on of
+      ours, whom she has brought here for no conceivable reason.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kindly take back that word &lsquo;hangers-on,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Helen, ominously calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; conceded Margaret, who for all her wrath was determined to
+      avoid a real quarrel. &ldquo;I, too, am sorry about them, but it beats me why
+      you&rsquo;ve brought them here, or why you&rsquo;re here yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret moved towards the house at this. She was determined not to worry
+      Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it was our last chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you do, Mr. Bast?&rdquo; said Margaret, trying to control her voice.
+      &ldquo;This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is Mrs. Bast, too,&rdquo; prompted Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and, furthermore,
+      ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she could not grasp what
+      was happening. She only knew that the lady had swept down like a whirlwind
+      last night, had paid the rent, redeemed the furniture, provided them with
+      a dinner and a breakfast, and ordered them to meet her at Paddington next
+      morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when the morning came, had
+      suggested that they shouldn&rsquo;t go. But she, half mesmerised, had obeyed.
+      The lady had told them to, and they must, and their bed-sitting-room had
+      accordingly changed into Paddington, and Paddington into a railway
+      carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and grew cold, and vanished entirely,
+      and reappeared amid torrents of expensive scent. &ldquo;You have fainted,&rdquo; said
+      the lady in an awe-struck voice. &ldquo;Perhaps the air will do you good.&rdquo; And
+      perhaps it had, for here she was, feeling rather better among a lot of
+      flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t want to intrude,&rdquo; began Leonard, in answer to Margaret&rsquo;s
+      question. &ldquo;But you have been so kind to me in the past in warning me about
+      the Porphyrion that I wondered&mdash;why, I wondered whether&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,&rdquo; supplied Helen.
+      &ldquo;Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A bright evening&rsquo;s work that was
+      on Chelsea Embankment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was a
+      bad concern, didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And went into a bank instead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you all that,&rdquo; said Helen; &ldquo;and they reduced their staff after he
+      had been in a month, and now he&rsquo;s penniless, and I consider that we and
+      our informant are directly to blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate all this,&rdquo; Leonard muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you do, Mr. Bast. But it&rsquo;s no good mincing matters. You have done
+      yourself no good by coming here. If you intend to confront Mr. Wilcox, and
+      to call him to account for a chance remark, you will make a very great
+      mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I brought them. I did it all,&rdquo; cried Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can only advise you to go at once. My sister has put you in a false
+      position, and it is kindest to tell you so. It&rsquo;s too late to get to town,
+      but you&rsquo;ll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton, where Mrs. Bast can rest,
+      and I hope you&rsquo;ll be my guests there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That isn&rsquo;t what I want, Miss Schlegel,&rdquo; said Leonard. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very kind,
+      and no doubt it&rsquo;s a false position, but you make me miserable. I seem no
+      good at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s work he wants,&rdquo; interpreted Helen. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he said: &ldquo;Jacky, let&rsquo;s go. We&rsquo;re more bother than we&rsquo;re worth. We&rsquo;re
+      costing these ladies pounds and pounds already to get work for us, and
+      they never will. There&rsquo;s nothing we&rsquo;re good enough to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We would like to find you work,&rdquo; said Margaret rather conventionally. &ldquo;We
+      want to&mdash;I, like my sister. You&rsquo;re only down in your luck. Go to the
+      hotel, have a good night&rsquo;s rest, and some day you shall pay me back the
+      bill, if you prefer it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Leonard was near the abyss, and at such moments men see clearly. &ldquo;You
+      don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking about,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I shall never get work
+      now. If rich people fail at one profession, they can try another. Not I. I
+      had my groove, and I&rsquo;ve got out of it. I could do one particular branch of
+      insurance in one particular office well enough to command a salary, but
+      that&rsquo;s all. Poetry&rsquo;s nothing, Miss Schlegel. One&rsquo;s thoughts about this and
+      that are nothing. Your money, too, is nothing, if you&rsquo;ll understand me. I
+      mean if a man over twenty once loses his own particular job, it&rsquo;s all over
+      with him. I have seen it happen to others. Their friends gave them money
+      for a little, but in the end they fall over the edge. It&rsquo;s no good. It&rsquo;s
+      the whole world pulling. There always will be rich and poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ceased. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you have something to eat?&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+      what to do. It isn&rsquo;t my house, and though Mr. Wilcox would have been glad
+      to see you at any other time&mdash;as I say, I don&rsquo;t know what to do, but
+      I undertake to do what I can for you. Helen, offer them something. Do try
+      a sandwich, Mrs. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They moved to a long table behind which a servant was still standing. Iced
+      cakes, sandwiches innumerable, coffee, claret-cup, champagne, remained
+      almost intact; their overfed guests could do no more. Leonard refused.
+      Jacky thought she could manage a little. Margaret left them whispering
+      together, and had a few more words with Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said: &ldquo;Helen, I like Mr. Bast. I agree that he&rsquo;s worth helping. I
+      agree that we are directly responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indirectly. Via Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tell you once for all that if you take up that attitude, I&rsquo;ll do
+      nothing. No doubt you&rsquo;re right logically, and are entitled to say a great
+      many scathing things about Henry. Only, I won&rsquo;t have it. So choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen looked at the sunset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you promise to take them quietly to the George I will speak to Henry
+      about them&mdash;in my own way, mind; there is to be none of this absurd
+      screaming about justice. I have no use for justice. If it was only a
+      question of money, we could do it ourselves. But he wants work, and that
+      we can&rsquo;t give him, but possibly Henry can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s his duty to,&rdquo; grumbled Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor am I concerned with duty. I&rsquo;m concerned with the characters of
+      various people whom we know, and how, things being as they are, things may
+      be made a little better. Mr. Wilcox hates being asked favours; all
+      business men do. But I am going to ask him, at the risk of a rebuff,
+      because I want to make things a little better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I promise. You take it very calmly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them off to the George, then, and I&rsquo;ll try. Poor creatures! but they
+      look tired.&rdquo; As they parted, she added: &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t nearly done with you,
+      though, Helen. You have been most self-indulgent. I can&rsquo;t get over it. You
+      have less restraint rather than more as you grow older. Think it over and
+      alter yourself, or we shan&rsquo;t have happy lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rejoined Henry. Fortunately he had been sitting down: these physical
+      matters were important. &ldquo;Was it townees?&rdquo; he asked, greeting her with a
+      pleasant smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll never believe me,&rdquo; said Margaret, sitting down beside him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      all right now, but it was my sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen here?&rdquo; he cried, preparing to rise. &ldquo;But she refused the
+      invitation. I thought hated weddings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t get up. She has not come to the wedding. I&rsquo;ve bundled her off to
+      the George.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inherently hospitable, he protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; she has two of her proteges with her and must keep with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let &rsquo;em all come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Henry, did you see them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The brown bunch was Helen, but did you catch sight of a sea-green and
+      salmon bunch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! are they out bean-feasting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; business. They wanted to see me, and later on I want to talk to you
+      about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how
+      tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of
+      woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: &ldquo;Why later
+      on? Tell me now. No time like the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t a long story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not five minutes; but there&rsquo;s a sting at the end of it, for I want
+      you to find the man some work in your office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are his qualifications?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. He&rsquo;s a clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How old?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-five, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bast,&rdquo; said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had met at
+      Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a successful meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was he before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dempster&rsquo;s Bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did he leave?&rdquo; he asked, still remembering nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They reduced their staff.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; I&rsquo;ll see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now she
+      understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon,
+      when condemning suffragettes, had said: &ldquo;The woman who can&rsquo;t influence her
+      husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.&rdquo;
+       Margaret had winced, but she was influencing Henry now, and though pleased
+      at her little victory, she knew that she had won it by the methods of the
+      harem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be glad if you took him,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t know whether
+      he&rsquo;s qualified.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn&rsquo;t be taken as a precedent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course&mdash;of course&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can promise you he&rsquo;s the last. He&mdash;he&rsquo;s rather a special case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Proteges always are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of
+      complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the gulf
+      between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And she
+      herself&mdash;hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as they
+      are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth&mdash;their
+      warfare seems eternal. Perhaps the whole visible world rests on it, and if
+      they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled
+      to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your protege has made us late,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;The Fussells&mdash;will just be
+      starting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the Basts as
+      he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends were discussing the
+      ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash method, but the world has been
+      built slap-dash, and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset may be
+      but the varnish with which the unskilled artificer hides his joins.
+      Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were stunted, its
+      castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare between the
+      Anglo-Saxon and the Celt, between things as they are and as they ought to
+      be. Once more the west was retreating, once again the orderly stars were
+      dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no rest for us on the earth.
+      But there is happiness, and as Margaret descended the mound on her lover&rsquo;s
+      arm, she felt that she was having her share.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her annoyance, Mrs. Bast was still in the garden; the husband and Helen
+      had left her there to finish her meal while they went to engage rooms.
+      Margaret found this woman repellent. She had felt, when shaking her hand,
+      an overpowering shame. She remembered the motive of her call at Wickham
+      Place, and smelt again odours from the abyss&mdash;odours the more
+      disturbing because they were involuntary. For there was no malice in
+      Jacky. There she sat, a piece of cake in one hand, an empty champagne
+      glass in the other, doing no harm to anybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s overtired,&rdquo; Margaret whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s something else,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;This won&rsquo;t do. I can&rsquo;t have her in my
+      garden in this state.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she&mdash;&rdquo; Margaret hesitated to add &ldquo;drunk.&rdquo; Now that she was going
+      to marry him, he had grown particular. He discountenanced risque
+      conversations now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry went up to the woman. She raised her face, which gleamed in the
+      twilight like a puff-ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you will be more comfortable at the hotel,&rdquo; he said sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky replied: &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t Hen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble,&rdquo; apologised Margaret. &ldquo;Il est
+      tout à fait différent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry!&rdquo; she repeated, quite distinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed. &ldquo;I congratulate you on your proteges,&rdquo; he
+      remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hen, don&rsquo;t go. You do love me, dear, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless us, what a person!&rdquo; sighed Margaret, gathering up her skirts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky pointed with her cake. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a nice boy, you are.&rdquo; She yawned.
+      &ldquo;There now, I love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, I am awfully sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And pray why?&rdquo; he asked, and looked at her so sternly that she feared he
+      was ill. He seemed more scandalised than the facts demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To have brought this down on you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray don&rsquo;t apologise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does she call you &lsquo;Hen&rsquo;?&rdquo; said Margaret innocently. &ldquo;Has she ever
+      seen you before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seen Hen before!&rdquo; said Jacky. &ldquo;Who hasn&rsquo;t seen Hen? He&rsquo;s serving you like
+      me, my boys! You wait&mdash;Still we love &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you now satisfied?&rdquo; Henry asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret began to grow frightened. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what it is all about,&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw his whole
+      life crumbling. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you indeed?&rdquo; he said bitingly. &ldquo;I do. Allow me to
+      congratulate you on the success of your plan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Helen&rsquo;s plan, not mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought out. I am
+      amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right&mdash;it was
+      necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man&rsquo;s past. I have the honour to
+      release you from your engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still she could not understand. She knew of life&rsquo;s seamy side as a theory;
+      she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were necessary&mdash;words
+      unequivocal, undenied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that&mdash;&rdquo; burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped herself
+      from saying more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So what?&rdquo; asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start in the
+      hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were saying&mdash;Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument,
+      my point being&mdash;&rdquo; Seizing his fur coat from a footman, she offered to
+      help him on. He protested, and there was a playful little scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, let me do that,&rdquo; said Henry, following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks so much! You see&mdash;he has forgiven me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel said gallantly: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t expect there&rsquo;s much to forgive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got into the car. The ladies followed him after an interval. Maids,
+      courier, and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by the branch-line.
+      Still chattering, still thanking their host and patronising their future
+      hostess, the guests were borne away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret continued: &ldquo;So that woman has been your mistress?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You put it with your usual delicacy,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left him without a word. For it was not her tragedy; it was Mrs.
+      Wilcox&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Helen began to wonder why she had spent a matter of eight pounds in making
+      some people ill and others angry. Now that the wave of excitement was
+      ebbing, and had left her, Mr. Bast, and Mrs. Bast stranded for the night
+      in a Shropshire hotel, she asked herself what forces had made the wave
+      flow. At all events, no harm was done. Margaret would play the game
+      properly now, and though Helen disapproved of her sister&rsquo;s methods, she
+      knew that the Basts would benefit by them in the long-run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox is so illogical,&rdquo; she explained to Leonard, who had put his
+      wife to bed, and was sitting with her in the empty coffee-room. &ldquo;If we
+      told him it was his duty to take you on, he might refuse to do it. The
+      fact is, he isn&rsquo;t properly educated. I don&rsquo;t want to set you against him,
+      but you&rsquo;ll find him a trial.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can never thank you sufficiently, Miss Schlegel,&rdquo; was all that Leonard
+      felt equal to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe in personal responsibility. Don&rsquo;t you? And in personal
+      everything. I hate&mdash;I suppose I oughtn&rsquo;t to say that&mdash;but the
+      Wilcoxes are on the wrong tack surely. Or perhaps it isn&rsquo;t their fault.
+      Perhaps the little thing that says &lsquo;I&rsquo; is missing out of the middle of
+      their heads, and then it&rsquo;s a waste of time to blame them. There&rsquo;s a
+      nightmare of a theory that says a special race is being born which will
+      rule the rest of us in the future just because it lacks the little thing
+      that says &lsquo;I.&rsquo; Had you heard that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I get no time for reading.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had you thought it, then? That there are two kinds of people&mdash;our
+      kind, who live straight from the middle of their heads, and the other kind
+      who can&rsquo;t, because their heads have no middle? They can&rsquo;t say &lsquo;I.&rsquo; They
+      AREN&rsquo;T in fact, and so they&rsquo;re supermen. Pierpont Morgan has never said
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo; in his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard roused himself. If his benefactress wanted intellectual
+      conversation, she must have it. She was more important than his ruined
+      past. &ldquo;I never got on to Nietzsche,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I always understood
+      that those supermen were rather what you may call egoists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, that&rsquo;s wrong,&rdquo; replied Helen. &ldquo;No superman ever said &lsquo;I want,&rsquo;
+      because &lsquo;I want&rsquo; must lead to the question, &lsquo;Who am I?&rsquo; and so to Pity and
+      to Justice. He only says &lsquo;want.&rsquo; &lsquo;Want Europe,&rsquo; if he&rsquo;s Napoleon; &lsquo;want
+      wives,&rsquo; if he&rsquo;s Bluebeard; &lsquo;want Botticelli,&rsquo; if he&rsquo;s Pierpont Morgan.
+      Never the &lsquo;I&rsquo;; and if you could pierce through the superman, you&rsquo;d find
+      panic and emptiness in the middle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard was silent for a moment. Then he said: &ldquo;May I take it, Miss
+      Schlegel, that you and I are both the sort that say &lsquo;I&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your sister, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; repeated Helen, a little sharply. She was annoyed with
+      Margaret, but did not want her discussed. &ldquo;All presentable people say
+      &lsquo;I.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Wilcox&mdash;he is not perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that it&rsquo;s any good discussing Mr. Wilcox either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so, quite so,&rdquo; he agreed. Helen asked herself why she had snubbed
+      him. Once or twice during the day she had encouraged him to criticise, and
+      then had pulled him up short. Was she afraid of him presuming? If so, it
+      was disgusting of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was thinking the snub quite natural. Everything she did was
+      natural, and incapable of causing offence. While the Miss Schlegels were
+      together he had felt them scarcely human&mdash;a sort of admonitory
+      whirligig. But a Miss Schlegel alone was different. She was in Helen&rsquo;s
+      case unmarried, in Margaret&rsquo;s about to be married, in neither case an echo
+      of her sister. A light had fallen at last into this rich upper world, and
+      he saw that it was full of men and women, some of whom were more friendly
+      to him than others. Helen had become &ldquo;his&rdquo; Miss Schlegel, who scolded him
+      and corresponded with him, and had swept down yesterday with grateful
+      vehemence. Margaret, though not unkind, was severe and remote. He would
+      not presume to help her, for instance. He had never liked her, and began
+      to think that his original impression was true, and that her sister did
+      not like her either. Helen was certainly lonely. She, who gave away so
+      much, was receiving too little. Leonard was pleased to think that he could
+      spare her vexation by holding his tongue and concealing what he knew about
+      Mr. Wilcox. Jacky had announced her discovery when he fetched her from the
+      lawn. After the first shock, he did not mind for himself. By now he had no
+      illusions about his wife, and this was only one new stain on the face of a
+      love that had never been pure. To keep perfection perfect, that should be
+      his ideal, if the future gave him time to have ideals. Helen, and Margaret
+      for Helen&rsquo;s sake, must not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen disconcerted him by turning the conversation to his wife. &ldquo;Mrs. Bast&mdash;does
+      she ever say &lsquo;I&rsquo;?&rdquo; she asked, half mischievously, and then, &ldquo;Is she very
+      tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s better she stops in her room,&rdquo; said Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I sit up with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you; she does not need company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Bast, what kind of woman is your wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard blushed up to his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to know my ways by now. Does that question offend you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, oh no, Miss Schlegel, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I love honesty. Don&rsquo;t pretend your marriage has been a happy one.
+      You and she can have nothing in common.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not deny it, but said shyly: &ldquo;I suppose that&rsquo;s pretty obvious; but
+      Jacky never meant to do anybody any harm. When things went wrong, or I
+      heard things, I used to think it was her fault, but, looking back, it&rsquo;s
+      more mine. I needn&rsquo;t have married her, but as I have I must stick to her
+      and keep her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long have you been married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nearly three years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did your people say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will not have anything to do with us. They had a sort of family
+      council when they heard I was married, and cut us off altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen began to pace up and down the room. &ldquo;My good boy, what a mess!&rdquo; she
+      said gently. &ldquo;Who are your people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could answer this. His parents, who were dead, had been in trade; his
+      sisters had married commercial travellers; his brother was a lay-reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your grandparents?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard told her a secret that he had held shameful up to now. &ldquo;They were
+      just nothing at all,&rdquo; he said &ldquo;agricultural labourers and that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So! From which part?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lincolnshire mostly, but my mother&rsquo;s father&mdash;he, oddly enough, came
+      from these parts round here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From this very Shropshire. Yes, that is odd. My mother&rsquo;s people were
+      Lancashire. But why do your brother and your sisters object to Mrs. Bast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, you do know. I am not a baby. I can bear anything you tell me,
+      and the more you tell the more I shall be able to help. Have they heard
+      anything against her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I have guessed now,&rdquo; said Helen very gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so, Miss Schlegel; I hope not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must be honest, even over these things. I have guessed. I am
+      frightfully, dreadfully sorry, but it does not make the least difference
+      to me. I shall feel just the same to both of you. I blame, not your wife
+      for these things, but men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard left it at that&mdash;so long as she did not guess the man. She
+      stood at the window and slowly pulled up the blinds. The hotel looked over
+      a dark square. The mists had begun. When she turned back to him her eyes
+      were shining. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you worry,&rdquo; he pleaded. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t bear that. We shall
+      be all right if I get work. If I could only get work&mdash;something
+      regular to do. Then it wouldn&rsquo;t be so bad again. I don&rsquo;t trouble after
+      books as I used. I can imagine that with regular work we should settle
+      down again. It stops one thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Settle down to what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just settle down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s to be life!&rdquo; said Helen, with a catch in her throat. &ldquo;How can
+      you, with all the beautiful things to see and do&mdash;with music&mdash;with
+      walking at night&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walking is well enough when a man&rsquo;s in work,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Oh, I did
+      talk a lot of nonsense once, but there&rsquo;s nothing like a bailiff in the
+      house to drive it out of you. When I saw him fingering my Ruskins and
+      Stevensons, I seemed to see life straight and real, and it isn&rsquo;t a pretty
+      sight. My books are back again, thanks to you, but they&rsquo;ll never be the
+      same to me again, and I shan&rsquo;t ever again think night in the woods is
+      wonderful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Helen, throwing up the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;Because I see one must
+      have money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I was wrong, but&mdash;the clergyman&mdash;he has money of his
+      own, or else he&rsquo;s paid; the poet or the musician&mdash;just the same; the
+      tramp&mdash;he&rsquo;s no different. The tramp goes to the workhouse in the end,
+      and is paid for with other people&rsquo;s money. Miss Schlegel, the real thing&rsquo;s
+      money, and all the rest is a dream.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re still wrong. You&rsquo;ve forgotten Death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we lived forever, what you say would be true. But we have to die, we
+      have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would be the real thing
+      if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to other things, because
+      Death is coming. I love Death&mdash;not morbidly, but because He explains.
+      He shows me the emptiness of Money. Death and Money are the eternal foes.
+      Not Death and Life. Never mind what lies behind Death, Mr. Bast, but be
+      sure that the poet and the musician and the tramp will be happier in it
+      than the man who has never learnt to say, &lsquo;I am I.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all in a mist&mdash;I know, but I can help you this far&mdash;men
+      like the Wilcoxes are deeper in the mist than any. Sane, sound Englishmen!
+      building up empires, levelling all the world into what they call common
+      sense. But mention Death to them and they&rsquo;re offended, because Death&rsquo;s
+      really Imperial, and He cries out against them for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am as afraid of Death as any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not of the idea of Death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what is the difference?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Infinite difference,&rdquo; said Helen, more gravely than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great things
+      sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not receive them, because
+      his heart was still full of little things. As the lost umbrella had spoilt
+      the concert at Queen&rsquo;s Hall, so the lost situation was obscuring the
+      diviner harmonies now. Death, Life, and Materialism were fine words, but
+      would Mr. Wilcox take him on as a clerk? Talk as one would, Mr. Wilcox was
+      king of this world, the superman, with his own morality, whose head
+      remained in the clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be stupid,&rdquo; he said apologetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While to Helen the paradox became clearer and clearer. &ldquo;Death destroys a
+      man: the idea of Death saves him.&rdquo; Behind the coffins and the skeletons
+      that stay the vulgar mind lies something so immense that all that is great
+      in us responds to it. Men of the world may recoil from the charnel-house
+      that they will one day enter, but Love knows better. Death is his foe, but
+      his peer, and in their age-long struggle the thews of Love have been
+      strengthened, and his vision cleared, until there is no one who can stand
+      against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So never give in,&rdquo; continued the girl, and restated again and again the
+      vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges against the Visible.
+      Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the rope that fastened Leonard to
+      the earth. Woven of bitter experience, it resisted her. Presently the
+      waitress entered and gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note,
+      addressed to Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the
+      murmurings of the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlled herself, and
+      wrote some letters. She was too bruised to speak to Henry; she could pity
+      him, and even determine to marry him, but as yet all lay too deep in her
+      heart for speech. On the surface the sense of his degradation was too
+      strong. She could not command voice or look, and the gentle words that she
+      forced out through her pen seemed to proceed from some other person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dearest boy,&rdquo; she began, &ldquo;this is not to part us. It is everything or
+      nothing, and I mean it to be nothing. It happened long before we ever met,
+      and even if it had happened since, I should be writing the same, I hope. I
+      do understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she crossed out &ldquo;I do understand&rdquo;; it struck a false note. Henry could
+      not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, &ldquo;It is everything or
+      nothing.&rdquo; Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must
+      not comment; comment is unfeminine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;ll about do,&rdquo; she thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sense of his degradation choked her. Was he worth all this
+      bother? To have yielded to a woman of that sort was everything, yes, it
+      was, and she could not be his wife. She tried to translate his temptation
+      into her own language, and her brain reeled. Men must be different even to
+      want to yield to such a temptation. Her belief in comradeship was stifled,
+      and she saw life as from that glass saloon on the Great Western which
+      sheltered male and female alike from the fresh air. Are the sexes really
+      races, each with its own code of morality, and their mutual love a mere
+      device of Nature to keep things going? Strip human intercourse of the
+      proprieties, and is it reduced to this? Her judgment told her no. She knew
+      that out of Nature&rsquo;s device we have built a magic that will win us
+      immortality. Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the
+      tenderness that we throw into that call; far wider is the gulf between us
+      and the farmyard than between the farmyard and the garbage that nourishes
+      it. We are evolving, in ways that Science cannot measure, to ends that
+      Theology dares not contemplate. &ldquo;Men did produce one jewel,&rdquo; the gods will
+      say, and, saying, will give us immortality. Margaret knew all this, but
+      for the moment she could not feel it, and transformed the marriage of Evie
+      and Mr. Cahill into a carnival of fools, and her own marriage&mdash;too
+      miserable to think of that, she tore up the letter, and then wrote
+      another:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MR. BAST,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have spoken to Mr. Wilcox about you, as I promised, and am sorry to say
+      that he has no vacancy for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M. J. SCHLEGEL.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She enclosed this in a note to Helen, over which she took less trouble
+      than she might have done; but her head was aching, and she could not stop
+      to pick her words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR HELEN,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give him this. The Basts are no good. Henry found the woman drunk on the
+      lawn. I am having a room got ready for you here, and will you please come
+      round at once on getting this? The Basts are not at all the type we should
+      trouble about. I may go round to them myself in the morning, and do
+      anything that is fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In writing this, Margaret felt that she was being practical. Something
+      might be arranged for the Basts later on, but they must be silenced for
+      the moment. She hoped to avoid a conversation between the woman and Helen.
+      She rang the bell for a servant, but no one answered it; Mr. Wilcox and
+      the Warringtons were gone to bed, and the kitchen was abandoned to
+      Saturnalia. Consequently she went over to the George herself. She did not
+      enter the hotel, for discussion would have been perilous, and, saying that
+      the letter was important, she gave it to the waitress. As she recrossed
+      the square she saw Helen and Mr. Bast looking out of the window of the
+      coffee-room, and feared she was already too late. Her task was not yet
+      over; she ought to tell Henry what she had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This came easily, for she saw him in the hall. The night wind had been
+      rattling the pictures against the wall, and the noise had disturbed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; he called, quite the householder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret walked in and past him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have asked Helen to sleep,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is best here; so don&rsquo;t lock
+      the front-door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought some one had got in,&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the same time I told the man that we could do nothing for him. I don&rsquo;t
+      know about later, but now the Basts must clearly go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you say that your sister is sleeping here, after all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she to be shown up to your room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have naturally nothing to say to her; I am going to bed. Will you tell
+      the servants about Helen? Could some one go to carry her bag?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tapped a little gong, which had been bought to summon the servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must make more noise than that if you want them to hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry opened a door, and down the corridor came shouts of laughter. &ldquo;Far
+      too much screaming there,&rdquo; he said, and strode towards it. Margaret went
+      upstairs, uncertain whether to be glad that they had met, or sorry. They
+      had behaved as if nothing had happened, and her deepest instincts told her
+      that this was wrong. For his own sake, some explanation was due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet&mdash;what could an explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few
+      details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first shock
+      was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast.
+      Henry&rsquo;s inner life had long laid open to her&mdash;his intellectual
+      confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive
+      passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded?
+      Perhaps. Perhaps, if the dishonour had been done to her, but it was done
+      long before her day. She struggled against the feeling. She told herself
+      that Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s wrong was her own. But she was not a barren theorist.
+      As she undressed, her anger, her regard for the dead, her desire for a
+      scene, all grew weak. Henry must have it as he liked, for she loved him,
+      and some day she would use her love to make him a better man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through this crisis. Pity, if
+      one may generalise, is at the bottom of woman. When men like us, it is for
+      our better qualities, and however tender their liking, we dare not be
+      unworthy of it, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthiness
+      stimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for good or for evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was the core of the question. Henry must be forgiven, and made better
+      by love; nothing else mattered. Mrs. Wilcox, that unquiet yet kindly
+      ghost, must be left to her own wrong. To her everything was in proportion
+      now, and she, too, would pity the man who was blundering up and down their
+      lives. Had Mrs. Wilcox known of his trespass? An interesting question, but
+      Margaret fell asleep, tethered by affection, and lulled by the murmurs of
+      the river that descended all the night from Wales. She felt herself at one
+      with her future home, colouring it and coloured by it, and awoke to see,
+      for the second time, Oniton Castle conquering the morning mists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry dear&mdash;&rdquo; was her greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had finished his breakfast, and was beginning the Times. His
+      sister-in-law was packing. Margaret knelt by him and took the paper from
+      him, feeling that it was unusually heavy and thick. Then, putting her face
+      where it had been, she looked up in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry dear, look at me. No, I won&rsquo;t have you shirking. Look at me. There.
+      That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re referring to last evening,&rdquo; he said huskily. &ldquo;I have released you
+      from your engagement. I could find excuses, but I won&rsquo;t. No, I won&rsquo;t. A
+      thousand times no. I&rsquo;m a bad lot, and must be left at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Expelled from his old fortress, Mr. Wilcox was building a new one. He
+      could no longer appear respectable to her, so he defended himself instead
+      in a lurid past. It was not true repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it where you will, boy. It&rsquo;s not going to trouble us; I know what
+      I&rsquo;m talking about, and it will make no difference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No difference?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;No difference, when you find that I am not
+      the fellow you thought?&rdquo; He was annoyed with Miss Schlegel here. He would
+      have preferred her to be prostrated by the blow, or even to rage. Against
+      the tide of his sin flowed the feeling that she was not altogether
+      womanly. Her eyes gazed too straight; they had read books that are
+      suitable for men only. And though he had dreaded a scene, and though she
+      had determined against one, there was a scene, all the same. It was
+      somehow imperative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am unworthy of you,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Had I been worthy, I should not have
+      released you from your engagement. I know what I am talking about. I can&rsquo;t
+      bear to talk of such things. We had better leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed his hand. He jerked it from her, and, rising to his feet, went
+      on: &ldquo;You, with your sheltered life, and refined pursuits, and friends, and
+      books, you and your sister, and women like you&mdash;I say, how can you
+      guess the temptations that lie round a man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is difficult for us,&rdquo; said Margaret; &ldquo;but if we are worth marrying, we
+      do guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut off from decent society and family ties, what do you suppose happens
+      to thousands of young fellows overseas? Isolated. No one near. I know by
+      bitter experience, and yet you say it makes &lsquo;no difference.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed bitterly. Margaret went to the sideboard and helped herself to
+      one of the breakfast dishes. Being the last down, she turned out the
+      spirit-lamp that kept them warm. She was tender, but grave. She knew that
+      Henry was not so much confessing his soul as pointing out the gulf between
+      the male soul and the female, and she did not desire to hear him on this
+      point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Helen come?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that won&rsquo;t do at all, at all! We don&rsquo;t want her gossiping with Mrs.
+      Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God! no!&rdquo; he exclaimed, suddenly natural. Then he caught himself up.
+      &ldquo;Let them gossip, my game&rsquo;s up, though I thank you for your unselfishness&mdash;little
+      as my thanks are worth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t she send me a message or anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard of none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you ring the bell, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, to inquire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swaggered up to it tragically, and sounded a peal. Margaret poured
+      herself out some coffee. The butler came, and said that Miss Schlegel had
+      slept at the George, so far as he had heard. Should he go round to the
+      George?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go, thank you,&rdquo; said Margaret, and dismissed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no good,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Those things leak out; you cannot stop a
+      story once it has started. I have known cases of other men&mdash;I
+      despised them once, I thought that I&rsquo;m different, I shall never be
+      tempted. Oh, Margaret&mdash;&rdquo; He came and sat down near her, improvising
+      emotion. She could not bear to listen to him. &ldquo;We fellows all come to
+      grief once in our time. Will you believe that? There are moments when the
+      strongest man&mdash;&lsquo;Let him who standeth, take heed lest he fall.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s
+      true, isn&rsquo;t it? If you knew all, you would excuse me. I was far from good
+      influences&mdash;far even from England. I was very, very lonely, and
+      longed for a woman&rsquo;s voice. That&rsquo;s enough. I have told you too much
+      already for you to forgive me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s enough, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have&rdquo;&mdash;he lowered his voice&mdash;&ldquo;I have been through hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gravely she considered this claim. Had he? Had he suffered tortures of
+      remorse, or had it been, &ldquo;There! that&rsquo;s over. Now for respectable life
+      again&rdquo;? The latter, if she read him rightly. A man who has been through
+      hell does not boast of his virility. He is humble and hides it, if,
+      indeed, it still exists. Only in legend does the sinner come forth
+      penitent, but terrible, to conquer pure woman by his resistless power.
+      Henry was anxious to be terrible, but had not got it in him. He was a good
+      average Englishman, who had slipped. The really culpable point&mdash;his
+      faithlessness to Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;never seemed to strike him. She longed
+      to mention Mrs. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And bit by bit the story was told her. It was a very simple story. Ten
+      years ago was the time, a garrison town in Cyprus the place. Now and then
+      he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him, and she answered, &ldquo;I
+      have already forgiven you, Henry.&rdquo; She chose her words carefully, and so
+      saved him from panic. She played the girl, until he could rebuild his
+      fortress and hide his soul from the world. When the butler came to clear
+      away, Henry was in a very different mood&mdash;asked the fellow what he
+      was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last night in the
+      servants&rsquo; hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He, as a handsome
+      young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman&mdash;an attraction so
+      faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would have fallen if
+      she had mentioned it to Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her return from the George the building operations were complete, and
+      the old Henry fronted her, competent, cynical, and kind. He had made a
+      clean breast, had been forgiven, and the great thing now was to forget his
+      failure, and to send it the way of other unsuccessful investments. Jacky
+      rejoined Howards End and Dude Street, and the vermilion motor-car, and the
+      Argentine Hard Dollars, and all the things and people for whom he had
+      never had much use and had less now. Their memory hampered him. He could
+      scarcely attend to Margaret, who brought back disquieting news from the
+      George. Helen and her clients had gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let them go&mdash;the man and his wife, I mean, for the more we see
+      of your sister the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they have gone separately&mdash;Helen very early, the Basts just
+      before I arrived. They have left no message. They have answered neither of
+      my notes. I don&rsquo;t like to think what it all means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say in the notes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;ah&mdash;yes! Dear, would you like one turn in the garden?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret took his arm. The beautiful weather soothed her. But the wheels
+      of Evie&rsquo;s wedding were still at work, tossing the guests outwards as
+      deftly as they had drawn them in, and she could not be with him long. It
+      had been arranged that they should motor to Shrewsbury, whence he would go
+      north, and she back to London with the Warringtons. For a fraction of time
+      she was happy. Then her brain recommenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid there has been gossiping of some kind at the George. Helen
+      would not have left unless she had heard something. I mismanaged that. It
+      is wretched. I ought to have parted her from that woman at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret!&rdquo; he exclaimed, loosing her arm impressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am far from a saint&mdash;in fact, the reverse&mdash;but you have taken
+      me, for better or worse. Bygones must be bygones. You have promised to
+      forgive me. Margaret, a promise is a promise. Never mention that woman
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except for some practical reason&mdash;never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Practical! You practical!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m practical,&rdquo; she murmured, stooping over the mowing-machine and
+      playing with the grass which trickled through her fingers like sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had silenced her, but her fears made him uneasy. Not for the first
+      time, he was threatened with blackmail. He was rich and supposed to be
+      moral; the Basts knew that he was not, and might find it profitable to
+      hint as much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At all events, you mustn&rsquo;t worry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is a man&rsquo;s business.&rdquo;
+       He thought intently. &ldquo;On no account mention it to anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret flushed at advice so elementary, but he was really paving the way
+      for a lie. If necessary he would deny that he had ever known Mrs. Bast,
+      and prosecute her for libel. Perhaps he never had known her. Here was
+      Margaret, who behaved as if he had not. There the house. Round them were
+      half a dozen gardeners, clearing up after his daughter&rsquo;s wedding. All was
+      so solid and spruce, that the past flew up out of sight like a
+      spring-blind, leaving only the last five minutes unrolled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Glancing at these, he saw that the car would be round during the next
+      five, and plunged into action. Gongs were tapped, orders issued, Margaret
+      was sent to dress, and the housemaid to sweep up the long trickle of grass
+      that she had left across the hall. As is Man to the Universe, so was the
+      mind of Mr. Wilcox to the minds of some men&mdash;a concentrated light
+      upon a tiny spot, a little Ten Minutes moving self-contained through its
+      appointed years. No Pagan he, who lives for the Now, and may be wiser than
+      all philosophers. He lived for the five minutes that have past, and the
+      five to come; he had the business mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and breasted the
+      great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain rumour, but was all right.
+      She had forgiven him, God bless her, and he felt the manlier for it.
+      Charles and Evie had not heard it, and never must hear. No more must Paul.
+      Over his children he felt great tenderness, which he did not try to track
+      to a cause; Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did not connect
+      her with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor little Evie!
+      he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Margaret? How did she stand?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard something. She
+      dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious about Leonard, for whom
+      they certainly were responsible. Nor ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But the
+      main situation had not altered. She still loved Henry. His actions, not
+      his disposition, had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And she
+      loved her future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had leapt
+      from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon Oniton.
+      Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now pick out the church
+      and the black-and-white gables of the George. There was the bridge, and
+      the river nibbling its green peninsula. She could even see the
+      bathing-shed, but while she was looking for Charles&rsquo;s new spring-board,
+      the forehead of the hill rose and hid the whole scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into England,
+      day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains, and the tower
+      chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes have no part in the
+      place, nor in any place. It is not their names that recur in the parish
+      register. It is not their ghosts that sigh among the alders at evening.
+      They have swept into the valley and swept out of it, leaving a little dust
+      and a little money behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford. He had moved out of
+      college, and was contemplating the Universe, or such portions of it as
+      concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings in Long Wall. He was not
+      concerned with much. When a young man is untroubled by passions and
+      sincerely indifferent to public opinion his outlook is necessarily
+      limited. Tibby wished neither to strengthen the position of the rich nor
+      to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms
+      nodding behind the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen. There are worse
+      lives. Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected in manner, he
+      never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained the heroic equipment, and it was
+      only after many visits that men discovered Schlegel to possess a character
+      and a brain. He had done well in Mods, much to the surprise of those who
+      attended lectures and took proper exercise, and was now glancing
+      disdainfully at Chinese in case he should some day consent to qualify as a
+      Student Interpreter. To him thus employed Helen entered. A telegram had
+      preceded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He noticed, in a distant way, that his sister had altered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a rule he found her too pronounced, and had never come across this look
+      of appeal, pathetic yet dignified&mdash;the look of a sailor who has lost
+      everything at sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come from Oniton,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;There has been a great deal of
+      trouble there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s for lunch?&rdquo; said Tibby, picking up the claret, which was warming in
+      the hearth. Helen sat down submissively at the table. &ldquo;Why such an early
+      start?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sunrise or something&mdash;when I could get away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I surmise. Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s to be done, Tibby. I am very much upset at a piece of
+      news that concerns Meg, and do not want to face her, and I am not going
+      back to Wickham Place. I stopped here to tell you this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlady came in with the cutlets. Tibby put a marker in the leaves of
+      his Chinese Grammar and helped them. Oxford&mdash;the Oxford of the
+      vacation&mdash;dreamed and rustled outside, and indoors the little fire
+      was coated with grey where the sunshine touched it. Helen continued her
+      odd story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give Meg my love and say that I want to be alone. I mean to go to Munich
+      or else Bonn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such a message is easily given,&rdquo; said her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As regards Wickham Place and my share of the furniture, you and she are
+      to do exactly as you like. My own feeling is that everything may just as
+      well be sold. What does one want with dusty economic books, which have
+      made the world no better, or with mother&rsquo;s hideous chiffoniers? I have
+      also another commission for you. I want you to deliver a letter.&rdquo; She got
+      up. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t written it yet. Why shouldn&rsquo;t I post it, though?&rdquo; She sat
+      down again. &ldquo;My head is rather wretched. I hope that none of your friends
+      are likely to come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby locked the door. His friends often found it in this condition. Then
+      he asked whether anything had gone wrong at Evie&rsquo;s wedding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not there,&rdquo; said Helen, and burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had known her hysterical&mdash;it was one of her aspects with which he
+      had no concern&mdash;and yet these tears touched him as something unusual.
+      They were nearer the things that did concern him, such as music. He laid
+      down his knife and looked at her curiously. Then, as she continued to sob,
+      he went on with his lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The time came for the second course, and she was still crying. Apple
+      Charlotte was to follow, which spoils by waiting. &ldquo;Do you mind Mrs.
+      Martlett coming in?&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;or shall I take it from her at the door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her to his bedroom, and introduced the pudding in her absence.
+      Having helped himself, he put it down to warm in the hearth. His hand
+      stretched towards the Grammar, and soon he was turning over the pages,
+      raising his eyebrows scornfully, perhaps at human nature, perhaps at
+      Chinese. To him thus employed Helen returned. She had pulled herself
+      together, but the grave appeal had not vanished from her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now for the explanation,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t I begin with it? I have
+      found out something about Mr. Wilcox. He has behaved very wrongly indeed,
+      and ruined two people&rsquo;s lives. It all came on me very suddenly last night;
+      I am very much upset, and I do not know what to do. Mrs. Bast&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, those people!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen seemed silenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I lock the door again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No thanks, Tibbikins. You&rsquo;re being very good to me. I want to tell you
+      the story before I go abroad, you must do exactly what you like&mdash;treat
+      it as part of the furniture. Meg cannot have heard it yet, I think. But I
+      cannot face her and tell her that the man she is going to marry has
+      misconducted himself. I don&rsquo;t even know whether she ought to be told.
+      Knowing as she does that I dislike him, she will suspect me, and think
+      that I want to ruin her match. I simply don&rsquo;t know what to make of such a
+      thing. I trust your judgment. What would you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gather he has had a mistress,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen flushed with shame and anger. &ldquo;And ruined two people&rsquo;s lives. And
+      goes about saying that personal actions count for nothing, and there
+      always will be rich and poor. He met her when he was trying to get rich
+      out in Cyprus&mdash;I don&rsquo;t wish to make him worse than he is, and no
+      doubt she was ready enough to meet him. But there it is. They met. He goes
+      his way and she goes hers. What do you suppose is the end of such women?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He conceded that it was a bad business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They end in two ways: Either they sink till the lunatic asylums and the
+      workhouses are full of them, and cause Mr. Wilcox to write letters to the
+      papers complaining of our national degeneracy, or else they entrap a boy
+      into marriage before it is too late. She&mdash;I can&rsquo;t blame her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this isn&rsquo;t all,&rdquo; she continued after a long pause, during which the
+      landlady served them with coffee. &ldquo;I come now to the business that took us
+      to Oniton. We went all three. Acting on Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s advice, the man
+      throws up a secure situation and takes an insecure one, from which he is
+      dismissed. There are certain excuses, but in the main Mr. Wilcox is to
+      blame, as Meg herself admitted. It is only common justice that he should
+      employ the man himself. But he meets the woman, and, like the cur that he
+      is, he refuses, and tries to get rid of them. He makes Meg write. Two
+      notes came from her late that evening&mdash;one for me, one for Leonard,
+      dismissing him with barely a reason. I couldn&rsquo;t understand. Then it comes
+      out that Mrs. Bast had spoken to Mr. Wilcox on the lawn while we left her
+      to get rooms, and was still speaking about him when Leonard came back to
+      her. This Leonard knew all along. He thought it natural he should be
+      ruined twice. Natural! Could you have contained yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is certainly a very bad business,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His reply seemed to calm his sister. &ldquo;I was afraid that I saw it out of
+      proportion. But you are right outside it, and you must know. In a day or
+      two&mdash;or perhaps a week&mdash;take whatever steps you think fit. I
+      leave it in your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She concluded her charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The facts as they touch Meg are all before you,&rdquo; she added; and Tibby
+      sighed and felt it rather hard that, because of his open mind, he should
+      be empanelled to serve as a juror. He had never been interested in human
+      beings, for which one must blame him, but he had had rather too much of
+      them at Wickham Place. Just as some people cease to attend when books are
+      mentioned, so Tibby&rsquo;s attention wandered when &ldquo;personal relations&rdquo; came
+      under discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts to
+      know? Similar questions had vexed him from infancy, and at Oxford he had
+      learned to say that the importance of human beings has been vastly
+      overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint whiff of the
+      eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it off now if his sister
+      had not been ceaselessly beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Helen&mdash;have a cigarette&mdash;I don&rsquo;t see what I&rsquo;m to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s nothing to be done. I dare say you are right. Let them
+      marry. There remains the question of compensation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me to adjudicate that too? Had you not better consult an
+      expert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This part is in confidence,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;It has nothing to do with Meg,
+      and do not mention it to her. The compensation&mdash;I do not see who is
+      to pay it if I don&rsquo;t, and I have already decided on the minimum sum. As
+      soon as possible I am placing it to your account, and when I am in Germany
+      you will pay it over for me. I shall never forget your kindness,
+      Tibbikins, if you do this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the sum?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God alive!&rdquo; said Tibby, and went crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, what is the good of driblets? To go through life having done one
+      thing&mdash;to have raised one person from the abyss; not these puny gifts
+      of shillings and blankets&mdash;making the grey more grey. No doubt people
+      will think me extraordinary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care an iota what people think!&rdquo; cried he, heated to unusual
+      manliness of diction. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s half what you have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not nearly half.&rdquo; She spread out her hands over her soiled skirt. &ldquo;I have
+      far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last spring that three hundred a
+      year is necessary to set a man on his feet. What I give will bring in a
+      hundred and fifty between two. It isn&rsquo;t enough.&rdquo; He could not recover. He
+      was not angry or even shocked, and he saw that Helen would still have
+      plenty to live on. But it amazed him to think what haycocks people can
+      make of their lives. His delicate intonations would not work, and he could
+      only blurt out that the five thousand pounds would mean a great deal of
+      bother for him personally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t expect you to understand me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? I understand nobody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ll do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Apparently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave you two commissions, then. The first concerns Mr. Wilcox, and you
+      are to use your discretion. The second concerns the money, and is to be
+      mentioned to no one, and carried out literally. You will send a hundred
+      pounds on account to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets whose
+      serried beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued. The lovely
+      creature raised domes and spires into the cloudless blue, and only the
+      ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how evanescent was the phantom,
+      how faint its claim to represent England. Helen, rehearsing her
+      commission, noticed nothing; the Basts were in her brain, and she retold
+      the crisis in a meditative way, which might have made other men curious.
+      She was seeing whether it would hold. He asked her once why she had taken
+      the Basts right into the heart of Evie&rsquo;s wedding. She stopped like a
+      frightened animal and said, &ldquo;Does that seem to you so odd?&rdquo; Her eyes, the
+      hand laid on the mouth, quite haunted him, until they were absorbed into
+      the figure of St. Mary the Virgin, before whom he paused for a moment on
+      the walk home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is convenient to follow him in the discharge of his duties. Margaret
+      summoned him the next day. She was terrified at Helen&rsquo;s flight, and he had
+      to say that she had called in at Oxford. Then she said: &ldquo;Did she seem
+      worried at any rumour about Henry?&rdquo; He answered, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; &ldquo;I knew it was
+      that!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll write to her.&rdquo; Tibby was relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then sent the cheque to the address that Helen gave him, and stated
+      that he was instructed to forward later on five thousand pounds. An answer
+      came back very civil and quiet in tone&mdash;such an answer as Tibby
+      himself would have given. The cheque was returned, the legacy refused, the
+      writer being in no need of money. Tibby forwarded this to Helen, adding in
+      the fulness of his heart that Leonard Bast seemed somewhat a monumental
+      person after all. Helen&rsquo;s reply was frantic. He was to take no notice. He
+      was to go down at once and say that she commanded acceptance. He went. A
+      scurf of books and china ornaments awaited him. The Basts had just been
+      evicted for not paying their rent, and had wandered no one knew whither.
+      Helen had begun bungling with her money by this time, and had even sold
+      out her shares in the Nottingham and Derby Railway. For some weeks she did
+      nothing. Then she reinvested, and, owing to the good advice of her
+      stockbrokers, became rather richer than she had been before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the
+      generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to an
+      after-life in the city of ghosts, while from others&mdash;and thus was the
+      death of Wickham Place&mdash;the spirit slips before the body perishes. It
+      had decayed in the spring, disintegrating the girls more than they knew,
+      and causing either to accost unfamiliar regions. By September it was a
+      corpse, void of emotion, and scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty
+      years of happiness. Through its round-topped doorway passed furniture, and
+      pictures, and books, until the last room was gutted and the last van had
+      rumbled away. It stood for a week or two longer, open-eyed, as if
+      astonished at its own emptiness. Then it fell. Navvies came, and spilt it
+      back into the grey. With their muscles and their beery good temper, they
+      were not the worst of undertakers for a house which had always been human,
+      and had not mistaken culture for an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The furniture, with a few exceptions, went down into Hertfordshire, Mr.
+      Wilcox having most kindly offered Howards End as a warehouse. Mr. Bryce
+      had died abroad&mdash;an unsatisfactory affair&mdash;and as there seemed
+      little guarantee that the rent would be paid regularly, he cancelled the
+      agreement, and resumed possession himself. Until he relet the house, the
+      Schlegels were welcome to stack their furniture in the garage and lower
+      rooms. Margaret demurred, but Tibby accepted the offer gladly; it saved
+      him from coming to any decision about the future. The plate and the more
+      valuable pictures found a safer home in London, but the bulk of the things
+      went country-ways, and were entrusted to the guardianship of Miss Avery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly before the move, our hero and heroine were married. They have
+      weathered the storm, and may reasonably expect peace. To have no illusions
+      and yet to love&mdash;what stronger surety can a woman find? She had seen
+      her husband&rsquo;s past as well as his heart. She knew her own heart with a
+      thoroughness that commonplace people believe impossible. The heart of Mrs.
+      Wilcox was alone hidden, and perhaps it is superstitious to speculate on
+      the feelings of the dead. They were married quietly&mdash;really quietly,
+      for as the day approached she refused to go through another Oniton. Her
+      brother gave her away, her aunt, who was out of health, presided over a
+      few colourless refreshments. The Wilcoxes were represented by Charles, who
+      witnessed the marriage settlement, and by Mr. Cahill. Paul did send a
+      cablegram. In a few minutes, and without the aid of music, the clergyman
+      made them man and wife, and soon the glass shade had fallen that cuts off
+      married couples from the world. She, a monogamist, regretted the cessation
+      of some of life&rsquo;s innocent odours; he, whose instincts were polygamous,
+      felt morally braced by the change and less liable to the temptations that
+      had assailed him in the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spent their honeymoon near Innsbruck. Henry knew of a reliable hotel
+      there, and Margaret hoped for a meeting with her sister. In this she was
+      disappointed. As they came south, Helen retreated over the Brenner, and
+      wrote an unsatisfactory post-card from the shores of the Lake of Garda,
+      saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be ignored. Evidently
+      she disliked meeting Henry. Two months are surely enough to accustom an
+      outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted in two days, and
+      Margaret had again to regret her sister&rsquo;s lack of self-control. In a long
+      letter she pointed out the need of charity in sexual matters; so little is
+      known about them; it is hard enough for those who are personally touched
+      to judge; then how futile must be the verdict of Society. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say
+      there is no standard, for that would destroy morality; only that there can
+      be no standard until our impulses are classified and better understood.&rdquo;
+       Helen thanked her for her kind letter&mdash;rather a curious reply. She
+      moved south again, and spoke of wintering in Naples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed. Helen left him time to
+      grow skin over his wound. There were still moments when it pained him. Had
+      he only known that Margaret was awaiting him&mdash;Margaret, so lively and
+      intelligent, and yet so submissive&mdash;he would have kept himself
+      worthier of her. Incapable of grouping the past, he confused the episode
+      of Jacky with another episode that had taken place in the days of his
+      bachelorhood. The two made one crop of wild oats, for which he was
+      heartily sorry, and he could not see that those oats are of a darker stock
+      which are rooted in another&rsquo;s dishonour. Unchastity and infidelity were as
+      confused to him as to the Middle Ages, his only moral teacher. Ruth (poor
+      old Ruth!) did not enter into his calculations at all, for poor old Ruth
+      had never found him out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His affection for his present wife grew steadily. Her cleverness gave him
+      no trouble, and, indeed, he liked to see her reading poetry or something
+      about social questions; it distinguished her from the wives of other men.
+      He had only to call, and she clapped the book up and was ready to do what
+      he wished. Then they would argue so jollily, and once or twice she had him
+      in quite a tight corner, but as soon as he grew really serious, she gave
+      in. Man is for war, woman for the recreation of the warrior, but he does
+      not dislike it if she makes a show of fight. She cannot win in a real
+      battle, having no muscles, only nerves. Nerves make her jump out of a
+      moving motor-car, or refuse to be married fashionably. The warrior may
+      well allow her to triumph on such occasions; they move not the
+      imperishable plinth of things that touch his peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had a bad attack of these nerves during the honeymoon. He told
+      her&mdash;casually, as was his habit&mdash;that Oniton Grange was let. She
+      showed her annoyance, and asked rather crossly why she had not been
+      consulted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to bother you,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Besides, I have only heard for
+      certain this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are we to live?&rdquo; said Margaret, trying to laugh. &ldquo;I loved the place
+      extraordinarily. Don&rsquo;t you believe in having a permanent home, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured her that she misunderstood him. It is home life that
+      distinguishes us from the foreigner. But he did not believe in a damp
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is news. I never heard till this minute that Oniton was damp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear girl!&rdquo;&mdash;he flung out his hand&mdash;&ldquo;have you eyes? have you
+      a skin? How could it be anything but damp in such a situation? In the
+      first place, the Grange is on clay, and built where the castle moat must
+      have been; then there&rsquo;s that detestable little river, steaming all night
+      like a kettle. Feel the cellar walls; look up under the eaves. Ask Sir
+      James or any one. Those Shropshire valleys are notorious. The only
+      possible place for a house in Shropshire is on a hill; but, for my part, I
+      think the country is too far from London, and the scenery nothing
+      special.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not resist saying, &ldquo;Why did you go there, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;because&mdash;&rdquo; He drew his head back and grew rather angry. &ldquo;Why
+      have we come to the Tyrol, if it comes to that? One might go on asking
+      such questions indefinitely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One might; but he was only gaining time for a plausible answer. Out it
+      came, and he believed it as soon as it was spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth is, I took Oniton on account of Evie. Don&rsquo;t let this go any
+      further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t like her to know that she nearly let me in for a very bad
+      bargain. No sooner did I sign the agreement than she got engaged. Poor
+      little girl! She was so keen on it all, and wouldn&rsquo;t even wait to make
+      proper inquiries about the shooting. Afraid it would get snapped up&mdash;just
+      like all of your sex. Well, no harm&rsquo;s done. She has had her country
+      wedding, and I&rsquo;ve got rid of my goose to some fellows who are starting a
+      preparatory school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall we live, then, Henry? I should enjoy living somewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not yet decided. What about Norfolk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. Marriage had not saved her from the sense of flux.
+      London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilisation which is altering
+      human nature so profoundly, and throws upon personal relations a stress
+      greater than they have ever borne before. Under cosmopolitanism, if it
+      comes, we shall receive no help from the earth. Trees and meadows and
+      mountains will only be a spectacle, and the binding force that they once
+      exercised on character must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal
+      to the task!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is now what?&rdquo; continued Henry. &ldquo;Nearly October. Let us camp for the
+      winter at Ducie Street, and look out for something in the spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If possible, something permanent. I can&rsquo;t be as young as I was, for these
+      alterations don&rsquo;t suit me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear, which would you rather have&mdash;alterations or
+      rheumatism?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see your point,&rdquo; said Margaret, getting up. &ldquo;If Oniton is really damp,
+      it is impossible, and must be inhabited by little boys. Only, in the
+      spring, let us look before we leap. I will take warning by Evie, and not
+      hurry you. Remember that you have a free hand this time. These endless
+      moves must be bad for the furniture, and are certainly expensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a practical little woman it is! What&rsquo;s it been reading? Theo&mdash;theo&mdash;how
+      much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Theosophy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Ducie Street was her first fate&mdash;a pleasant enough fate. The
+      house, being only a little larger than Wickham Place, trained her for the
+      immense establishment that was promised in the spring. They were
+      frequently away, but at home life ran fairly regularly. In the morning
+      Henry went to business, and his sandwich&mdash;a relic this of some
+      prehistoric craving&mdash;was always cut by her own hand. He did not rely
+      upon the sandwich for lunch, but liked to have it by him in case he grew
+      hungry at eleven. When he had gone, there was the house to look after, and
+      the servants to humanise, and several kettles of Helen&rsquo;s to keep on the
+      boil. Her conscience pricked her a little about the Basts; she was not
+      sorry to have lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth helping, but
+      being Henry&rsquo;s wife, she preferred to help some one else. As for theatres
+      and discussion societies, they attracted her less and less. She began to
+      &ldquo;miss&rdquo; new movements, and to spend her spare time re-reading or thinking,
+      rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends. They attributed the change
+      to her marriage, and perhaps some deep instinct did warn her not to travel
+      further from her husband than was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay
+      deeper still; she had outgrown stimulants, and was passing from words to
+      things. It was doubtless a pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but
+      some closing of the gates is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself
+      is to become a creative power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      She was looking at plans one day in the following spring&mdash;they had
+      finally decided to go down into Sussex and build&mdash;when Mrs. Charles
+      Wilcox was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you heard the news?&rdquo; Dolly cried, as soon as she entered the room.
+      &ldquo;Charles is so ang&mdash;I mean he is sure you know about it, or, rather,
+      that you don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Dolly!&rdquo; said Margaret, placidly kissing her. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a surprise! How
+      are the boys and the baby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that there had
+      been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news. The wrong people
+      had tried to get in. The rector, as representing the older inhabitants,
+      had said&mdash;Charles had said&mdash;the tax-collector had said&mdash;Charles
+      had regretted not saying&mdash;and she closed the description with, &ldquo;But
+      lucky you, with four courts of your own at Midhurst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be very jolly,&rdquo; replied Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles has never seen the plans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor&mdash;no, that&rsquo;s
+      rather difficult. Try the elevation. We are to have a good many gables and
+      a picturesque sky-line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes it smell so funny?&rdquo; said Dolly, after a moment&rsquo;s inspection.
+      She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And WHICH way up is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the ordinary way up. That&rsquo;s the sky-line and the part that smells
+      strongest is the sky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, ask me another. Margaret&mdash;oh&mdash;what was I going to say?
+      How&rsquo;s Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it&rsquo;s awfully odd
+      she doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was getting
+      rather sore on this point. &ldquo;Helen is odd, awfully. She has now been away
+      eight months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But hasn&rsquo;t she any address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write her a
+      line. I will look it up for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, don&rsquo;t bother. That&rsquo;s eight months she has been away, surely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. She left just after Evie&rsquo;s wedding. It would be eight months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just when baby was born, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was
+      beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles&rsquo;s were not
+      well off, for Mr. Wilcox, having brought up his children with expensive
+      tastes, believed in letting them shift for themselves. After all, he had
+      not treated them generously. Yet another baby was expected, she told
+      Margaret, and they would have to give up the motor. Margaret sympathised,
+      but in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the stepmother was
+      urging Mr. Wilcox to make them a more liberal allowance. She sighed again,
+      and at last the particular grievance was remembered. &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; she cried,
+      &ldquo;that is it: Miss Avery has been unpacking your packing-cases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why has she done that? How unnecessary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask another. I suppose you ordered her to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave no such orders. Perhaps she was airing the things. She did
+      undertake to light an occasional fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was far more than an air,&rdquo; said Dolly solemnly. &ldquo;The floor sounds
+      covered with books. Charles sent me to know what is to be done, for he
+      feels certain you don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Books!&rdquo; cried Margaret, moved by the holy word. &ldquo;Dolly, are you serious?
+      Has she been touching our books?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hasn&rsquo;t she, though! What used to be the hall&rsquo;s full of them. Charles
+      thought for certain you knew of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, Dolly. What can have come over Miss Avery?
+      I must go down about it at once. Some of the books are my brother&rsquo;s, and
+      are quite valuable. She had no right to open any of the cases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say she&rsquo;s dotty. She was the one that never got married, you know. Oh,
+      I say, perhaps, she thinks your books are wedding-presents to herself. Old
+      maids are taken that way sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all like poison
+      ever since her frightful dust-up with Evie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t heard of that,&rdquo; said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had its
+      compensations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you know she gave Evie a present last August, and Evie returned
+      it, and then&mdash;oh, goloshes! You never read such a letter as Miss
+      Avery wrote.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn&rsquo;t like her to do such a
+      heartless thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the present was so expensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does that make any difference, Dolly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, when it costs over five pounds&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t see it, but it was a
+      lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop. You can&rsquo;t very well accept
+      that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You accepted a present from Miss Avery when you were married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, mine was old earthenware stuff&mdash;not worth a halfpenny. Evie&rsquo;s
+      was quite different. You&rsquo;d have to ask any one to the wedding who gave you
+      a pendant like that. Uncle Percy and Albert and father and Charles all
+      said it was quite impossible, and when four men agree, what is a girl to
+      do? Evie didn&rsquo;t want to upset the old thing, so thought a sort of joking
+      letter best, and returned the pendant straight to the shop to save Miss
+      Avery trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Miss Avery said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly&rsquo;s eyes grew round. &ldquo;It was a perfectly awful letter. Charles said it
+      was the letter of a madman. In the end she had the pendant back again from
+      the shop and threw it into the duck-pond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she give any reasons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We think she meant to be invited to Oniton, and so climb into society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s rather old for that,&rdquo; said Margaret pensively.
+      &ldquo;May she not have given the present to Evie in remembrance of her mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I ought to
+      be toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff&mdash;you want a new coat, but I don&rsquo;t
+      know who&rsquo;ll give it you, I&rsquo;m sure;&rdquo; and addressing her apparel with
+      mournful humour, Dolly moved from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret followed her to ask whether Henry knew about Miss Avery&rsquo;s
+      rudeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she&rsquo;s only a farm woman,&rdquo; said Dolly, and her explanation proved
+      correct. Henry only censured the lower classes when it suited him. He bore
+      with Miss Avery as with Crane&mdash;because he could get good value out of
+      them. &ldquo;I have patience with a man who knows his job,&rdquo; he would say, really
+      having patience with the job, and not the man. Paradoxical as it may
+      sound, he had something of the artist about him; he would pass over an
+      insult to his daughter sooner than lose a good charwoman for his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret judged it better to settle the little trouble herself. Parties
+      were evidently ruffled. With Henry&rsquo;s permission, she wrote a pleasant note
+      to Miss Avery, asking her to leave the cases untouched. Then, at the first
+      convenient opportunity, she went down herself, intending to repack her
+      belongings and store them properly in the local warehouse; the plan had
+      been amateurish and a failure. Tibby promised to accompany her, but at the
+      last moment begged to be excused. So, for the second time in her life, she
+      entered the house alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The day of her visit was exquisite, and the last of unclouded happiness
+      that she was to have for many months. Her anxiety about Helen&rsquo;s
+      extraordinary absence was still dormant, and as for a possible brush with
+      Miss Avery&mdash;that only gave zest to the expedition. She had also eluded
+      Dolly&rsquo;s invitation to luncheon. Walking straight up from the station, she
+      crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut avenue that
+      connects it with the church. The church itself stood in the village once.
+      But it there attracted so many worshippers that the devil, in a pet,
+      snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on an inconvenient knoll,
+      three quarters of a mile away. If this story is true, the chestnut avenue
+      must have been planted by the angels. No more tempting approach could be
+      imagined for the lukewarm Christian, and if he still finds the walk too
+      long, the devil is defeated all the same, Science having built Holy
+      Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles&rsquo;s and roofed it with tin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that
+      gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the
+      little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great
+      mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the
+      greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the pipes
+      of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it seems to
+      have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the fairies. It
+      cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names to half a
+      dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature&mdash;for
+      the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for the thousand
+      little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened into a road,
+      smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched country. She followed it
+      for over a mile. Its little hesitations pleased her. Having no urgent
+      destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking no trouble about
+      the gradients, or about the view, which nevertheless expanded. The great
+      estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire were less obtrusive here,
+      and the appearance of the land was neither aristocratic nor suburban. To
+      define it was difficult, but Margaret knew what it was not: it was not
+      snobbish. Though its contours were slight, there was a touch of freedom in
+      their sweep to which Surrey will never attain, and the distant brow of the
+      Chilterns towered like a mountain. &ldquo;Left to itself,&rdquo; was Margaret&rsquo;s
+      opinion, &ldquo;this county would vote Liberal.&rdquo; The comradeship, not
+      passionate, that is our highest gift as a nation, was promised by it, as
+      by the low brick farm where she called for the key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished young person
+      received her. &ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh yes, Mrs. Wilcox,
+      auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie has gone up to your little
+      place at the present moment. Shall I send the servant to direct you?&rdquo;
+       Followed by: &ldquo;Of course, auntie does not generally look after your place;
+      she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something exceptional. It gives
+      her something to do. She spends quite a lot of her time there. My husband
+      says to me sometimes, &lsquo;Where&rsquo;s auntie?&rsquo; I say, &lsquo;Need you ask? She&rsquo;s at
+      Howards End.&rsquo; Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox, could I prevail upon you to
+      accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret refused the cake, but unfortunately this gave her gentility in
+      the eyes of Miss Avery&rsquo;s niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot let you go on alone. Now don&rsquo;t. You really mustn&rsquo;t. I will
+      direct you myself if it comes to that. I must get my hat. Now&rdquo;&mdash;roguishly&mdash;&ldquo;Mrs.
+      Wilcox, don&rsquo;t you move while I&rsquo;m gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stunned, Margaret did not move from the best parlour, over which the touch
+      of art nouveau had fallen. But the other rooms looked in keeping, though
+      they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural interior. Here had lived an
+      elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country which we
+      visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver sides of life,
+      the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love, have their deepest
+      expression in the heart of the fields. All was not sadness. The sun was
+      shining without. The thrush sang his two syllables on the budding
+      guelder-rose. Some children were playing uproariously in heaps of golden
+      straw. It was the presence of sadness at all that surprised Margaret, and
+      ended by giving her a feeling of completeness. In these English farms, if
+      anywhere, one might see life steadily and see it whole, group in one
+      vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect&mdash;connect
+      without bitterness until all men are brothers. But her thoughts were
+      interrupted by the return of Miss Avery&rsquo;s niece, and were so
+      tranquillising that she suffered the interruption gladly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quicker to go out by the back door, and, after due explanations,
+      they went out by it. The niece was now mortified by innumerable chickens,
+      who rushed up to her feet for food, and by a shameless and maternal sow.
+      She did not know what animals were coming to. But her gentility withered
+      at the touch of the sweet air. The wind was rising, scattering the straw
+      and ruffling the tails of the ducks as they floated in families over
+      Evie&rsquo;s pendant. One of those delicious gales of spring, in which leaves
+      still in bud seem to rustle, swept over the land and then fell silent.
+      &ldquo;Georgie,&rdquo; sang the thrush. &ldquo;Cuckoo,&rdquo; came furtively from the cliff of
+      pine-trees. &ldquo;Georgie, pretty Georgie,&rdquo; and the other birds joined in with
+      nonsense. The hedge was a half-painted picture which would be finished in
+      a few days. Celandines grew on its banks, lords and ladies and primroses
+      in the defended hollows; the wild rose-bushes, still bearing their
+      withered hips, showed also the promise of blossom. Spring had come, clad
+      in no classical garb, yet fairer than all springs; fairer even than she
+      who walks through the myrtles of Tuscany with the graces before her and
+      the zephyr behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women walked up the lane full of outward civility. But Margaret
+      was thinking how difficult it was to be earnest about furniture on such a
+      day, and the niece was thinking about hats. Thus engaged, they reached
+      Howards End. Petulant cries of &ldquo;Auntie!&rdquo; severed the air. There was no
+      reply, and the front door was locked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure that Miss Avery is up here?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilcox, quite sure. She is here daily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret tried to look in through the dining-room window, but the curtain
+      inside was drawn tightly. So with the drawing-room and the hall. The
+      appearance of these curtains was familiar, yet she did not remember their
+      being there on her other visit; her impression was that Mr. Bryce had
+      taken everything away. They tried the back. Here again they received no
+      answer, and could see nothing; the kitchen-window was fitted with a blind,
+      while the pantry and scullery had pieces of wood propped up against them,
+      which looked ominously like the lids of packing-cases. Margaret thought of
+      her books, and she lifted up her voice also. At the first cry she
+      succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; replied some one inside the house. &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t Mrs. Wilcox
+      come at last!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got the key, auntie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madge, go away,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, still invisible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Auntie, it&rsquo;s Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret supported her. &ldquo;Your niece and I have come together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman went red. &ldquo;Auntie gets more eccentric lately,&rdquo; she said
+      nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Avery!&rdquo; called Margaret. &ldquo;I have come about the furniture. Could you
+      kindly let me in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said the voice, &ldquo;of course.&rdquo; But after that came
+      silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house
+      disconsolately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope Miss Avery is not ill,&rdquo; hazarded Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you&rsquo;ll excuse me,&rdquo; said Madge, &ldquo;perhaps I ought to be leaving
+      you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at
+      times.&rdquo; Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if her
+      departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery said, &ldquo;Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!&rdquo; quite pleasantly and
+      calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an
+      umbrella-stand. It was her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come right into the hall first,&rdquo; said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain,
+      and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had
+      happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from
+      Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up near
+      the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and her
+      father&rsquo;s sword&mdash;this is what bewildered her particularly&mdash;had
+      been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes.
+      Miss Avery must have worked for days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid this isn&rsquo;t what we meant,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox and I never
+      intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my
+      brother&rsquo;s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad.
+      When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to
+      do so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house has been empty long enough,&rdquo; said the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret refused to argue. &ldquo;I dare say we didn&rsquo;t explain,&rdquo; she said
+      civilly. &ldquo;It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house
+      is Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s house, the mother of Mr. Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistake upon mistake,&rdquo; said Miss Avery. &ldquo;Mistake upon mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own
+      chairs. &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s to be done.&rdquo; She could not help
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other said: &ldquo;Yes, it should be a merry house enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery.
+      Yes, that&rsquo;s all right. Delightful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is still the parlour.&rdquo; She went through the door opposite and drew
+      a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place.
+      &ldquo;And the dining-room.&rdquo; More curtains were drawn, more windows were flung
+      open to the spring. &ldquo;Then through here&mdash;&rdquo; Miss Avery continued
+      passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost, but Margaret
+      heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not finished here yet,&rdquo; she
+      announced, returning. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s still a deal to do. The farm lads will
+      carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into
+      expense at Hilton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all a mistake,&rdquo; repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her
+      foot down. &ldquo;A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live at
+      Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part of
+      this furniture&mdash;my part&mdash;will go down there presently.&rdquo; She
+      looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous.
+      She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious
+      nobility. &ldquo;You think that you won&rsquo;t come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox,
+      but you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That remains to be seen,&rdquo; said Margaret, smiling. &ldquo;We have no intention
+      of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house.
+      Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day&mdash;one
+      never knows, does one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery retorted: &ldquo;Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don&rsquo;t talk about some day. You
+      are living here now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty Margaret
+      rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely censured. They
+      went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in upon her mother&rsquo;s
+      chiffonier, and upstairs, where many an old god peeped from a new niche.
+      The furniture fitted extraordinarily well. In the central room&mdash;over
+      the hall, the room that Helen had slept in four years ago&mdash;Miss Avery
+      had placed Tibby&rsquo;s old bassinette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nursery,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret turned away without speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last everything was seen. The kitchen and lobby were still stacked with
+      furniture and straw, but, as far as she could make out, nothing had been
+      broken or scratched. A pathetic display of ingenuity! Then they took a
+      friendly stroll in the garden. It had gone wild since her last visit. The
+      gravel sweep was weedy, and grass had sprung up at the very jaws of the
+      garage. And Evie&rsquo;s rockery was only bumps. Perhaps Evie was responsible
+      for Miss Avery&rsquo;s oddness. But Margaret suspected that the cause lay
+      deeper, and that the girl&rsquo;s silly letter had but loosed the irritation of
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautiful meadow,&rdquo; she remarked. It was one of those open-air
+      drawing-rooms that have been formed, hundreds of years ago, out of the
+      smaller fields. So the boundary hedge zigzagged down the hill at right
+      angles, and at the bottom there was a little green annex&mdash;a sort of
+      powder-closet for the cows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the maidy&rsquo;s well enough,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, &ldquo;for those, that is, who
+      don&rsquo;t suffer from sneezing.&rdquo; And she cackled maliciously. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen
+      Charlie Wilcox go out to my lads in hay time&mdash;oh, they ought to do
+      this&mdash;they mustn&rsquo;t do that&mdash;he&rsquo;d learn them to be lads. And just
+      then the tickling took him. He has it from his father, with other things.
+      There&rsquo;s not one Wilcox that can stand up against a field in June&mdash;I
+      laughed fit to burst while he was courting Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother gets hay fever too,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This house lies too much on the land for them. Naturally, they were glad
+      enough to slip in at first. But Wilcoxes are better than nothing, as I see
+      you&rsquo;ve found.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They keep a place going, don&rsquo;t they? Yes, it is just that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They keep England going, it is my opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miss Avery upset her by replying: &ldquo;Ay, they breed like rabbits. Well,
+      well, it&rsquo;s a funny world. But He who made it knows what He wants in it, I
+      suppose. If Mrs. Charlie is expecting her fourth, it isn&rsquo;t for us to
+      repine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They breed and they also work,&rdquo; said Margaret, conscious of some
+      invitation to disloyalty, which was echoed by the very breeze and by the
+      songs of the birds. &ldquo;It certainly is a funny world, but so long as men
+      like my husband and his sons govern it, I think it&rsquo;ll never be a bad one&mdash;never
+      really bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, better&rsquo;n nothing,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, and turned to the wych-elm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On their way back to the farm she spoke of her old friend much more
+      clearly than before. In the house Margaret had wondered whether she quite
+      distinguished the first wife from the second. Now she said: &ldquo;I never saw
+      much of Ruth after her grandmother died, but we stayed civil. It was a
+      very civil family. Old Mrs. Howard never spoke against anybody, nor let
+      any one be turned away without food. Then it was never &lsquo;Trespassers will
+      be prosecuted&rsquo; in their land, but would people please not come in? Mrs.
+      Howard was never created to run a farm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had they no men to help them?&rdquo; Margaret asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery replied: &ldquo;Things went on until there were no men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Until Mr. Wilcox came along,&rdquo; corrected Margaret, anxious that her
+      husband should receive his dues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so; but Ruth should have married a&mdash;no disrespect to you
+      to say this, for I take it you were intended to get Wilcox any way,
+      whether she got him first or no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom should she have married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A soldier!&rdquo; exclaimed the old woman. &ldquo;Some real soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. It was a criticism of Henry&rsquo;s character far more
+      trenchant than any of her own. She felt dissatisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s all over,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;A better time is coming now, though
+      you&rsquo;ve kept me long enough waiting. In a couple of weeks I&rsquo;ll see your
+      light shining through the hedge of an evening. Have you ordered in coals?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are not coming,&rdquo; said Margaret firmly. She respected Miss Avery too
+      much to humour her. &ldquo;No. Not coming. Never coming. It has all been a
+      mistake. The furniture must be repacked at once, and I am very sorry, but
+      I am making other arrangements, and must ask you to give me the keys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, and resigned her duties with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Relieved at this conclusion, and having sent her compliments to Madge,
+      Margaret walked back to the station. She had intended to go to the
+      furniture warehouse and give directions for removal, but the muddle had
+      turned out more extensive than she expected, so she decided to consult
+      Henry. It was as well that she did this. He was strongly against employing
+      the local man whom he had previously recommended, and advised her to store
+      in London after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before this could be done an unexpected trouble fell upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was not unexpected entirely. Aunt Juley&rsquo;s health had been bad all
+      winter. She had had a long series of colds and coughs, and had been too
+      busy to get rid of them. She had scarcely promised her niece &ldquo;to really
+      take my tiresome chest in hand,&rdquo; when she caught a chill and developed
+      acute pneumonia. Margaret and Tibby went down to Swanage. Helen was
+      telegraphed for, and that spring party that after all gathered in that
+      hospitable house had all the pathos of fair memories. On a perfect day,
+      when the sky seemed blue porcelain, and the waves of the discreet little
+      bay beat gentlest of tattoos upon the sand, Margaret hurried up through
+      the rhododendrons, confronted again by the senselessness of Death. One
+      death may explain itself, but it throws no light upon another; the groping
+      inquiry must begin anew. Preachers or scientists may generalise, but we
+      know that no generality is possible about those whom we love; not one
+      heaven awaits them, not even one oblivion. Aunt Juley, incapable of
+      tragedy, slipped out of life with odd little laughs and apologies for
+      having stopped in it so long. She was very weak; she could not rise to the
+      occasion, or realise the great mystery which all agree must await her; it
+      only seemed to her that she was quite done up&mdash;more done up than ever
+      before; that she saw and heard and felt less every moment; and that,
+      unless something changed, she would soon feel nothing. Her spare strength
+      she devoted to plans: could not Margaret take some steamer expeditions?
+      were mackerel cooked as Tibby liked them? She worried herself about
+      Helen&rsquo;s absence, and also that she should be the cause of Helen&rsquo;s return.
+      The nurses seemed to think such interests quite natural, and perhaps hers
+      was an average approach to the Great Gate. But Margaret saw Death stripped
+      of any false romance; whatever the idea of Death may contain, the process
+      can be trivial and hideous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Important&mdash;Margaret dear, take the Lulworth when Helen comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen won&rsquo;t be able to stop, Aunt Juley. She has telegraphed that she can
+      only get away just to see you. She must go back to Germany as soon as you
+      are well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very odd of Helen! Mr. Wilcox&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can he spare you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry wished her to come, and had been very kind. Yet again Margaret said
+      so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt did not die. Quite outside her will, a more dignified power took
+      hold of her and checked her on the downward slope. She returned, without
+      emotion, as fidgety as ever. On the fourth day she was out of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&mdash;important,&rdquo; it went on: &ldquo;I should like you to have some
+      companion to take walks with. Do try Miss Conder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been for a little walk with Miss Conder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she is not really interesting. If only you had Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have Tibby, Aunt Juley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but he has to do his Chinese. Some real companion is what you need.
+      Really, Helen is odd.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen is odd, very,&rdquo; agreed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not content with going abroad, why does she want to go back there at
+      once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt she will change her mind when she sees us. She has not the least
+      balance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the stock criticism about Helen, but Margaret&rsquo;s voice trembled as
+      she made it. By now she was deeply pained at her sister&rsquo;s behaviour. It
+      may be unbalanced to fly out of England, but to stay away eight months
+      argues that the heart is awry as well as the head. A sick-bed could recall
+      Helen, but she was deaf to more human calls; after a glimpse at her aunt,
+      she would retire into her nebulous life behind some poste restante. She
+      scarcely existed; her letters had become dull and infrequent; she had no
+      wants and no curiosity. And it was all put down to poor Henry&rsquo;s account!
+      Henry, long pardoned by his wife, was still too infamous to be greeted by
+      his sister-in-law. It was morbid, and, to her alarm, Margaret fancied that
+      she could trace the growth of morbidity back in Helen&rsquo;s life for nearly
+      four years. The flight from Oniton; the unbalanced patronage of the Basts;
+      the explosion of grief up on the Downs&mdash;all connected with Paul, an
+      insignificant boy whose lips had kissed hers for a fraction of time.
+      Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox had feared that they might kiss again. Foolishly&mdash;the
+      real danger was reaction. Reaction against the Wilcoxes had eaten into her
+      life until she was scarcely sane. At twenty-five she had an idee fixe.
+      What hope was there for her as an old woman?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more Margaret thought about it the more alarmed she became. For many
+      months she had put the subject away, but it was too big to be slighted
+      now. There was almost a taint of madness. Were all Helen&rsquo;s actions to be
+      governed by a tiny mishap, such as may happen to any young man or woman?
+      Can human nature be constructed on lines so insignificant? The blundering
+      little encounter at Howards End was vital. It propagated itself where
+      graver intercourse lay barren; it was stronger than sisterly intimacy,
+      stronger than reason or books. In one of her moods Helen had confessed
+      that she still &ldquo;enjoyed&rdquo; it in a certain sense. Paul had faded, but the
+      magic of his caress endured. And where there is enjoyment of the past
+      there may also be reaction&mdash;propagation at both ends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, it is odd and sad that our minds should be such seed-beds, and we
+      without power to choose the seed. But man is an odd, sad creature as yet,
+      intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of the growths within himself.
+      He cannot be bored about psychology. He leaves it to the specialist, which
+      is as if he should leave his dinner to be eaten by a steam-engine. He
+      cannot be bothered to digest his own soul. Margaret and Helen have been
+      more patient, and it is suggested that Margaret has succeeded&mdash;so far
+      as success is yet possible. She does understand herself, she has some
+      rudimentary control over her own growth. Whether Helen has succeeded one
+      cannot say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day that Mrs. Munt rallied Helen&rsquo;s letter arrived. She had posted it
+      at Munich, and would be in London herself on the morrow. It was a
+      disquieting letter, though the opening was affectionate and sane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAREST MEG,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give Helen&rsquo;s love to Aunt Juley. Tell her that I love, and have loved her
+      ever since I can remember. I shall be in London Thursday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My address will be care of the bankers. I have not yet settled on a
+      hotel, so write or wire to me there and give me detailed news. If Aunt
+      Juley is much better, or if, for a terrible reason, it would be no good my
+      coming down to Swanage, you must not think it odd if I do not come. I have
+      all sorts of plans in my head. I am living abroad at present, and want to
+      get back as quickly as possible. Will you please tell me where our
+      furniture is? I should like to take out one or two books; the rest are for
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, dearest Meg. This must read like rather a tiresome letter,
+      but all letters are from your loving
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a tiresome letter, for it tempted Margaret to tell a lie. If she
+      wrote that Aunt Juley was still in danger her sister would come.
+      Unhealthiness is contagious. We cannot be in contact with those who are in
+      a morbid state without ourselves deteriorating. To &ldquo;act for the best&rdquo;
+       might do Helen good, but would do herself harm, and, at the risk of
+      disaster, she kept her colours flying a little longer. She replied that
+      their aunt was much better, and awaited developments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby approved of her reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a pleasanter
+      companion than before. Oxford had done much for him. He had lost his
+      peevishness, and could hide his indifference to people and his interest in
+      food. But he had not grown more human. The years between eighteen and
+      twenty-two, so magical for most, were leading him gently from boyhood to
+      middle age. He had never known young-manliness, that quality which warms
+      the heart till death, and gives Mr. Wilcox an imperishable charm. He was
+      frigid, through no fault of his own, and without cruelty. He thought Helen
+      wrong and Margaret right, but the family trouble was for him what a scene
+      behind footlights is for most people. He had only one suggestion to make,
+      and that was characteristic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you tell Mr. Wilcox?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he has come across that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would do all he could, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you know best. But he is practical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the student&rsquo;s belief in experts. Margaret demurred for one or two
+      reasons. Presently Helen&rsquo;s answer came. She sent a telegram requesting the
+      address of the furniture, as she would now return at once. Margaret
+      replied, &ldquo;Certainly not; meet me at the bankers&rsquo; at four.&rdquo; She and Tibby
+      went up to London. Helen was not at the bankers&rsquo;, and they were refused
+      her address. Helen had passed into chaos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret put her arm round her brother. He was all that she had left, and
+      never had he seemed more unsubstantial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby love, what next?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied: &ldquo;It is extraordinary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear, your judgment&rsquo;s often clearer than mine. Have you any notion what&rsquo;s
+      at the back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, unless it&rsquo;s something mental.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;that!&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Quite impossible.&rdquo; But the suggestion had
+      been uttered, and in a few minutes she took it up herself. Nothing else
+      explained. And London agreed with Tibby. The mask fell off the city, and
+      she saw it for what it really is&mdash;a caricature of infinity. The
+      familiar barriers, the streets along which she moved, the houses between
+      which she had made her little journeys for so many years, became
+      negligible suddenly. Helen seemed one with grimy trees and the traffic and
+      the slowly-flowing slabs of mud. She had accomplished a hideous act of
+      renunciation and returned to the One. Margaret&rsquo;s own faith held firm. She
+      knew the human soul will be merged, if it be merged at all, with the stars
+      and the sea. Yet she felt that her sister had been going amiss for many
+      years. It was symbolic the catastrophe should come now, on a London
+      afternoon, while rain fell slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was the only hope. Henry was definite. He might know of some paths
+      in the chaos that were hidden from them, and she determined to take
+      Tibby&rsquo;s advice and lay the whole matter in his hands. They must call at
+      his office. He could not well make it worse. She went for a few moments
+      into St. Paul&rsquo;s, whose dome stands out of the welter so bravely, as if
+      preaching the gospel of form. But within, St. Paul&rsquo;s is as its
+      surroundings&mdash;echoes and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible
+      mosaics, wet footmarks, crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum
+      requiris, circumspice; it points us back to London. There was no hope of
+      Helen here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was unsatisfactory at first. That she had expected. He was overjoyed
+      to see her back from Swanage, and slow to admit the growth of a new
+      trouble. When they told him of their search, he only chaffed Tibby and the
+      Schlegels generally, and declared that it was &ldquo;just like Helen&rdquo; to lead
+      her relatives a dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what we all say,&rdquo; replied Margaret. &ldquo;But why should it be just
+      like Helen? Why should she be allowed to be so queer, and to grow
+      queerer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me. I&rsquo;m a plain man of business. I live and let live. My advice
+      to you both is, don&rsquo;t worry. Margaret, you&rsquo;ve got black marks again under
+      your eyes. You know that&rsquo;s strictly forbidden. First your aunt&mdash;then
+      your sister. No, we aren&rsquo;t going to have it. Are we, Theobald?&rdquo; He rang
+      the bell. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you some tea, and then you go straight to Ducie
+      Street. I can&rsquo;t have my girl looking as old as her husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same, you have not quite seen our point,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox, who was in good spirits, retorted, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose I ever
+      shall.&rdquo; He leant back, laughing at the gifted but ridiculous family, while
+      the fire flickered over the map of Africa. Margaret motioned to her
+      brother to go on. Rather diffident, he obeyed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&rsquo;s point is this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Our sister may be mad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles, who was working in the inner room, looked round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, Charles,&rdquo; said Margaret kindly. &ldquo;Could you help us at all? We
+      are again in trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I cannot. What are the facts? We are all mad more or less, you
+      know, in these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The facts are as follows,&rdquo; replied Tibby, who had at times a pedantic
+      lucidity. &ldquo;The facts are that she has been in England for three days and
+      will not see us. She has forbidden the bankers to give us her address. She
+      refuses to answer questions. Margaret finds her letters colourless. There
+      are other facts, but these are the most striking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has never behaved like this before, then?&rdquo; asked Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not!&rdquo; said his wife, with a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear, how am I to know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A senseless spasm of annoyance came over her. &ldquo;You know quite well that
+      Helen never sins against affection,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You must have noticed that
+      much in her, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes; she and I have always hit it off together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Henry&mdash;can&rsquo;t you see?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She recovered herself, but not before Charles had observed her. Stupid and
+      attentive, he was watching the scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was meaning that when she was eccentric in the past, one could trace it
+      back to the heart in the long-run. She behaved oddly because she cared for
+      some one, or wanted to help them. There&rsquo;s no possible excuse for her now.
+      She is grieving us deeply, and that is why I am sure that she is not well.
+      &lsquo;Mad&rsquo; is too terrible a word, but she is not well. I shall never believe
+      it. I shouldn&rsquo;t discuss my sister with you if I thought she was well&mdash;trouble
+      you about her, I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry began to grow serious. Ill-health was to him something perfectly
+      definite. Generally well himself, he could not realise that we sink to it
+      by slow gradations. The sick had no rights; they were outside the pale;
+      one could lie to them remorselessly. When his first wife was seized, he
+      had promised to take her down into Hertfordshire, but meanwhile arranged
+      with a nursing-home instead. Helen, too, was ill. And the plan that he
+      sketched out for her capture, clever and well-meaning as it was, drew its
+      ethics from the wolf-pack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want to get hold of her?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the problem, isn&rsquo;t it? She
+      has got to see a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For all I know she has seen one already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; don&rsquo;t interrupt.&rdquo; He rose to his feet and thought intently. The
+      genial, tentative host disappeared, and they saw instead the man who had
+      carved money out of Greece and Africa, and bought forests from the natives
+      for a few bottles of gin. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got it,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s perfectly
+      easy. Leave it to me. We&rsquo;ll send her down to Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How will you do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After her books. Tell her that she must unpack them herself. Then you can
+      meet her there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henry, that&rsquo;s just what she won&rsquo;t let me do. It&rsquo;s part of her&mdash;whatever
+      it is&mdash;never to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you won&rsquo;t tell her you&rsquo;re going. When she is there, looking at
+      the cases, you&rsquo;ll just stroll in. If nothing is wrong with her, so much
+      the better. But there&rsquo;ll be the motor round the corner, and we can run her
+      to a specialist in no time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret shook her head. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem impossible to me,&rdquo; said Tibby; &ldquo;it is surely a very tippy
+      plan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is impossible, because&mdash;&rdquo; She looked at her husband sadly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      not the particular language that Helen and I talk, if you see my meaning.
+      It would do splendidly for other people, whom I don&rsquo;t blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Helen doesn&rsquo;t talk,&rdquo; said Tibby. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s our whole difficulty. She
+      won&rsquo;t talk your particular language, and on that account you think she&rsquo;s
+      ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Henry; it&rsquo;s sweet of you, but I couldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you have scruples.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And sooner than go against them you would have your sister suffer. You
+      could have got her down to Swanage by a word, but you had scruples. And
+      scruples are all very well. I am as scrupulous as any man alive, I hope;
+      but when it is a case like this, when there is a question of madness&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I deny it&rsquo;s madness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said just now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s madness when I say it, but not when you say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Margaret! Margaret!&rdquo; he groaned. &ldquo;No
+      education can teach a woman logic. Now, my dear, my time is valuable. Do
+      you want me to help you or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Answer my question. Plain question, plain answer. Do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles surprised them by interrupting. &ldquo;Pater, we may as well keep
+      Howards End out of it,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Charles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles could give no reason; but Margaret felt as if, over tremendous
+      distance, a salutation had passed between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The whole house is at sixes and sevens,&rdquo; he said crossly. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want
+      any more mess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s &lsquo;we&rsquo;?&rdquo; asked his father. &ldquo;My boy, pray who&rsquo;s &lsquo;we&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said Charles. &ldquo;I appear always to be
+      intruding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By now Margaret wished she had never mentioned her trouble to her husband.
+      Retreat was impossible. He was determined to push the matter to a
+      satisfactory conclusion, and Helen faded as he talked. Her fair, flying
+      hair and eager eyes counted for nothing, for she was ill, without rights,
+      and any of her friends might hunt her. Sick at heart, Margaret joined in
+      the chase. She wrote her sister a lying letter, at her husband&rsquo;s
+      dictation; she said the furniture was all at Howards End, but could be
+      seen on Monday next at 3 P.M., when a charwoman would be in attendance. It
+      was a cold letter, and the more plausible for that. Helen would think she
+      was offended. And on Monday next she and Henry were to lunch with Dolly,
+      and then ambush themselves in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After they had gone, Mr. Wilcox said to his son: &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t have this sort
+      of behaviour, my boy. Margaret&rsquo;s too sweet-natured to mind, but I mind for
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything wrong with you, Charles, this afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, pater; but you may be taking on a bigger business than you reckon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One speaks of the moods of spring, but the days that are her true children
+      have only one mood; they are all full of the rising and dropping of winds,
+      and the whistling of birds. New flowers may come out, the green embroidery
+      of the hedges increase, but the same heaven broods overhead, soft, thick,
+      and blue, the same figures, seen and unseen, are wandering by coppice and
+      meadow. The morning that Margaret had spent with Miss Avery, and the
+      afternoon she set out to entrap Helen, were the scales of a single
+      balance. Time might never have moved, rain never have fallen, and man
+      alone, with his schemes and ailments, was troubling Nature until he saw
+      her through a veil of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She protested no more. Whether Henry was right or wrong, he was most kind,
+      and she knew of no other standard by which to judge him. She must trust
+      him absolutely. As soon as he had taken up a business, his obtuseness
+      vanished. He profited by the slightest indications, and the capture of
+      Helen promised to be staged as deftly as the marriage of Evie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went down in the morning as arranged, and he discovered that their
+      victim was actually in Hilton. On his arrival he called at all the
+      livery-stables in the village, and had a few minutes&rsquo; serious conversation
+      with the proprietors. What he said, Margaret did not know&mdash;perhaps
+      not the truth; but news arrived after lunch that a lady had come by the
+      London train, and had taken a fly to Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was bound to drive,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;There will be her books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot make it out,&rdquo; said Margaret for the hundredth time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finish your coffee, dear. We must be off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Margaret, you know you must take plenty,&rdquo; said Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret tried, but suddenly lifted her hand to her eyes. Dolly stole
+      glances at her father-in-law which he did not answer. In the silence the
+      motor came round to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not fit for it,&rdquo; he said anxiously. &ldquo;Let me go alone. I know
+      exactly what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I am fit,&rdquo; said Margaret, uncovering her face. &ldquo;Only most
+      frightfully worried. I cannot feel that Helen is really alive. Her letters
+      and telegrams seem to have come from some one else. Her voice isn&rsquo;t in
+      them. I don&rsquo;t believe your driver really saw her at the station. I wish
+      I&rsquo;d never mentioned it. I know that Charles is vexed. Yes, he is&mdash;&rdquo;
+       She seized Dolly&rsquo;s hand and kissed it. &ldquo;There, Dolly will forgive me.
+      There. Now we&rsquo;ll be off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry had been looking at her closely. He did not like this breakdown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you want to tidy yourself?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, plenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to the lavatory by the front door, and as soon as the bolt
+      slipped, Mr. Wilcox said quietly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly, I&rsquo;m going without her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly&rsquo;s eyes lit up with vulgar excitement. She followed him on tiptoe out
+      to the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her I thought it best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say anything you like. All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The car started well, and with ordinary luck would have got away. But
+      Porgly-woggles, who was playing in the garden, chose this moment to sit
+      down in the middle of the path. Crane, in trying to pass him, ran one
+      wheel over a bed of wallflowers. Dolly screamed. Margaret, hearing the
+      noise, rushed out hatless, and was in time to jump on the footboard. She
+      said not a single word; he was only treating her as she had treated Helen,
+      and her rage at his dishonesty only helped to indicate what Helen would
+      feel against them. She thought, &ldquo;I deserve it; I am punished for lowering
+      my colours.&rdquo; And she accepted his apologies with a calmness that
+      astonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I still consider you are not fit for it,&rdquo; he kept saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I was not at lunch. But the whole thing is spread clearly before
+      me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was meaning to act for the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just lend me your scarf, will you. This wind takes one&rsquo;s hair so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, dear girl. Are you all right now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! My hands have stopped trembling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have quite forgiven me? Then listen. Her cab should already have
+      arrived at Howards End. (We&rsquo;re a little late, but no matter.) Our first
+      move will be to send it down to wait at the farm, as, if possible, one
+      doesn&rsquo;t want a scene before servants. A certain gentleman&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      pointed at Crane&rsquo;s back&mdash;&ldquo;won&rsquo;t drive in, but will wait a little
+      short of the front gate, behind the laurels. Have you still the keys of
+      the house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they aren&rsquo;t wanted. Do you remember how the house stands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t find her in the porch, we can stroll round into the garden.
+      Our object&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here they stopped to pick up the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just saying to my wife, Mansbridge, that our main object is not to
+      frighten Miss Schlegel. The house, as you know, is my property, so it
+      should seem quite natural for us to be there. The trouble is evidently
+      nervous&mdash;wouldn&rsquo;t you say so, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, a very young man, began to ask questions about Helen. Was she
+      normal? Was there anything congenital or hereditary? Had anything occurred
+      that was likely to alienate her from her family?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; answered Margaret, wondering what would have happened if she
+      had added: &ldquo;Though she did resent my husband&rsquo;s immorality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She always was highly strung,&rdquo; pursued Henry, leaning back in the car as
+      it shot past the church. &ldquo;A tendency to spiritualism and those things,
+      though nothing serious. Musical, literary, artistic, but I should say
+      normal&mdash;a very charming girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret&rsquo;s anger and terror increased every moment. How dare these men
+      label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What impertinences that shelter
+      under the name of science! The pack was turning on Helen, to deny her
+      human rights, and it seemed to Margaret that all Schlegels were threatened
+      with her. &ldquo;Were they normal?&rdquo; What a question to ask! And it is always
+      those who know nothing about human nature, who are bored by psychology&mdash;and
+      shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her sister&rsquo;s state, she
+      knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad together if the world
+      chose to consider them so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now five minutes past three. The car slowed down by the farm, in
+      the yard of which Miss Avery was standing. Henry asked her whether a cab
+      had gone past. She nodded, and the next moment they caught sight of it, at
+      the end of the lane. The car ran silently like a beast of prey. So
+      unsuspicious was Helen that she was sitting in the porch, with her back to
+      the road. She had come. Only her head and shoulders were visible. She sat
+      framed in the vine, and one of her hands played with the buds. The wind
+      ruffled her hair, the sun glorified it; she was as she had always been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was seated next to the door. Before her husband could prevent
+      her, she slipped out. She ran to the garden gate, which was shut, passed
+      through it, and deliberately pushed it in his face. The noise alarmed
+      Helen. Margaret saw her rise with an unfamiliar movement, and, rushing
+      into the porch, learnt the simple explanation of all their fears&mdash;her
+      sister was with child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the truant all right?&rdquo; called Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had time to whisper: &ldquo;Oh, my darling&mdash;&rdquo; The keys of the house
+      were in her hand. She unlocked Howards End and thrust Helen into it. &ldquo;Yes,
+      all right,&rdquo; she said, and stood with her back to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, you look upset!&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mansbridge had followed. Crane was at the gate, and the flyman had stood
+      up on the box. Margaret shook her head at them; she could not speak any
+      more. She remained clutching the keys, as if all their future depended on
+      them. Henry was asking more questions. She shook her head again. His words
+      had no sense. She heard him wonder why she had let Helen in. &ldquo;You might
+      have given me a knock with the gate,&rdquo; was another of his remarks.
+      Presently she heard herself speaking. She, or someone for her, said, &ldquo;Go
+      away.&rdquo; Henry came nearer. He repeated, &ldquo;Margaret, you look upset again. My
+      dear, give me the keys. What are you doing with Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, dearest, do go away, and I will manage it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Manage what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stretched out his hand for the keys. She might have obeyed if it had
+      not been for the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop that at least,&rdquo; she said piteously; the doctor had turned back, and
+      was questioning the driver of Helen&rsquo;s cab. A new feeling came over her;
+      she was fighting for women against men. She did not care about rights, but
+      if men came into Howards End, it should be over her body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, this is an odd beginning,&rdquo; said her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor came forward now, and whispered two words to Mr. Wilcox&mdash;the
+      scandal was out. Sincerely horrified, Henry stood gazing at the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot help it,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Do wait. It&rsquo;s not my fault. Please all
+      four of you go away now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the flyman was whispering to Crane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are relying on you to help us, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said the young doctor.
+      &ldquo;Could you go in and persuade your sister to come out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On what grounds?&rdquo; said Margaret, suddenly looking him straight in the
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking it professional to prevaricate, he murmured something about a
+      nervous breakdown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, but it is nothing of the sort. You are not qualified
+      to attend my sister, Mr. Mansbridge. If we require your services, we will
+      let you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can diagnose the case more bluntly if you wish,&rdquo; he retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could, but you have not. You are, therefore, not qualified to attend
+      my sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, Margaret!&rdquo; said Henry, never raising his eyes. &ldquo;This is a
+      terrible business, an appalling business. It&rsquo;s doctor&rsquo;s orders. Open the
+      door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, but I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This business is as broad as it&rsquo;s long,&rdquo; contributed the doctor. &ldquo;We had
+      better all work together. You need us, Mrs. Wilcox, and we need you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not need you in the least,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men looked at each other anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more does my sister, who is still many weeks from her confinement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, Margaret!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Henry, send your doctor away. What possible use is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox ran his eye over the house. He had a vague feeling that he must
+      stand firm and support the doctor. He himself might need support, for
+      there was trouble ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all turns on affection now,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Affection. Don&rsquo;t you
+      see?&rdquo; Resuming her usual methods, she wrote the word on the house with her
+      finger. &ldquo;Surely you see. I like Helen very much, you not so much. Mr.
+      Mansbridge doesn&rsquo;t know her. That&rsquo;s all. And affection, when reciprocated,
+      gives rights. Put that down in your note-book, Mr. Mansbridge. It&rsquo;s a
+      useful formula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry told her to be calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what you want yourselves,&rdquo; said Margaret, folding her
+      arms. &ldquo;For one sensible remark I will let you in. But you cannot make it.
+      You would trouble my sister for no reason. I will not permit it. I&rsquo;ll
+      stand here all the day sooner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mansbridge,&rdquo; said Henry in a low voice, &ldquo;perhaps not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pack was breaking up. At a sign from his master, Crane also went back
+      into the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Henry, you,&rdquo; she said gently. None of her bitterness had been
+      directed at him. &ldquo;Go away now, dear. I shall want your advice later, no
+      doubt. Forgive me if I have been cross. But, seriously, you must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too stupid to leave her. Now it was Mr. Mansbridge who called in a
+      low voice to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall soon find you down at Dolly&rsquo;s,&rdquo; she called, as the gate at last
+      clanged between them. The fly moved out of the way, the motor backed,
+      turned a little, backed again, and turned in the narrow road. A string of
+      farm carts came up in the middle; but she waited through all, for there
+      was no hurry. When all was over and the car had started, she opened the
+      door. &ldquo;Oh, my darling!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My darling, forgive me.&rdquo; Helen was
+      standing in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret bolted the door on the inside. Then she would have kissed her
+      sister, but Helen, in a dignified voice, that came strangely from her,
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Convenient! You did not tell me that the books were unpacked. I have
+      found nearly everything that I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you nothing that was true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been a great surprise, certainly. Has Aunt Juley been ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you wouldn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d invent that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not,&rdquo; said Helen, turning away, and crying a very little. &ldquo;But
+      one loses faith in everything after this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We thought it was illness, but even then&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t behaved
+      worthily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen selected another book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought not to have consulted any one. What would our father have thought
+      of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not think of questioning her sister, or of rebuking her. Both
+      might be necessary in the future, but she had first to purge a greater
+      crime than any that Helen could have committed&mdash;that want of
+      confidence that is the work of the devil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am annoyed,&rdquo; replied Helen. &ldquo;My wishes should have been respected.
+      I would have gone through this meeting if it was necessary, but after Aunt
+      Juley recovered, it was not necessary. Planning my life, as I now have to
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away from those books,&rdquo; called Margaret. &ldquo;Helen, do talk to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just saying that I have stopped living haphazard. One can&rsquo;t go
+      through a great deal of &mdash;&rdquo;&mdash;she left out the noun&mdash;&ldquo;without
+      planning one&rsquo;s actions in advance. I am going to have a child in June, and
+      in the first place conversations, discussions, excitement, are not good
+      for me. I will go through them if necessary, but only then. In the second
+      place I have no right to trouble people. I cannot fit in with England as I
+      know it. I have done something that the English never pardon. It would not
+      be right for them to pardon it. So I must live where I am not known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why didn&rsquo;t you tell me, dearest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Helen judicially. &ldquo;I might have, but decided to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you would never have told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I should. We have taken a flat in Munich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret glanced out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By &lsquo;we&rsquo; I mean myself and Monica. But for her, I am and have been and
+      always wish to be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not heard of Monica.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t have. She&rsquo;s an Italian&mdash;by birth at least. She makes
+      her living by journalism. I met her originally on Garda. Monica is much
+      the best person to see me through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very fond of her, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has been extraordinarily sensible with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret guessed at Monica&rsquo;s type&mdash;&ldquo;Italiano Inglesiato&rdquo; they had
+      named it&mdash;the crude feminist of the South, whom one respects but
+      avoids. And Helen had turned to it in her need!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not think that we shall never meet,&rdquo; said Helen, with a measured
+      kindness. &ldquo;I shall always have a room for you when you can be spared, and
+      the longer you can be with me the better. But you haven&rsquo;t understood yet,
+      Meg, and of course it is very difficult for you. This is a shock to you.
+      It isn&rsquo;t to me, who have been thinking over our futures for many months,
+      and they won&rsquo;t be changed by a slight contretemps, such as this. I cannot
+      live in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you&rsquo;ve not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN&rsquo;T talk like
+      this to me if you had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?&rdquo; She dropped a book and sighed
+      wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: &ldquo;Tell me, how is it that all
+      the books are down here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Series of mistakes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who lives here, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you are letting it, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house is dead,&rdquo; said Margaret, with a frown. &ldquo;Why worry on about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life. I
+      am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn&rsquo;t the feel of a dead house. The hall
+      seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the Wilcoxes&rsquo; own
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband
+      lent it on condition we&mdash;but by a mistake all our things were
+      unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped. &ldquo;Look here, I
+      can&rsquo;t go on like this. I warn you I won&rsquo;t. Helen, why should you be so
+      miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hate him now,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;I have stopped being a schoolgirl,
+      and, Meg, once again, I&rsquo;m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with
+      your English life&mdash;no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a
+      visit from me at Ducie Street! It&rsquo;s unthinkable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly
+      moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting
+      innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of
+      those who would not blame her. She had been through&mdash;how much?
+      Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as
+      well as old friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about yourself,&rdquo; said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was
+      lingering over the furniture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your marriage has been happy, Meg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I don&rsquo;t feel inclined to talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You feel as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that, but I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which
+      henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already
+      potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered
+      acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that you want to go away from me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so&mdash;dear old lady! it isn&rsquo;t any use. I knew we should have
+      nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more
+      yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, dearest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For that is all we can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen&rsquo;s common sense; Monica had
+      been extraordinarily good for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to have seen you and the things.&rdquo; She looked at the bookcase
+      lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: &ldquo;The car has gone, and here&rsquo;s
+      your cab.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring had
+      never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the gate,
+      called out, &ldquo;Please, lady, a message,&rdquo; and handed her Henry&rsquo;s
+      visiting-card through the bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did this come?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crane had returned with it almost at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in
+      domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back
+      for the night to Dolly&rsquo;s. &ldquo;Il faut dormir sur ce sujet.&rdquo; while Helen was
+      to be found une comfortable chambre a l&rsquo;hotel. The final sentence
+      displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles&rsquo;s had only
+      one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry would have done what he could,&rdquo; she interpreted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost
+      her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to
+      table. She grew more like the old Helen, irresponsible and charming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This IS Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s house?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you remember Howards End?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Avery was extraordinary,&rdquo; said Margaret, her own spirits lightening
+      a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of disloyalty. But it
+      brought her relief, and she yielded to it. &ldquo;She loved Mrs. Wilcox, and
+      would rather furnish her home with our things than think of it empty. In
+      consequence here are all the library books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all the books. She hasn&rsquo;t unpacked the Art books, in which she may
+      show her sense. And we never used to have the sword here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sword looks well, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Magnificent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the piano, Meg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I warehoused that in London. Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Curious, too, that the carpet fits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The carpet&rsquo;s a mistake,&rdquo; announced Helen. &ldquo;I know that we had it in
+      London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to come into
+      the dining-room before you start? There&rsquo;s no carpet there.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+     <p>
+      They went in, and each minute their talk became more natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, WHAT a place for mother&rsquo;s chiffonier!&rdquo; cried Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at the chairs, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;North-west.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun.
+      Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es. The window&rsquo;s too high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try a drawing-room chair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been
+      match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You&rsquo;re perfectly right.
+      It&rsquo;s a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for women.
+      Men don&rsquo;t know what we want&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And never will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree. In two thousand years they&rsquo;ll know. Look where Tibby spilt
+      the soup.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coffee. It was coffee surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen shook her head. &ldquo;Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given
+      coffee at that time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was father alive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you&rsquo;re right and it must have been soup. I was thinking of much
+      later&mdash;that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley&rsquo;s, when she didn&rsquo;t realise
+      that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on purpose. There was
+      some rhyme, &lsquo;Tea, coffee&mdash;coffee tea,&rsquo; that she said to him every
+      morning at breakfast. Wait a minute&mdash;how did it go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;no, I don&rsquo;t. What a detestable boy Tibby was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that greengage-tree,&rdquo; cried Helen, as if the garden was also part of
+      their childhood. &ldquo;Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come the
+      chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love yellow-hammers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret interrupted her. &ldquo;I have got it,&rdquo; she announced.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;&lsquo;Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
+         Or chocolaritee.&rsquo;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby is moderately a dear now,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! I knew you&rsquo;d say that in the end. Of course he&rsquo;s a dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen! what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen said, &ldquo;Perhaps the Wilcoxes are beginning the siege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What nonsense&mdash;listen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the triviality faded from their faces, though it left something behind&mdash;the
+      knowledge that they never could be parted because their love was rooted in
+      common things. Explanations and appeals had failed; they had tried for a
+      common meeting-ground, and had only made each other unhappy. And all the
+      time their salvation was lying round them&mdash;the past sanctifying the
+      present; the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring that there would
+      after all be a future with laughter and the voices of children. Helen,
+      still smiling, came up to her sister. She said, &ldquo;It is always Meg.&rdquo; They
+      looked into each other&rsquo;s eyes. The inner life had paid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solemnly the clapper tolled. No one was in the front. Margaret went to the
+      kitchen, and struggled between packing-cases to the window. Their visitor
+      was only a little boy with a tin can. And triviality returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little boy, what do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, I am the milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Miss Avery send you?&rdquo; said Margaret, rather sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then take it back and say we require no milk.&rdquo; While she called to Helen,
+      &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not the siege, but possibly an attempt to provision us against
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I like milk,&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;Why send it away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you? Oh, very well. But we&rsquo;ve nothing to put it in, and he wants the
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, I&rsquo;m to call in the morning for the can,&rdquo; said the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house will be locked up then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the morning would I bring eggs too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you the boy whom I saw playing in the stacks last week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child hung his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, run away and do it again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nice little boy,&rdquo; whispered Helen. &ldquo;I say, what&rsquo;s your name? Mine&rsquo;s
+      Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was Helen all over. The Wilcoxes, too, would ask a child its name,
+      but they never told their names in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tom, this one here is Margaret. And at home we&rsquo;ve another called Tibby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine are lop-eareds,&rdquo; replied Tom, supposing Tibby to be a rabbit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a very good and rather a clever little boy. Mind you come again.&mdash;Isn&rsquo;t
+      he charming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;He is probably the son of Madge, and Madge
+      is dreadful. But this place has wonderful powers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I probably agree with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It kills what is dreadful and makes what is beautiful live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do agree,&rdquo; said Helen, as she sipped the milk. &ldquo;But you said that the
+      house was dead not half an hour ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meaning that I was dead. I felt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the house has a surer life than we, even if it was empty, and, as it
+      is, I can&rsquo;t get over that for thirty years the sun has never shone full on
+      our furniture. After all, Wickham Place was a grave. Meg, I&rsquo;ve a startling
+      idea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink some milk to steady you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t tell you yet,&rdquo; said Helen, &ldquo;because you may laugh or be
+      angry. Let&rsquo;s go upstairs first and give the rooms an airing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They opened window after window, till the inside, too, was rustling to the
+      spring. Curtains blew, picture frames tapped cheerfully. Helen uttered
+      cries of excitement as she found this bed obviously in its right place,
+      that in its wrong one. She was angry with Miss Avery for not having moved
+      the wardrobes up. &ldquo;Then one would see really.&rdquo; She admired the view. She
+      was the Helen who had written the memorable letters four years ago. As
+      they leant out, looking westward, she said: &ldquo;About my idea. Couldn&rsquo;t you
+      and I camp out in this house for the night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we could well do that,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are beds, tables, towels&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know; but the house isn&rsquo;t supposed to be slept in, and Henry&rsquo;s
+      suggestion was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I require no suggestions. I shall not alter anything in my plans. But it
+      would give me so much pleasure to have one night here with you. It will be
+      something to look back on. Oh, Meg lovey, do let&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Helen, my pet,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;we can&rsquo;t without getting Henry&rsquo;s
+      leave. Of course, he would give it, but you said yourself that you
+      couldn&rsquo;t visit at Ducie Street now, and this is equally intimate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ducie Street is his house. This is ours. Our furniture, our sort of
+      people coming to the door. Do let us camp out, just one night, and Tom
+      shall feed us on eggs and milk. Why not? It&rsquo;s a moon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret hesitated. &ldquo;I feel Charles wouldn&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; she said at last.
+      &ldquo;Even our furniture annoyed him, and I was going to clear it out when Aunt
+      Juley&rsquo;s illness prevented me. I sympathise with Charles. He feels it&rsquo;s his
+      mother&rsquo;s house. He loves it in rather an untaking way. Henry I could
+      answer for&mdash;not Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he won&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;But I am going to pass out of
+      their lives. What difference will it make in the long run if they say,
+      &lsquo;And she even spent the night at Howards End&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know you&rsquo;ll pass out of their lives? We have thought that
+      twice before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because my plans&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;which you change in a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then because my life is great and theirs are little,&rdquo; said Helen, taking
+      fire. &ldquo;I know of things they can&rsquo;t know of, and so do you. We know that
+      there&rsquo;s poetry. We know that there&rsquo;s death. They can only take them on
+      hearsay. We know this is our house, because it feels ours. Oh, they may
+      take the title-deeds and the door-keys, but for this one night we are at
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be lovely to have you once more alone,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;It may
+      be a chance in a thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and we could talk.&rdquo; She dropped her voice. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t be a very
+      glorious story. But under that wych-elm&mdash;honestly, I see little
+      happiness ahead. Cannot I have this one night with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I needn&rsquo;t say how much it would mean to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no good hesitating. Shall I drive down to Hilton now and get
+      leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we don&rsquo;t want leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Margaret was a loyal wife. In spite of imagination and poetry&mdash;perhaps
+      on account of them&mdash;she could sympathise with the technical attitude
+      that Henry would adopt. If possible, she would be technical, too. A
+      night&rsquo;s lodging&mdash;and they demanded no more&mdash;need not involve the
+      discussion of general principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles may say no,&rdquo; grumbled Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shan&rsquo;t consult him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go if you like; I should have stopped without leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the touch of selfishness, which was not enough to mar Helen&rsquo;s
+      character, and even added to its beauty. She would have stopped without
+      leave and escaped to Germany the next morning. Margaret kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Expect me back before dark. I am looking forward to it so much. It is
+      like you to have thought of such a beautiful thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a thing, only an ending,&rdquo; said Helen rather sadly; and the sense of
+      tragedy closed in on Margaret again as soon as she left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was afraid of Miss Avery. It is disquieting to fulfil a prophecy,
+      however superficially. She was glad to see no watching figure as she drove
+      past the farm, but only little Tom, turning somersaults in the straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The tragedy began quietly enough, and, like many another talk, by the
+      man&rsquo;s deft assertion of his superiority. Henry heard her arguing with the
+      driver, stepped out and settled the fellow, who was inclined to be rude,
+      and then led the way to some chairs on the lawn. Dolly, who had not been
+      &ldquo;told,&rdquo; ran out with offers of tea. He refused them, and ordered them to
+      wheel baby&rsquo;s perambulator away, as they desired to be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the diddums can&rsquo;t listen; he isn&rsquo;t nine months old,&rdquo; she pleaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not what I was saying,&rdquo; retorted her father-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baby was wheeled out of earshot, and did not hear about the crisis till
+      later years. It was now the turn of Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it what we feared?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear girl,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;there is a troublesome business ahead of us, and
+      nothing but the most absolute honesty and plain speech will see us
+      through.&rdquo; Margaret bent her head. &ldquo;I am obliged to question you on
+      subjects we&rsquo;d both prefer to leave untouched. As you know, I am not one of
+      your Bernard Shaws who consider nothing sacred. To speak as I must will
+      pain me, but there are occasions&mdash;We are husband and wife, not
+      children. I am a man of the world, and you are a most exceptional woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All Margaret&rsquo;s senses forsook her. She blushed, and looked past him at the
+      Six Hills, covered with spring herbage. Noting her colour, he grew still
+      more kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see that you feel as I felt when&mdash;My poor little wife! Oh, be
+      brave! Just one or two questions, and I have done with you. Was your
+      sister wearing a wedding-ring?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret stammered a &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an appalling silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, I really came to ask a favour about Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One point at a time. I am now obliged to ask for the name of her
+      seducer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to her feet and held the chair between them. Her colour had
+      ebbed, and she was grey. It did not displease him that she should receive
+      his question thus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your time,&rdquo; he counselled her. &ldquo;Remember that this is far worse for
+      me than for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She swayed; he feared she was going to faint. Then speech came, and she
+      said slowly: &ldquo;Seducer? No; I do not know her seducer&rsquo;s name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would she not tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never even asked her who seduced her,&rdquo; said Margaret, dwelling on the
+      hateful word thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is singular.&rdquo; Then he changed his mind. &ldquo;Natural perhaps, dear girl,
+      that you shouldn&rsquo;t ask. But until his name is known, nothing can be done.
+      Sit down. How terrible it is to see you so upset! I knew you weren&rsquo;t fit
+      for it. I wish I hadn&rsquo;t taken you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret answered, &ldquo;I like to stand, if you don&rsquo;t mind, for it gives me a
+      pleasant view of the Six Hills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you anything else to ask me, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next you must tell me whether you have gathered anything. I have often
+      noticed your insight, dear. I only wish my own was as good. You may have
+      guessed something, even though your sister said nothing. The slightest
+      hint would help us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is &lsquo;we&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought it best to ring up Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was unnecessary,&rdquo; said Margaret, growing warmer. &ldquo;This news will
+      give Charles disproportionate pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has at once gone to call on your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That too was unnecessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me explain, dear, how the matter stands. You don&rsquo;t think that I and
+      my son are other than gentlemen? It is in Helen&rsquo;s interests that we are
+      acting. It is still not too late to save her name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret hit out for the first time. &ldquo;Are we to make her seducer
+      marry her?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If possible, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henry, suppose he turned out to be married already? One has heard of
+      such cases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case he must pay heavily for his misconduct, and be thrashed
+      within an inch of his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So her first blow missed. She was thankful of it. What had tempted her to
+      imperil both of their lives. Henry&rsquo;s obtuseness had saved her as well as
+      himself. Exhausted with anger, she sat down again, blinking at him as he
+      told her as much as he thought fit. At last she said: &ldquo;May I ask you my
+      question now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow Helen goes to Munich&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, possibly she is right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, let a lady finish. To-morrow she goes; to-night, with your
+      permission, she would like to sleep at Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the crisis of his life. Again she would have recalled the words as
+      soon as they were uttered. She had not led up to them with sufficient
+      care. She longed to warn him that they were far more important than he
+      supposed. She saw him weighing them, as if they were a business
+      proposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why Howards End?&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;Would she not be more comfortable, as
+      I suggested, at the hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret hastened to give him reasons. &ldquo;It is an odd request, but you know
+      what Helen is and what women in her state are.&rdquo; He frowned, and moved
+      irritably. &ldquo;She has the idea that one night in your house would give her
+      pleasure and do her good. I think she&rsquo;s right. Being one of those
+      imaginative girls, the presence of all our books and furniture soothes
+      her. This is a fact. It is the end of her girlhood. Her last words to me
+      were, &lsquo;A beautiful ending.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She values the old furniture for sentimental reasons, in fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. You have quite understood. It is her last hope of being with
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree there, my dear! Helen will have her share of the goods
+      wherever she goes&mdash;possibly more than her share, for you are so fond
+      of her that you&rsquo;d give her anything of yours that she fancies, wouldn&rsquo;t
+      you? and I&rsquo;d raise no objection. I could understand it if it was her old
+      home, because a home, or a house,&rdquo; he changed the word, designedly; he had
+      thought of a telling point&mdash;&ldquo;because a house in which one has once
+      lived becomes in a sort of way sacred, I don&rsquo;t know why. Associations and
+      so on. Now Helen has no associations with Howards End, though I and
+      Charles and Evie have. I do not see why she wants to stay the night there.
+      She will only catch cold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it that you don&rsquo;t see,&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;Call it fancy. But realise
+      that fancy is a scientific fact. Helen is fanciful, and wants to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he surprised her&mdash;a rare occurrence. He shot an unexpected bolt.
+      &ldquo;If she wants to sleep one night she may want to sleep two. We shall never
+      get her out of the house, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Margaret, with the precipice in sight. &ldquo;And suppose we don&rsquo;t
+      get her out of the house? Would it matter? She would do no one any harm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the irritated gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Henry,&rdquo; she panted, receding. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean that. We will only
+      trouble Howards End for this one night. I take her to London to-morrow&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you intend to sleep in a damp house, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She cannot be left alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s quite impossible! Madness. You must be here to meet Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have already told you that your message to Charles was unnecessary, and
+      I have no desire to meet him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&mdash;my Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has this business to do with Charles? If it concerns me little, it
+      concerns you less, and Charles not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As the future owner of Howards End,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox arching his fingers,
+      &ldquo;I should say that it did concern Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way? Will Helen&rsquo;s condition depreciate the property?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, you are forgetting yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you yourself recommended plain speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked at each other in amazement. The precipice was at their feet
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen commands my sympathy,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;As your husband, I shall do all
+      for her that I can, and I have no doubt that she will prove more sinned
+      against than sinning. But I cannot treat her as if nothing has happened. I
+      should be false to my position in society if I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She controlled herself for the last time. &ldquo;No, let us go back to Helen&rsquo;s
+      request,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is unreasonable, but the request of an unhappy
+      girl. Tomorrow she will go to Germany, and trouble society no longer.
+      To-night she asks to sleep in your empty house&mdash;a house which you do
+      not care about, and which you have not occupied for over a year. May she?
+      Will you give my sister leave? Will you forgive her as you hope to be
+      forgiven, and as you have actually been forgiven? Forgive her for one
+      night only. That will be enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I have actually been forgiven&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind for the moment what I mean by that,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Answer my
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps some hint of her meaning did dawn on him. If so, he blotted it
+      out. Straight from his fortress he answered: &ldquo;I seem rather
+      unaccommodating, but I have some experience of life, and know how one
+      thing leads to another. I am afraid that your sister had better sleep at
+      the hotel. I have my children and the memory of my dear wife to consider.
+      I am sorry, but see that she leaves my house at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have mentioned Mrs. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A rare occurrence. In reply, may I mention Mrs. Bast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not been yourself all day,&rdquo; said Henry, and rose from his seat
+      with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She
+      was transfigured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not any more of this!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You shall see the connection if it
+      kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress&mdash;I forgave you. My sister
+      has a lover&mdash;you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection?
+      Stupid, hypocritical, cruel&mdash;oh, contemptible!&mdash;a man who
+      insults his wife when she&rsquo;s alive and cants with her memory when she&rsquo;s
+      dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin
+      other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not
+      responsible. These men are you. You can&rsquo;t recognise them, because you
+      cannot connect. I&rsquo;ve had enough of your unneeded kindness. I&rsquo;ve spoilt you
+      long enough. All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you.
+      No one has ever told what you are&mdash;muddled, criminally muddled. Men
+      like you use repentance as a blind, so don&rsquo;t repent. Only say to yourself,
+      &lsquo;What Helen has done, I&rsquo;ve done.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The two cases are different,&rdquo; Henry stammered. His real retort was not
+      quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he wanted a little
+      longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only herself.
+      You remain in society, Helen can&rsquo;t. You have had only pleasure, she may
+      die. You have the insolence to talk to me of differences, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, the uselessness of it! Henry&rsquo;s retort came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I perceive you are attempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty weapon
+      for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through life has been never
+      to pay the least attention to threats, and I can only repeat what I said
+      before: I do not give you and your sister leave to sleep at Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first one and
+      then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she stood looking at the
+      Six Hills, tombs of warriors, breasts of the spring. Then she passed out
+      into what was now the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying. Their
+      interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the English
+      language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them
+      understood. Charles saw in Helen the family foe. He had singled her out as
+      the most dangerous of the Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked forward
+      to telling his wife how right he had been. His mind was made up at once;
+      the girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them farther. If
+      occasion offered she might be married to a villain, or, possibly, to a
+      fool. But this was a concession to morality, it formed no part of his main
+      scheme. Honest and hearty was Charles&rsquo;s dislike, and the past spread
+      itself out very clearly before him; hatred is a skilful compositor. As if
+      they were heads in a note-book, he ran through all the incidents of the
+      Schlegels&rsquo; campaign: the attempt to compromise his brother, his mother&rsquo;s
+      legacy, his father&rsquo;s marriage, the introduction of the furniture, the
+      unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the request to sleep at
+      Howards End; that was to be their master-stroke and the opportunity for
+      his. But he already felt that Howards End was the objective, and, though
+      he disliked the house, was determined to defend it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the conventions:
+      his sister had a right to do what she thought right. It is not difficult
+      to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages among them; men
+      can always be more unconventional than women, and a bachelor of
+      independent means need encounter no difficulties at all. Unlike Charles,
+      Tibby had money enough; his ancestors had earned it for him, and if he
+      shocked the people in one set of lodgings he had only to move into
+      another. His was the leisure without sympathy&mdash;an attitude as fatal
+      as the strenuous; a little cold culture may be raised on it, but no art.
+      His sisters had seen the family danger, and had never forgotten to
+      discount the gold islets that raised them from the sea. Tibby gave all the
+      praise to himself, and so despised the struggling and the submerged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence the absurdity of the interview; the gulf between them was economic
+      as well as spiritual. But several facts passed; Charles pressed for them
+      with an impertinence that the undergraduate could not withstand. On what
+      date had Helen gone abroad? To whom? (Charles was anxious to fasten the
+      scandal on Germany.) Then, changing his tactics, he said roughly: &ldquo;I
+      suppose you realise that you are your sister&rsquo;s protector?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what sense?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If a man played about with my sister, I&rsquo;d send a bullet through him, but
+      perhaps you don&rsquo;t mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mind very much,&rdquo; protested Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who d&rsquo;ye suspect, then? Speak out man. One always suspects some one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one. I don&rsquo;t think so.&rdquo; Involuntarily he blushed. He had remembered
+      the scene in his Oxford rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are hiding something,&rdquo; said Charles. As interviews go, he got the
+      best of this one. &ldquo;When you saw her last, did she mention any one&rsquo;s name?
+      Yes or no!&rdquo; he thundered, so that Tibby started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my rooms she mentioned some friends, called the Basts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are the Basts?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People&mdash;friends of hers at Evie&rsquo;s wedding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t remember. But, by great Scott, I do! My aunt told me about some
+      rag-tag. Was she full of them when you saw her? Is there a man? Did she
+      speak of the man? Or&mdash;look here&mdash;have you had any dealings with
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby was silent. Without intending it, he had betrayed his sister&rsquo;s
+      confidence; he was not enough interested in human life to see where things
+      will lead to. He had a strong regard for honesty, and his word, once
+      given, had always been kept up to now. He was deeply vexed, not only for
+      the harm he had done Helen, but for the flaw he had discovered in his own
+      equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see&mdash;you are in his confidence. They met at your rooms. Oh, what a
+      family, what a family! God help the poor pater&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Tibby found himself alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Leonard&mdash;he would figure at length in a newspaper report, but that
+      evening he did not count for much. The foot of the tree was in shadow,
+      since the moon was still hidden behind the house. But above, to right, to
+      left, down the long meadow the moonlight was streaming. Leonard seemed not
+      a man, but a cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps it was Helen&rsquo;s way of falling in love&mdash;a curious way to
+      Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted with
+      his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed her
+      emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice herself, or have instincts, but had
+      she ever loved in the noblest way, where man and woman, having lost
+      themselves in sex, desire to lose sex itself in comradeship?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret wondered, but said no word of blame. This was Helen&rsquo;s evening.
+      Troubles enough lay ahead of her&mdash;the loss of friends and of social
+      advantages, the agony, the supreme agony, of motherhood, which is not even
+      yet a matter of common knowledge. For the present let the moon shine
+      brightly and the breezes of the spring blow gently, dying away from the
+      gale of the day, and let the earth, that brings increase, bring peace. Not
+      even to herself dare she blame Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything or
+      nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and
+      group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen.
+      The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that
+      morality is not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him. It
+      is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Helen&rsquo;s evening&mdash;won at what cost, and not to be marred by
+      the sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never uttered a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One isolates,&rdquo; said Helen slowly. &ldquo;I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other
+      forces that were pulling Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of
+      pity, and almost of revenge. For weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and
+      so, when your letters came&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need never have written them,&rdquo; sighed Margaret. &ldquo;They never shielded
+      Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy away the past, even for others!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know that it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking back, that was wrong of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking back, darling, I know that it was right. It is right to save the
+      man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we both
+      thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his
+      callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time&mdash;and Mrs. Bast
+      was upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to
+      Leonard&mdash;I had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned
+      me I was in danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an
+      explanation. He said that he guessed the explanation&mdash;he knew of it,
+      and you mustn&rsquo;t know. I pressed him to tell me. He said no one must know;
+      it was something to do with his wife. Right up to the end we were Mr. Bast
+      and Miss Schlegel. I was going to tell him that he must be frank with me
+      when I saw his eyes, and guessed that Mr. Wilcox had ruined him in two
+      ways, not one. I drew him to me. I made him tell me. I felt very lonely
+      myself. He is not to blame. He would have gone on worshipping me. I want
+      never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to give him
+      money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known about these
+      things!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her face against the tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The little, too, that is known about growth! Both times it was
+      loneliness, and the night, and panic afterwards. Did Leonard grow out of
+      Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not speak for a moment. So tired was she that her attention
+      had actually wandered to the teeth&mdash;the teeth that had been thrust
+      into the tree&rsquo;s bark to medicate it. From where she sat she could see them
+      gleam. She had been trying to count them. &ldquo;Leonard is a better growth than
+      madness,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I was afraid that you would react against Paul until
+      you went over the verge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did react until I found poor Leonard. I am steady now. I shan&rsquo;t ever
+      like your Henry, dearest Meg, or even speak kindly about him, but all that
+      blinding hate is over. I shall never rave against Wilcoxes any more. I
+      understand how you married him, and you will now be very happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; repeated Helen, her voice growing more tender, &ldquo;I do at last
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little movements.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because in death&mdash;I agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite. I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of that
+      woman&rsquo;s mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She is the house,
+      and the tree that leans over it. People have their own deaths as well as
+      their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall
+      differ in our nothingness. I cannot believe that knowledge such as hers
+      will perish with knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She
+      knew when people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don&rsquo;t
+      doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; called a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, good-night, Miss Avery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should Miss Avery work for us?&rdquo; Helen murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, indeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into the hedge that divided it from
+      the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had filled up, had reappeared, and
+      her track through the dew followed the path that he had turfed over, when
+      he improved the garden and made it possible for games.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is not quite our house yet,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;When Miss Avery called, I
+      felt we are only a couple of tourists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be that everywhere, and for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But affectionate tourists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tourists who pretend each hotel is their home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t pretend very long,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;Sitting under this tree one
+      forgets, but I know that to-morrow I shall see the moon rise out of
+      Germany. Not all your goodness can alter the facts of the case. Unless you
+      will come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret thought for a moment. In the past year she had grown so fond of
+      England that to leave it was a real grief. Yet what detained her? No doubt
+      Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on blustering and muddling into a
+      ripe old age. But what was the good? She had just as soon vanish from his
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your Monica?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not, but I am serious in asking you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, no more plans now. And no more reminiscences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent for a little. It was Helen&rsquo;s evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made
+      music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but
+      its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again.
+      Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life
+      passed. The tree rustled again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep now,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peace of the country was entering into her. It has no commerce with
+      memory, and little with hope. Least of all is it concerned with the hopes
+      of the next five minutes. It is the peace of the present, which passes
+      understanding. Its murmur came &ldquo;now,&rdquo; and &ldquo;now&rdquo; once more as they trod the
+      gravel, and &ldquo;now,&rdquo; as the moonlight fell upon their father&rsquo;s sword. They
+      passed upstairs, kissed, and amidst the endless iterations fell asleep.
+      The house had enshadowed the tree at first, but as the moon rose higher
+      the two disentangled, and were clear for a few moments at midnight.
+      Margaret awoke and looked into the garden. How incomprehensible that
+      Leonard Bast should have won her this night of peace! Was he also part of
+      Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s mind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Far different was Leonard&rsquo;s development. The months after Oniton, whatever
+      minor troubles they might bring him, were all overshadowed by Remorse.
+      When Helen looked back she could philosophise, or she could look into the
+      future and plan for her child. But the father saw nothing beyond his own
+      sin. Weeks afterwards, in the midst of other occupations, he would
+      suddenly cry out, &ldquo;Brute&mdash;you brute, I couldn&rsquo;t have&mdash;&rdquo; and be
+      rent into two people who held dialogues. Or brown rain would descend,
+      blotting out faces and the sky. Even Jacky noticed the change in him. Most
+      terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep. Sometimes he was
+      happy at first, but grew conscious of a burden hanging to him and weighing
+      down his thoughts when they would move. Or little irons scorched his body.
+      Or a sword stabbed him. He would sit at the edge of his bed, holding his
+      heart and moaning, &ldquo;Oh what SHALL I do, whatever SHALL I do?&rdquo; Nothing
+      brought ease. He could put distance between him and the trespass, but it
+      grew in his soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks were right to
+      dethrone her. Her action is too capricious, as though the Erinyes selected
+      for punishment only certain men and certain sins. And of all means to
+      regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy
+      tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the
+      evil. Leonard was driven straight through its torments and emerged pure,
+      but enfeebled&mdash;a better man, who would never lose control of himself
+      again, but also a smaller man, who had less to control. Nor did purity
+      mean peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard to shake off
+      as passion itself, and Leonard continued to start with a cry out of
+      dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never
+      occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their
+      talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton
+      under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute.
+      Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man
+      apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and
+      beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have
+      travelled more gloriously through life than the juggernaut car that was
+      crushing him. Memories of Evie&rsquo;s wedding had warped her, the starched
+      servants, the yards of uneaten food, the rustle of overdressed women,
+      motor-cars oozing grease on the gravel, a pretentious band. She had tasted
+      the lees of this on her arrival; in the darkness, after failure, they
+      intoxicated her. She and the victim seemed alone in a world of unreality,
+      and she loved him absolutely, perhaps for half an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning she was gone. The note that she left, tender and hysterical
+      in tone, and intended to be most kind, hurt her lover terribly. It was as
+      if some work of art had been broken by him, some picture in the National
+      Gallery slashed out of its frame. When he recalled her talents and her
+      social position, he felt that the first passer-by had a right to shoot him
+      down. He was afraid of the waitress and the porters at the
+      railway-station. He was afraid at first of his wife, though later he was
+      to regard her with a strange new tenderness, and to think, &ldquo;There is
+      nothing to choose between us, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The expedition to Shropshire crippled the Basts permanently. Helen in her
+      flight forgot to settle the hotel bill, and took their return tickets away
+      with her; they had to pawn Jacky&rsquo;s bangles to get home, and the smash came
+      a few days afterwards. It is true that Helen offered him five thousand
+      pounds, but such a sum meant nothing to him. He could not see that the
+      girl was desperately righting herself, and trying to save something out of
+      the disaster, if it was only five thousand pounds. But he had to live
+      somehow. He turned to his family, and degraded himself to a professional
+      beggar. There was nothing else for him to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A letter from Leonard,&rdquo; thought Blanche, his sister; &ldquo;and after all this
+      time.&rdquo; She hid it, so that her husband should not see, and when he had
+      gone to his work read it with some emotion, and sent the prodigal a little
+      money out of her dress allowance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A letter from Leonard!&rdquo; said the other sister, Laura, a few days later.
+      She showed it to her husband. He wrote a cruel, insolent reply, but sent
+      more money than Blanche, so Leonard soon wrote to him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And during the winter the system was developed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard realised that they need never starve, because it would be too
+      painful for his relatives. Society is based on the family, and the clever
+      wastrel can exploit this indefinitely. Without a generous thought on
+      either side, pounds and pounds passed. The donors disliked Leonard, and he
+      grew to hate them intensely. When Laura censured his immoral marriage, he
+      thought bitterly, &ldquo;She minds that! What would she say if she knew the
+      truth?&rdquo; When Blanche&rsquo;s husband offered him work, he found some pretext for
+      avoiding it. He had wanted work keenly at Oniton, but too much anxiety had
+      shattered him, he was joining the unemployable. When his brother, the
+      lay-reader, did not reply to a letter, he wrote again, saying that he and
+      Jacky would come down to his village on foot. He did not intend this as
+      blackmail. Still the brother sent a postal order, and it became part of
+      the system. And so passed his winter and his spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the horror there are two bright spots. He never confused the past. He
+      remained alive, and blessed are those who live, if it is only to a sense
+      of sinfulness. The anodyne of muddledom, by which most men blur and blend
+      their mistakes, never passed Leonard&rsquo;s lips&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;And if I drink oblivion of a day,
+         So shorten I the stature of my soul.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      It is a hard saying, and a hard man wrote it, but it lies at the root of
+      all character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the other bright spot was his tenderness for Jacky. He pitied her with
+      nobility now&mdash;not the contemptuous pity of a man who sticks to a
+      woman through thick and thin. He tried to be less irritable. He wondered
+      what her hungry eyes desired&mdash;nothing that she could express, or that
+      he or any man could give her. Would she ever receive the justice that is
+      mercy&mdash;the justice for by-products that the world is too busy to
+      bestow? She was fond of flowers, generous with money, and not revengeful.
+      If she had borne him a child he might have cared for her. Unmarried,
+      Leonard would never have begged; he would have flickered out and died. But
+      the whole of life is mixed. He had to provide for Jacky, and went down
+      dirty paths that she might have a few feathers and the dishes of food that
+      suited her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day he caught sight of Margaret and her brother. He was in St. Paul&rsquo;s.
+      He had entered the cathedral partly to avoid the rain and partly to see a
+      picture that had educated him in former years. But the light was bad, the
+      picture ill placed, and Time and judgment were inside him now. Death alone
+      still charmed him, with her lap of poppies, on which all men shall sleep.
+      He took one glance, and turned aimlessly away towards a chair. Then down
+      the nave he saw Miss Schlegel and her brother. They stood in the fairway
+      of passengers, and their faces were extremely grave. He was perfectly
+      certain that they were in trouble about their sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once outside&mdash;and he fled immediately&mdash;he wished that he had
+      spoken to them. What was his life? What were a few angry words, or even
+      imprisonment? He had done wrong&mdash;that was the true terror. Whatever
+      they might know, he would tell them everything he knew. He re-entered St.
+      Paul&rsquo;s. But they had moved in his absence, and had gone to lay their
+      difficulties before Mr. Wilcox and Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of Margaret turned remorse into new channels. He desired to
+      confess, and though the desire is proof of a weakened nature, which is
+      about to lose the essence of human intercourse, it did not take an ignoble
+      form. He did not suppose that confession would bring him happiness. It was
+      rather that he yearned to get clear of the tangle. So does the suicide
+      yearn. The impulses are akin, and the crime of suicide lies rather in its
+      disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind. Confession need
+      harm no one&mdash;it can satisfy that test&mdash;and though it was
+      un-English, and ignored by our Anglican cathedral, Leonard had a right to
+      decide upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, he trusted Margaret. He wanted her hardness now. That cold,
+      intellectual nature of hers would be just, if unkind. He would do whatever
+      she told him, even if he had to see Helen. That was the supreme punishment
+      she would exact. And perhaps she would tell him how Helen was. That was
+      the supreme reward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew nothing about Margaret, not even whether she was married to Mr.
+      Wilcox, and tracking her out took several days. That evening he toiled
+      through the wet to Wickham Place, where the new flats were now appearing.
+      Was he also the cause of their move? Were they expelled from society on
+      his account? Thence to a public library, but could find no satisfactory
+      Schlegel in the directory. On the morrow he searched again. He hung about
+      outside Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s office at lunch time, and, as the clerks came out
+      said, &ldquo;Excuse me, sir, but is your boss married?&rdquo; Most of them stared,
+      some said, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that to you?&rdquo; but one, who had not yet acquired
+      reticence, told him what he wished. Leonard could not learn the private
+      address. That necessitated more trouble with directories and tubes. Ducie
+      Street was not discovered till the Monday, the day that Margaret and her
+      husband went down on their hunting expedition to Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called at about four o&rsquo;clock. The weather had changed, and the sun
+      shone gaily on the ornamental steps&mdash;black and white marble in
+      triangles. Leonard lowered his eyes to them after ringing the bell. He
+      felt in curious health; doors seemed to be opening and shutting inside his
+      body, and he had been obliged to sleep sitting up in bed, with his back
+      propped against the wall. When the parlourmaid came he could not see her
+      face; the brown rain had descended suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mrs. Wilcox live here?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s out,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When will she be back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll ask,&rdquo; said the parlourmaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had given instructions that no one who mentioned her name should
+      ever be rebuffed. Putting the door on the chain&mdash;for Leonard&rsquo;s
+      appearance demanded this&mdash;she went through to the smoking-room, which
+      was occupied by Tibby. Tibby was asleep. He had had a good lunch. Charles
+      Wilcox had not yet rung him up for the distracting interview. He said
+      drowsily: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Hilton. Howards End. Who is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll ask, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, don&rsquo;t bother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have taken the car to Howards End,&rdquo; said the parlourmaid to Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked her, and asked whereabouts that place was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You appear to want to know a good deal,&rdquo; she remarked. But Margaret had
+      forbidden her to be mysterious. She told him against her better judgment
+      that Howards End was in Hertfordshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a village, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Village! It&rsquo;s Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s private house&mdash;at least, it&rsquo;s one of
+      them. Mrs. Wilcox keeps her furniture there. Hilton is the village.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. And when will they be back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Schlegel doesn&rsquo;t know. We can&rsquo;t know everything, can we?&rdquo; She shut
+      him out, and went to attend to the telephone, which was ringing furiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He loitered away another night of agony. Confession grew more difficult.
+      As soon as possible he went to bed. He watched a patch of moonlight cross
+      the floor of their lodging, and, as sometimes happens when the mind is
+      overtaxed, he fell asleep for the rest of the room, but kept awake for the
+      patch of moonlight. Horrible! Then began one of those disintegrating
+      dialogues. Part of him said: &ldquo;Why horrible? It&rsquo;s ordinary light from the
+      moon.&rdquo; &ldquo;But it moves.&rdquo; &ldquo;So does the moon.&rdquo; &ldquo;But it is a clenched fist.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; &ldquo;But it is going to touch me.&rdquo; &ldquo;Let it.&rdquo; And, seeming to gather
+      motion, the patch ran up his blanket. Presently a blue snake appeared;
+      then another parallel to it. &ldquo;Is there life in the moon?&rdquo; &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;But I thought it was uninhabited.&rdquo; &ldquo;Not by Time, Death, Judgment, and the
+      smaller snakes.&rdquo; &ldquo;Smaller snakes!&rdquo; said Leonard indignantly and aloud.
+      &ldquo;What a notion!&rdquo; By a rending effort of the will he woke the rest of the
+      room up. Jacky, the bed, their food, their clothes on the chair, gradually
+      entered his consciousness, and the horror vanished outwards, like a ring
+      that is spreading through water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Jacky, I&rsquo;m going out for a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell clear of the striped
+      blanket, and began to cover the shawl that lay over her feet. Why had he
+      been afraid? He went to the window, and saw that the moon was descending
+      through a clear sky. He saw her volcanoes, and the bright expanses that a
+      gracious error has named seas. They paled, for the sun, who had lit them
+      up, was coming to light the earth. Sea of Serenity, Sea of Tranquillity,
+      Ocean of the Lunar Storms, merged into one lucent drop, itself to slip
+      into the sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the moon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dressed among the contending lights, and went through his money. It was
+      running low again, but enough for a return ticket to Hilton. As it
+      clinked, Jacky opened her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo, Len! What ho, Len!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ho, Jacky! see you again later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned over and slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman at Covent Garden.
+      Leonard passed out and made his way down to the station. The train, though
+      it did not start for an hour, was already drawn up at the end of the
+      platform, and he lay down in it and slept. With the first jolt he was in
+      daylight; they had left the gateways of King&rsquo;s Cross, and were under blue
+      sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the
+      embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled
+      along behind the eastern smokes&mdash;a wheel, whose fellow was the
+      descending moon&mdash;and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky,
+      not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To the left
+      fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right Leonard saw
+      up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of
+      immortality. Six forest trees&mdash;that is a fact&mdash;grow out of one
+      of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave&rsquo;s occupant&mdash;that is the
+      legend&mdash;is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest
+      trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and
+      farther afield lay the house of a hermit&mdash;Mrs. Wilcox had known him&mdash;who
+      barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor.
+      While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who saw life
+      more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Over all
+      the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses
+      were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they
+      interpreted her, was uttering her cry of &ldquo;now.&rdquo; She did not free Leonard
+      yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at
+      Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting. Leonard noticed the
+      contrast when he stepped out of it into the country. Here men had been up
+      since dawn. Their hours were ruled, not by a London office, but by the
+      movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest type
+      only the sentimentalists can declare. But they kept to the life of
+      daylight. They are England&rsquo;s hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch
+      of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half
+      clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to a nobler
+      stock, and breed yeomen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the chalk pit a motor passed him. In it was another type, whom Nature
+      favours&mdash;the Imperial. Healthy, ever in motion, it hopes to inherit
+      the earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as soundly; strong is
+      the temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country&rsquo;s
+      virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is not what he thinks or seems. He is
+      a destroyer. He prepares the way for cosmopolitanism, and though his
+      ambitions may be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the conviction of innate
+      goodness elsewhere. It was not the optimism which he had been taught at
+      school. Again and again must the drums tap, and the goblins stalk over the
+      universe before joy can be purged of the superficial. It was rather
+      paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death destroys a man, but the idea
+      of death saves him&mdash;that is the best account of it that has yet been
+      given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us, and
+      strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not certain that they
+      will, for they are not love&rsquo;s servants. But they can beckon, and the
+      knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he approached the house all thought stopped. Contradictory notions
+      stood side by side in his mind. He was terrified but happy, ashamed, but
+      had done no sin. He knew the confession: &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox, I have done wrong,&rdquo;
+       but sunrise had robbed its meaning, and he felt rather on a supreme
+      adventure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He entered a garden, steadied himself against a motor-car that he found in
+      it, found a door open and entered a house. Yes, it would be very easy.
+      From a room to the left he heard voices, Margaret&rsquo;s amongst them. His own
+      name was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said, &ldquo;Oh, is he
+      there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him within an inch of his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said Leonard, &ldquo;I have done wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man took him by the collar and cried, &ldquo;Bring me a stick.&rdquo; Women were
+      screaming. A stick, very bright, descended. It hurt him, not where it
+      descended, but in the heart. Books fell over him in a shower. Nothing had
+      sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get some water,&rdquo; commanded Charles, who had all through kept very calm.
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s shamming. Of course I only used the blade. Here, carry him out into
+      the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him. They laid
+      Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel; Helen poured water over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough,&rdquo; said Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, murder&rsquo;s enough,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, coming out of the house with the
+      sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Charles left Ducie Street he had caught the first train home, but had
+      no inkling of the newest development until late at night. Then his father,
+      who had dined alone, sent for him, and in very grave tones inquired for
+      Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where she is, pater&rdquo; said Charles. &ldquo;Dolly kept back dinner
+      nearly an hour for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me when she comes in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another hour passed. The servants went to bed, and Charles visited his
+      father again, to receive further instructions. Mrs. Wilcox had still not
+      returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll sit up for her as late as you like, but she can hardly be coming.
+      Isn&rsquo;t she stopping with her sister at the hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox thoughtfully&mdash;&ldquo;perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I do anything for you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-night, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox liked being called sir. He raised his eyes, and gave his son
+      more open a look of tenderness than he usually ventured. He saw Charles as
+      little boy and strong man in one. Though his wife had proved unstable his
+      children were left to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After midnight he tapped on Charles&rsquo;s door. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t sleep,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+      had better have a talk with you and get it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He complained of the heat. Charles took him out into the garden, and they
+      paced up and down in their dressing-gowns. Charles became very quiet as
+      the story unrolled; he had known all along that Margaret was as bad as her
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will feel differently in the morning,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, who had of
+      course said nothing about Mrs. Bast. &ldquo;But I cannot let this kind of thing
+      continue without comment. I am morally certain that she is with her sister
+      at Howards End. The house is mine&mdash;and, Charles, it will be yours&mdash;and
+      when I say that no one is to live there, I mean that no one is to live
+      there. I won&rsquo;t have it.&rdquo; He looked angrily at the moon. &ldquo;To my mind this
+      question is connected with something far greater, the rights of property
+      itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly,&rdquo; said Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox linked his arm in his son&rsquo;s, but somehow liked him less as he
+      told him more. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want you to conclude that my wife and I had
+      anything of the nature of a quarrel. She was only overwrought, as who
+      would not be? I shall do what I can for Helen, but on the understanding
+      that they clear out of the house at once. Do you see? That is a sine qua
+      non.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then at eight to-morrow I may go up in the car?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight or earlier. Say that you are acting as my representative, and, of
+      course, use no violence, Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow, as Charles returned, leaving Leonard dead upon the gravel,
+      it did not seem to him that he had used violence. Death was due to heart
+      disease. His stepmother herself had said so, and even Miss Avery had
+      acknowledged that he only used the flat of the sword. On his way through
+      the village he informed the police, who thanked him, and said there must
+      be an inquest. He found his father in the garden shading his eyes from the
+      sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been pretty horrible,&rdquo; said Charles gravely. &ldquo;They were there, and
+      they had the man up there with them too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;what man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you last night. His name was Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God! is it possible?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;In your mother&rsquo;s house!
+      Charles, in your mother&rsquo;s house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, pater. That was what I felt. As a matter of fact, there is no
+      need to trouble about the man. He was in the last stages of heart disease,
+      and just before I could show him what I thought of him he went off. The
+      police are seeing about it at this moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox listened attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got up there&mdash;oh, it couldn&rsquo;t have been more than half-past seven.
+      The Avery woman was lighting a fire for them. They were still upstairs. I
+      waited in the drawing-room. We were all moderately civil and collected,
+      though I had my suspicions. I gave them your message, and Mrs. Wilcox
+      said, &lsquo;Oh yes, I see; yes,&rsquo; in that way of hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promised to tell you, &lsquo;with her love,&rsquo; that she was going to Germany
+      with her sister this evening. That was all we had time for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox seemed relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because by then I suppose the man got tired of hiding, for suddenly Mrs.
+      Wilcox screamed out his name. I recognised it, and I went for him in the
+      hall. Was I right, pater? I thought things were going a little too far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right, my dear boy? I don&rsquo;t know. But you would have been no son of mine
+      if you hadn&rsquo;t. Then did he just&mdash;just&mdash;crumple up as you said?&rdquo;
+       He shrunk from the simple word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He caught hold of the bookcase, which came down over him. So I merely put
+      the sword down and carried him into the garden. We all thought he was
+      shamming. However, he&rsquo;s dead right enough. Awful business!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sword?&rdquo; cried his father, with anxiety in his voice. &ldquo;What sword? Whose
+      sword?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sword of theirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were you doing with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, didn&rsquo;t you see, pater, I had to snatch up the first thing handy. I
+      hadn&rsquo;t a riding-whip or stick. I caught him once or twice over the
+      shoulders with the flat of their old German sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He pulled over the bookcase, as I said, and fell,&rdquo; said Charles, with a
+      sigh. It was no fun doing errands for his father, who was never quite
+      satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the real cause was heart disease? Of that you&rsquo;re sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That or a fit. However, we shall hear more than enough at the inquest on
+      such unsavoury topics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went in to breakfast. Charles had a racking headache, consequent on
+      motoring before food. He was also anxious about the future, reflecting
+      that the police must detain Helen and Margaret for the inquest and ferret
+      the whole thing out. He saw himself obliged to leave Hilton. One could not
+      afford to live near the scene of a scandal&mdash;it was not fair on one&rsquo;s
+      wife. His comfort was that the pater&rsquo;s eyes were opened at last. There
+      would be a horrible smash-up, and probably a separation from Margaret;
+      then they would all start again, more as they had been in his mother&rsquo;s
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll go round to the police-station,&rdquo; said his father when
+      breakfast was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo; cried Dolly, who had still not been &ldquo;told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, sir. Which car will you have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good half-mile,&rdquo; said Charles, stepping into the garden. &ldquo;The
+      sun&rsquo;s very hot for April. Shan&rsquo;t I take you up, and then, perhaps, a
+      little spin round by Tewin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go on as if I didn&rsquo;t know my own mind,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox fretfully.
+      Charles hardened his mouth. &ldquo;You young fellows&rsquo; one idea is to get into a
+      motor. I tell you, I want to walk; I&rsquo;m very fond of walking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, all right; I&rsquo;m about the house if you want me for anything. I thought
+      of not going up to the office to-day, if that is your wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, indeed, my boy,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles did not like it; he was uneasy about his father, who did not seem
+      himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about him&mdash;more like
+      a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The Wilcoxes were not
+      lacking in affection; they had it royally, but they did not know how to
+      use it. It was the talent in the napkin, and, for a warm-hearted man,
+      Charles had conveyed very little joy. As he watched his father shuffling
+      up the road, he had a vague regret&mdash;a wish that something had been
+      different somewhere&mdash;a wish (though he did not express it thus) that
+      he had been taught to say &ldquo;I&rdquo; in his youth. He meant to make up for
+      Margaret&rsquo;s defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with
+      her until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick, no
+      doubt&mdash;but how?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to be an
+      inquest on Leonard&rsquo;s body to-morrow, and the police required his son to
+      attend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expected that,&rdquo; said Charles. &ldquo;I shall naturally be the most important
+      witness there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Juley&rsquo;s illness and
+      was not even to end with Leonard&rsquo;s death, it seemed impossible to Margaret
+      that healthy life should re-emerge. Events succeeded in a logical, yet
+      senseless, train. People lost their humanity, and took values as arbitrary
+      as those in a pack of playing-cards. It was natural that Henry should do
+      this and cause Helen to do that, and then think her wrong for doing it;
+      natural that she herself should think him wrong; natural that Leonard
+      should want to know how Helen was, and come, and Charles be angry with him
+      for coming&mdash;natural, but unreal. In this jangle of causes and effects
+      what had become of their true selves? Here Leonard lay dead in the garden,
+      from natural causes; yet life was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky,
+      life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death
+      were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king
+      takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure
+      behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this
+      side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that
+      fetter us now. As a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she,
+      from the turmoil and horror of those days, caught glimpses of the diviner
+      wheels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Helen, dumb with fright, but trying to keep calm for the child&rsquo;s sake,
+      and Miss Avery, calm, but murmuring tenderly, &ldquo;No one ever told the lad
+      he&rsquo;ll have a child&rdquo;&mdash;they also reminded her that horror is not the
+      end. To what ultimate harmony we tend she did not know, but there seemed
+      great chance that a child would be born into the world, to take the great
+      chances of beauty and adventure that the world offers. She moved through
+      the sunlit garden, gathering narcissi, crimson-eyed and white. There was
+      nothing else to be done; the time for telegrams and anger was over and it
+      seemed wisest that the hands of Leonard should be folded on his breast and
+      be filled with flowers. Here was the father; leave it at that. Let Squalor
+      be turned into Tragedy, whose eyes are the stars, and whose hands hold the
+      sunset and the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even the influx of officials, even the return of the doctor, vulgar
+      and acute, could not shake her belief in the eternity of beauty. Science
+      explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries
+      among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the
+      nerves, but this would never give understanding. One could open the heart
+      to Mr. Mansbridge and his sort without discovering its secrets to them,
+      for they wanted everything down in black and white, and black and white
+      was exactly what they were left with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They questioned her closely about Charles. She never suspected why. Death
+      had come, and the doctor agreed that it was due to heart disease. They
+      asked to see her father&rsquo;s sword. She explained that Charles&rsquo;s anger was
+      natural, but mistaken. Miserable questions about Leonard followed, all of
+      which she answered unfalteringly. Then back to Charles again. &ldquo;No doubt
+      Mr. Wilcox may have induced death,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but if it wasn&rsquo;t one thing
+      it would have been another as you know.&rdquo; At last they thanked her and took
+      the sword and the body down to Hilton. She began to pick up the books from
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen had gone to the farm. It was the best place for her, since she had
+      to wait for the inquest. Though, as if things were not hard enough, Madge
+      and her husband had raised trouble; they did not see why they should
+      receive the offscourings of Howards End. And, of course, they were right.
+      The whole world was going to be right, and amply avenge any brave talk
+      against the conventions. &ldquo;Nothing matters,&rdquo; the Schlegels had said in the
+      past, &ldquo;except one&rsquo;s self-respect and that of one&rsquo;s friends.&rdquo; When the time
+      came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge had yielded, and
+      Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and to-morrow she would
+      return to Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for herself, she determined to go too. No message came from Henry;
+      perhaps he expected her to apologise. Now that she had time to think over
+      her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She neither forgave him for his
+      behaviour nor wished to forgive him. Her speech to him seemed perfect. She
+      would not have altered a word. It had to be uttered once in a life, to
+      adjust the lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only to her
+      husband, but to thousands of men like him&mdash;a protest against the
+      inner darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though he
+      would build up his life without hers, she could not apologise. He had
+      refused to connect, on the clearest issue that can be laid before a man,
+      and their love must take the consequences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, there was nothing more to be done. They had tried not to go over the
+      precipice, but perhaps the fall was inevitable. And it comforted her to
+      think that the future was certainly inevitable; cause and effect would go
+      jangling forward to some goal doubtless, but to none that she could
+      imagine. At such moments the soul retires within, to float upon the bosom
+      of a deeper stream, and has communion with the dead, and sees the world&rsquo;s
+      glory not diminished, but different in kind to what she has supposed. She
+      alters her focus until trivial things are blurred. Margaret had been
+      tending this way all the winter. Leonard&rsquo;s death brought her to the goal.
+      Alas! that Henry should fade away as reality emerged, and only her love
+      for him should remain clear, stamped with his image like the cameos we
+      rescue out of dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With unfaltering eye she traced his future. He would soon present a
+      healthy mind to the world again, and what did he or the world care if he
+      was rotten at the core? He would grow into a rich, jolly old man, at times
+      a little sentimental about women, but emptying his glass with anyone.
+      Tenacious of power, he would keep Charles and the rest dependent, and
+      retire from business reluctantly and at an advanced age. He would settle
+      down&mdash;though she could not realise this. In her eyes Henry was always
+      moving and causing others to move, until the ends of the earth met. But in
+      time he must get too tired to move, and settle down. What next? The
+      inevitable word. The release of the soul to its appropriate Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would they meet in it? Margaret believed in immortality for herself. An
+      eternal future had always seemed natural to her. And Henry believed in it
+      for himself. Yet, would they meet again? Are there not rather endless
+      levels beyond the grave, as the theory that he had censured teaches? And
+      his level, whether higher or lower, could it possibly be the same as hers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus gravely meditating, she was summoned by him. He sent up Crane in the
+      motor. Other servants passed like water, but the chauffeur remained,
+      though impertinent and disloyal. Margaret disliked Crane, and he knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it the keys that Mr. Wilcox wants?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t say, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t any note for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t say, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment&rsquo;s thought she locked up Howards End. It was pitiable to see
+      in it the stirrings of warmth that would be quenched for ever. She raked
+      out the fire that was blazing in the kitchen, and spread the coals in the
+      gravelled yard. She closed the windows and drew the curtains. Henry would
+      probably sell the place now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was determined not to spare him, for nothing new had happened as far
+      as they were concerned. Her mood might never have altered from yesterday
+      evening. He was standing a little outside Charles&rsquo;s gate, and motioned the
+      car to stop. When his wife got out he said hoarsely: &ldquo;I prefer to discuss
+      things with you outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be more appropriate in the road, I am afraid,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+      &ldquo;Did you get my message?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to Germany with my sister. I must tell you now that I shall
+      make it my permanent home. Our talk last night was more important than you
+      have realised. I am unable to forgive you and am leaving you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am extremely tired,&rdquo; said Henry, in injured tones. &ldquo;I have been walking
+      about all the morning, and wish to sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, if you will consent to sit on the grass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Great North Road should have been bordered all its length with glebe.
+      Henry&rsquo;s kind had filched most of it. She moved to the scrap opposite,
+      wherein were the Six Hills. They sat down on the farther side, so that
+      they could not be seen by Charles or Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are your keys,&rdquo; said Margaret. She tossed them towards him. They
+      fell on the sunlit slope of grass, and he did not pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have something to tell you,&rdquo; he said gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knew this superficial gentleness, this confession of hastiness, that
+      was only intended to enhance her admiration of the male.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to hear it,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;My sister is going to be ill. My
+      life is going to be with her now. We must manage to build up something,
+      she and I and her child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Munich. We start after the inquest, if she is not too ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After the inquest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you realised what the verdict at the inquest will be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, heart disease.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my dear; manslaughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret drove her fingers through the grass. The hill beneath her moved
+      as if it were alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Manslaughter,&rdquo; repeated Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;Charles may go to prison. I dare not
+      tell him. I don&rsquo;t know what to do&mdash;what to do. I&rsquo;m broken&mdash;I&rsquo;m
+      ended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No sudden warmth arose in her. She did not see that to break him was her
+      only hope. She did not enfold the sufferer in her arms. But all through
+      that day and the next a new life began to move. The verdict was brought
+      in. Charles was committed for trial. It was against all reason that he
+      should be punished, but the law, notwithstanding, sentenced him to three
+      years&rsquo; imprisonment. Then Henry&rsquo;s fortress gave way. He could bear no one
+      but his wife; he shambled up to Margaret afterwards and asked her to do
+      what she could with him. She did what seemed easiest&mdash;she took him
+      down to recruit at Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Tom&rsquo;s father was cutting the big meadow. He passed again and again amid
+      whirring blades and sweet odours of grass, encompassing with narrowing
+      circles the sacred centre of the field. Tom was negotiating with Helen. &ldquo;I
+      haven&rsquo;t any idea,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;Do you suppose baby may, Meg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret put down her work and regarded them absently. &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo;
+       she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tom wants to know whether baby is old enough to play with hay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the least notion,&rdquo; answered Margaret, and took up her work
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Tom, baby is not to stand; he is not to lie on his face; he is not
+      to lie so that his head wags; he is not to be teased or tickled; and he is
+      not to be cut into two or more pieces by the cutter. Will you be as
+      careful as all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom held out his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That child is a wonderful nursemaid,&rdquo; remarked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is fond of baby. That&rsquo;s why he does it!&rdquo; was Helen&rsquo;s answer. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re
+      going to be lifelong friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Starting at the ages of six and one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course. It will be a great thing for Tom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be a greater thing for baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fourteen months had passed, but Margaret still stopped at Howards End. No
+      better plan had occurred to her. The meadow was being recut, the great red
+      poppies were reopening in the garden. July would follow with the little
+      red poppies among the wheat, August with the cutting of the wheat. These
+      little events would become part of her year after year. Every summer she
+      would fear lest the well should give out, every winter lest the pipes
+      should freeze; every westerly gale might blow the wych-elm down and bring
+      the end of all things, and so she could not read or talk during a westerly
+      gale. The air was tranquil now. She and her sister were sitting on the
+      remains of Evie&rsquo;s rockery, where the lawn merged into the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a time they all are!&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;What can they be doing inside?&rdquo;
+       Margaret, who was growing less talkative, made no answer. The noise of the
+      cutter came intermittently, like the breaking of waves. Close by them a
+      man was preparing to scythe out one of the dell-holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish Henry was out to enjoy this,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;This lovely weather and
+      to be shut up in the house! It&rsquo;s very hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has to be,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;The hay fever is his chief objection
+      against living here, but he thinks it worth while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meg, is or isn&rsquo;t he ill? I can&rsquo;t make out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ill. Eternally tired. He has worked very hard all his life, and
+      noticed nothing. Those are the people who collapse when they do notice a
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose he worries dreadfully about his part of the tangle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dreadfully. That is why I wish Dolly had not come, too, to-day. Still, he
+      wanted them all to come. It has to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does he want them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meg, may I tell you something? I like Henry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d be odd if you didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I usen&rsquo;t to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Usen&rsquo;t!&rdquo; She lowered her eyes a moment to the black abyss of the past.
+      They had crossed it, always excepting Leonard and Charles. They were
+      building up a new life, obscure, yet gilded with tranquillity. Leonard was
+      dead; Charles had two years more in prison. One usen&rsquo;t always to see
+      clearly before that time. It was different now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like Henry because he does worry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he likes you because you don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen sighed. She seemed humiliated, and buried her face in her hands.
+      After a time she said: &ldquo;About love,&rdquo; a transition less abrupt than it
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret never stopped working.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean a woman&rsquo;s love for a man. I supposed I should hang my life on to
+      that once, and was driven up and down and about as if something was
+      worrying through me. But everything is peaceful now; I seem cured. That
+      Herr Forstmeister, whom Frieda keeps writing about, must be a noble
+      character, but he doesn&rsquo;t see that I shall never marry him or anyone. It
+      isn&rsquo;t shame or mistrust of myself. I simply couldn&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m ended. I used to
+      be so dreamy about a man&rsquo;s love as a girl, and think that for good or evil
+      love must be the great thing. But it hasn&rsquo;t been; it has been itself a
+      dream. Do you agree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not agree. I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought to remember Leonard as my lover,&rdquo; said Helen, stepping down into
+      the field. &ldquo;I tempted him, and killed him, and it is surely the least I
+      can do. I would like to throw out all my heart to Leonard on such an
+      afternoon as this. But I cannot. It is no good pretending. I am forgetting
+      him.&rdquo; Her eyes filled with tears. &ldquo;How nothing seems to match&mdash;how,
+      my darling, my precious&mdash;&rdquo; She broke off. &ldquo;Tommy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baby&rsquo;s not to try and stand.&mdash;There&rsquo;s something wanting in me. I see
+      you loving Henry, and understanding him better daily, and I know that
+      death wouldn&rsquo;t part you in the least. But I&mdash;Is it some awful,
+      appalling, criminal defect?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret silenced her. She said: &ldquo;It is only that people are far more
+      different than is pretended. All over the world men and women are worrying
+      because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop. Here and
+      there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don&rsquo;t fret yourself,
+      Helen. Develop what you have; love your child. I do not love children. I
+      am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty and charm, but that
+      is all&mdash;nothing real, not one scrap of what there ought to be. And
+      others&mdash;others go farther still, and move outside humanity
+      altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow. Don&rsquo;t you
+      see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle
+      against sameness. Differences, eternal differences, planted by God in a
+      single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow perhaps, but
+      colour in the daily grey. Then I can&rsquo;t have you worrying about Leonard.
+      Don&rsquo;t drag in the personal when it will not come. Forget him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, but what has Leonard got out of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps an adventure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for us. But for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen took up a bunch of grass. She looked at the sorrel, and the red and
+      white and yellow clover, and the quaker grass, and the daisies, and the
+      bents that composed it. She raised it to her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it sweetening yet?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, only withered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will sweeten to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen smiled. &ldquo;Oh, Meg, you are a person,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Think of the racket
+      and torture this time last year. But now I couldn&rsquo;t stop unhappy if I
+      tried. What a change&mdash;and all through you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we merely settled down. You and Henry learnt to understand one
+      another and to forgive, all through the autumn and the winter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but who settled us down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not reply. The scything had begun, and she took off her
+      pince-nez to watch it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;You did it all, sweetest, though you&rsquo;re too stupid to
+      see. Living here was your plan&mdash;I wanted you; he wanted you; and
+      everyone said it was impossible, but you knew. Just think of our lives
+      without you, Meg&mdash;I and baby with Monica, revolting by theory, he
+      handed about from Dolly to Evie. But you picked up the pieces, and made us
+      a home. Can&rsquo;t it strike you&mdash;even for a moment&mdash;that your life
+      has been heroic? Can&rsquo;t you remember the two months after Charles&rsquo;s arrest,
+      when you began to act, and did all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were both ill at the time,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I did the obvious things.
+      I had two invalids to nurse. Here was a house, ready furnished and empty.
+      It was obvious. I didn&rsquo;t know myself it would turn into a permanent home.
+      No doubt I have done a little towards straightening the tangle, but things
+      that I can&rsquo;t phrase have helped me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope it will be permanent,&rdquo; said Helen, drifting away to other
+      thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so. There are moments when I feel Howards End peculiarly our
+      own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same, London&rsquo;s creeping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pointed over the meadow&mdash;over eight or nine meadows, but at the
+      end of them was a red rust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see that in Surrey and even Hampshire now,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;I can see
+      it from the Purbeck Downs. And London is only part of something else, I&rsquo;m
+      afraid. Life&rsquo;s going to be melted down, all over the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret knew that her sister spoke truly. Howards End, Oniton, the
+      Purbeck Downs, the Oderberge, were all survivals, and the melting-pot was
+      being prepared for them. Logically, they had no right to be alive. One&rsquo;s
+      hope was in the weakness of logic. Were they possibly the earth beating
+      time?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because a thing is going strong now, it need not go strong for ever,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;This craze for motion has only set in during the last hundred
+      years. It may be followed by a civilisation that won&rsquo;t be a movement,
+      because it will rest on the earth. All the signs are against it now, but I
+      can&rsquo;t help hoping, and very early in the morning in the garden I feel that
+      our house is the future as well as the past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned and looked at it. Their own memories coloured it now, for
+      Helen&rsquo;s child had been born in the central room of the nine. Then Margaret
+      said, &ldquo;Oh, take care&mdash;!&rdquo; for something moved behind the window of the
+      hall, and the door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The conclave&rsquo;s breaking at last. I&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen retreated with the children far into the field. Friendly voices
+      greeted her. Margaret rose, to encounter a man with a heavy black
+      moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father has asked for you,&rdquo; he said with hostility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her work and followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have been talking business,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;but I dare say you knew
+      all about it beforehand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clumsy of movement&mdash;for he had spent all his life in the saddle&mdash;Paul
+      drove his foot against the paint of the front door. Mrs. Wilcox gave a
+      little cry of annoyance. She did not like anything scratched; she stopped
+      in the hall to take Dolly&rsquo;s boa and gloves out of a vase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband was lying in a great leather chair in the dining-room, and by
+      his side, holding his hand rather ostentatiously, was Evie. Dolly, dressed
+      in purple, sat near the window. The room was a little dark and airless;
+      they were obliged to keep it like this until the carting of the hay.
+      Margaret joined the family without speaking; the five of them had met
+      already at tea, and she knew quite well what was going to be said. Averse
+      to wasting her time, she went on sewing. The clock struck six.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this going to suit everyone?&rdquo; said Henry in a weary voice. He used the
+      old phrases, but their effect was unexpected and shadowy. &ldquo;Because I don&rsquo;t
+      want you all coming here later on and complaining that I have been
+      unfair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s apparently got to suit us,&rdquo; said Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, my boy. You have only to speak, and I will leave the
+      house to you instead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul frowned ill-temperedly, and began scratching at his arm. &ldquo;As I&rsquo;ve
+      given up the outdoor life that suited me, and I have come home to look
+      after the business, it&rsquo;s no good my settling down here,&rdquo; he said at last.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not really the country, and it&rsquo;s not the town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Does my arrangement suit you, Evie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, Dolly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly raised her faded little face, which sorrow could wither but not
+      steady. &ldquo;Perfectly splendidly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I thought Charles wanted it for
+      the boys, but last time I saw him he said no, because we cannot possibly
+      live in this part of England again. Charles says we ought to change our
+      name, but I cannot think what to, for Wilcox just suits Charles and me,
+      and I can&rsquo;t think of any other name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general silence. Dolly looked nervously round, fearing that
+      she had been inappropriate. Paul continued to scratch his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I leave Howards End to my wife absolutely,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;And let
+      everyone understand that; and after I am dead let there be no jealousy and
+      no surprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not answer. There was something uncanny in her triumph. She,
+      who had never expected to conquer anyone, had charged straight through
+      these Wilcoxes and broken up their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In consequence, I leave my wife no money,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;That is her own
+      wish. All that she would have had will be divided among you. I am also
+      giving you a great deal in my lifetime, so that you may be independent of
+      me. That is her wish, too. She also is giving away a great deal of money.
+      She intends to diminish her income by half during the next ten years; she
+      intends when she dies to leave the house to her nephew, down in the field.
+      Is all that clear? Does everyone understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul rose to his feet. He was accustomed to natives, and a very little
+      shook him out of the Englishman. Feeling manly and cynical, he said: &ldquo;Down
+      in the field? Oh, come! I think we might have had the whole establishment,
+      piccaninnies included.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cahill whispered: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, Paul. You promised you&rsquo;d take care.&rdquo;
+       Feeling a woman of the world, she rose and prepared to take her leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father kissed her. &ldquo;Good-bye, old girl,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you worry
+      about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, dad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then it was Dolly&rsquo;s turn. Anxious to contribute, she laughed nervously,
+      and said: &ldquo;Good-bye, Mr. Wilcox. It does seem curious that Mrs. Wilcox
+      should have left Margaret Howards End, and yet she get it, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From Evie came a sharply-drawn breath. &ldquo;Goodbye,&rdquo; she said to Margaret,
+      and kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again and again fell the word, like the ebb of a dying sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Dolly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, my boy; always take care of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Mrs. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret saw their visitors to the gate. Then she returned to her husband
+      and laid her head in his hands. He was pitiably tired. But Dolly&rsquo;s remark
+      had interested her. At last she said: &ldquo;Could you tell me, Henry, what was
+      that about Mrs. Wilcox having left me Howards End?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tranquilly he replied: &ldquo;Yes, she did. But that is a very old story. When
+      she was ill and you were so kind to her she wanted to make you some
+      return, and, not being herself at the time, scribbled &lsquo;Howards End&rsquo; on a
+      piece of paper. I went into it thoroughly, and, as it was clearly
+      fanciful, I set it aside, little knowing what my Margaret would be to me
+      in the future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost recesses, and
+      she shivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t do wrong, did I?&rdquo; he asked, bending down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t, darling. Nothing has been done wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From the garden came laughter. &ldquo;Here they are at last!&rdquo; exclaimed Henry,
+      disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the gloom, holding Tom
+      by one hand and carrying her baby on the other. There were shouts of
+      infectious joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The field&rsquo;s cut!&rdquo; Helen cried excitedly&mdash;&ldquo;the big meadow! We&rsquo;ve seen
+      to the very end, and it&rsquo;ll be such a crop of hay as never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      WEYBRIDGE, 1908-1910. <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
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+      Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+    </title>
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+Title: Howards End
+
+Author: E. M. Forster
+
+Release Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #2946]
+[Last updated September 8, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOWARDS END ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      HOWARDS END
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By E. M. Forster
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One may as well begin with Helen&rsquo;s letters to her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tuesday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest Meg,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and
+      altogether delightful&mdash;red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is,
+      and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives
+      to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or
+      drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in
+      it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the
+      first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a row
+      above. That isn&rsquo;t all the house really, but it&rsquo;s all that one notices&mdash;nine
+      windows as you look up from the front garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s a very big wych-elm&mdash;to the left as you look up&mdash;leaning
+      a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden
+      and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks&mdash;no
+      nastier than ordinary oaks&mdash;pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No
+      silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I
+      only wanted to show that it isn&rsquo;t the least what we expected. Why did we
+      settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden
+      all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate them
+      with expensive hotels&mdash;Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down
+      long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are that
+      unjust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They are as
+      angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is too tiresome, he
+      starts a new mortal disease every month. How could he have got hay fever
+      in London? and even if he could, it seems hard that you should give up a
+      visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son
+      who is here) has hay fever too, but he&rsquo;s brave, and gets quite cross when
+      we inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good.
+      But you won&rsquo;t agree, and I&rsquo;d better change the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This long letter is because I&rsquo;m writing before breakfast. Oh, the
+      beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I looked out
+      earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden. She evidently loves
+      it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She was watching the large red
+      poppies come out. Then she walked off the lawn to the meadow, whose corner
+      to the right I can just see. Trail, trail, went her long dress over the
+      sopping grass, and she came back with her hands full of the hay that was
+      cut yesterday&mdash;I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on
+      smelling it. The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of
+      croquet balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox practising;
+      they are keen on all games. Presently he started sneezing and had to stop.
+      Then I hear more clicketing, and it is Mr. Wilcox practising, and then,
+      &lsquo;a-tissue, a-tissue&rsquo;: he has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and does
+      some calisthenic exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a
+      green-gage-tree&mdash;they put everything to use&mdash;and then she says
+      &lsquo;a-tissue,&rsquo; and in she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail,
+      trail, still smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this
+      on you because once you said that life is sometimes life and sometimes
+      only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish tother from which, and up
+      to now I have always put that down as &lsquo;Meg&rsquo;s clever nonsense.&rsquo; But this
+      morning, it really does seem not life but a play, and it did amuse me
+      enormously to watch the W&rsquo;s. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an [omission],
+      and Evie [omission]. So it isn&rsquo;t exactly a go-as-you-please place, and if
+      you shut your eyes it still seems the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not
+      if you open them. The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of
+      them over the lawn&mdash;magnificently tall, so that they fall down in
+      garlands, and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks
+      through it and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house
+      near us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to Tibby.
+      Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you company, but what
+      a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friday
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest Meg,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if quieter
+      than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw anything like her
+      steady unselfishness, and the best of it is that the others do not take
+      advantage of her. They are the very happiest, jolliest family that you can
+      imagine. I do really feel that we are making friends. The fun of it is
+      that they think me a noodle, and say so&mdash;at least, Mr. Wilcox does&mdash;and
+      when that happens, and one doesn&rsquo;t mind, it&rsquo;s a pretty sure test, isn&rsquo;t
+      it? He says the most horrid things about woman&rsquo;s suffrage so nicely, and
+      when I said I believed in equality he just folded his arms and gave me
+      such a setting down as I&rsquo;ve never had. Meg, shall we ever learn to talk
+      less? I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I couldn&rsquo;t point to a
+      time when men had been equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal
+      had made them happier in other ways. I couldn&rsquo;t say a word. I had just
+      picked up the notion that equality is good from some book&mdash;probably
+      from poetry, or you. Anyhow, it&rsquo;s been knocked into pieces, and, like all
+      people who are really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without hurting me. On the
+      other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay fever. We live like
+      fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out every day in the motor&mdash;a
+      tomb with trees in it, a hermit&rsquo;s house, a wonderful road that was made by
+      the Kings of Mercia&mdash;tennis&mdash;a cricket match&mdash;bridge and at
+      night we squeeze up in this lovely house. The whole clan&rsquo;s here now&mdash;it&rsquo;s
+      like a rabbit warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over Sunday&mdash;I
+      suppose it won&rsquo;t matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the views
+      marvellous&mdash;views westward to the high ground. Thank you for your
+      letter. Burn this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your affectionate
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sunday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest, dearest Meg,&mdash;I do not know what you will say: Paul and I
+      are in love&mdash;the younger son who only came here Wednesday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret glanced at her sister&rsquo;s note and pushed it over the
+      breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment&rsquo;s hush, and then the
+      flood-gates opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do. We met&mdash;we
+      only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I know so little that I
+      didn&rsquo;t even know their son&rsquo;s name. It&rsquo;s all so&mdash;&rdquo; She waved her hand
+      and laughed a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case it is far too sudden.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn&rsquo;t be unpractical now that we&rsquo;ve
+      come to facts. It is too sudden, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who knows!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Margaret, dear&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go for her other letters,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;ll finish
+      my breakfast. In fact, I haven&rsquo;t them. We met the Wilcoxes on an awful
+      expedition that we made from Heidelberg to Speyer. Helen and I had got it
+      into our heads that there was a grand old cathedral at Speyer&mdash;the
+      Archbishop of Speyer was one of the seven electors&mdash;you know&mdash;&lsquo;Speyer,
+      Maintz, and Koln.&rsquo; Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and
+      got it the name of Priest Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it looked
+      quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole thing. The
+      cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by restoration; not an inch
+      left of the original structure. We wasted a whole day, and came across the
+      Wilcoxes as we were eating our sandwiches in the public gardens. They too,
+      poor things, had been taken in&mdash;they were actually stopping at Speyer&mdash;and
+      they rather liked Helen&rsquo;s insisting that they must fly with us to
+      Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on next day. We all took
+      some drives together. They knew us well enough to ask Helen to come and
+      see them&mdash;at least, I was asked too, but Tibby&rsquo;s illness prevented
+      me, so last Monday she went alone. That&rsquo;s all. You know as much as I do
+      now. It&rsquo;s a young man out of the unknown. She was to have come back
+      Saturday, but put off till Monday, perhaps on account of&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning. Their house
+      was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty promontory of
+      buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare. One had the sense of a
+      backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose waters flowed in from the
+      invisible sea, and ebbed into a profound silence while the waves without
+      were still beating. Though the promontory consisted of flats&mdash;expensive,
+      with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms&mdash;it
+      fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a certain
+      measure of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These, too, would be swept away in time, and another promontory would
+      arise upon their site, as humanity piled itself higher and higher on the
+      precious soil of London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces. She decided that
+      Margaret was a little hysterical, and was trying to gain time by a torrent
+      of talk. Feeling very diplomatic, she lamented the fate of Speyer, and
+      declared that never, never should she be so misguided as to visit it, and
+      added of her own accord that the principles of restoration were ill
+      understood in Germany. &ldquo;The Germans,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;are too thorough, and
+      this is all very well sometimes, but at other times it does not do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly,&rdquo; said Margaret; &ldquo;Germans are too thorough.&rdquo; And her eyes began
+      to shine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I regard you Schlegels as English,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt hastily&mdash;&ldquo;English
+      to the backbone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that reminds me&mdash;Helen&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helen&rsquo;s letter. I know&mdash;I
+      must go down and see her. I am thinking about her all right. I am meaning
+      to go down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But go with some plan,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her kindly voice a
+      note of exasperation. &ldquo;Margaret, if I may interfere, don&rsquo;t be taken by
+      surprise. What do you think of the Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they
+      likely people? Could they appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very
+      special sort of person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is
+      most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most
+      important. How old would the son be? She says &lsquo;younger son.&rsquo; Would he be
+      in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen happy? Did you gather&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gathered nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They began to talk at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then in that case&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case I can make no plans, don&rsquo;t you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the contrary&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isn&rsquo;t a baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then in that case, my dear, why go down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. If her aunt could not see why she must go down, she
+      was not going to tell her. She was not going to say, &ldquo;I love my dear
+      sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her life.&rdquo; The affections are
+      more reticent than the passions, and their expression more subtle. If she
+      herself should ever fall in love with a man, she, like Helen, would
+      proclaim it from the housetops, but as she loved only a sister she used
+      the voiceless language of sympathy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I consider you odd girls,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Munt, &ldquo;and very wonderful
+      girls, and in many ways far older than your years. But&mdash;you won&rsquo;t be
+      offended? frankly, I feel you are not up to this business. It requires an
+      older person. Dear, I have nothing to call me back to Swanage.&rdquo; She spread
+      out her plump arms. &ldquo;I am all at your disposal. Let me go down to this
+      house whose name I forget instead of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley&rdquo;&mdash;she jumped up and kissed her&mdash;&ldquo;I must, must go to
+      Howards End myself. You don&rsquo;t exactly understand, though I can never thank
+      you properly for offering.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do understand,&rdquo; retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence. &ldquo;I go down
+      in no spirit of interference, but to make inquiries. Inquiries are
+      necessary. Now, I am going to be rude. You would say the wrong thing; to a
+      certainty you would. In your anxiety for Helen&rsquo;s happiness you would
+      offend the whole of these Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous
+      questions&mdash;not that one minds offending them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall ask no questions. I have it in Helen&rsquo;s writing that she and a man
+      are in love. There is no question to ask as long as she keeps to that. All
+      the rest isn&rsquo;t worth a straw. A long engagement if you like, but
+      inquiries, questions, plans, lines of action&mdash;no, Aunt Juley, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with
+      something that took the place of both qualities&mdash;something best
+      described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all
+      that she encountered in her path through life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a penniless
+      clerk&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your good
+      maids are dusting the banisters.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;or if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter
+      Paterson, I should have said the same.&rdquo; Then, with one of those turns that
+      convinced her aunt that she was not mad really, and convinced observers of
+      another type that she was not a barren theorist, she added: &ldquo;Though in the
+      case of Carter Paterson I should want it to be a very long engagement
+      indeed, I must say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt; &ldquo;and, indeed, I can scarcely follow
+      you. Now, just imagine if you said anything of that sort to the Wilcoxes.
+      I understand it, but most good people would think you mad. Imagine how
+      disconcerting for Helen! What is wanted is a person who will go slowly,
+      slowly in this business, and see how things are and where they are likely
+      to lead to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was down on this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think probably it must; but slowly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you break an engagement off slowly?&rdquo; Her eyes lit up. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s an
+      engagement made of, do you suppose? I think it&rsquo;s made of some hard stuff
+      that may snap, but can&rsquo;t break. It is different to the other ties of life.
+      They stretch or bend. They admit of degree. They&rsquo;re different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly so. But won&rsquo;t you let me just run down to Howards House, and save
+      you all the discomfort? I will really not interfere, but I do so
+      thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels want that one quiet
+      look round will be enough for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret again thanked her, again kissed her, and then ran upstairs to see
+      her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not so well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night. His head ached, his
+      eyes were wet, his mucous membrane, he informed her, in a most
+      unsatisfactory condition. The only thing that made life worth living was
+      the thought of Walter Savage Landor, from whose Imaginary Conversations
+      she had promised to read at frequent intervals during the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She must be
+      assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at first sight. A
+      telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic, a personal visit seemed
+      each moment more impossible. Now the doctor arrived, and said that Tibby
+      was quite bad. Might it really be best to accept Aunt Juley&rsquo;s kind offer,
+      and to send her down to Howards End with a note?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly Margaret was impulsive. She did swing rapidly from one decision
+      to another. Running downstairs into the library, she cried: &ldquo;Yes, I have
+      changed my mind; I do wish that you would go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a train from King&rsquo;s Cross at eleven. At half-past ten Tibby,
+      with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was able to drive her
+      aunt to the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will remember, Aunt Juley, not to be drawn into discussing the
+      engagement. Give my letter to Helen, and say whatever you feel yourself,
+      but do keep clear of the relatives. We have scarcely got their names
+      straight yet, and, besides, that sort of thing is so uncivilised and
+      wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So uncivilised?&rdquo; queried Mrs. Munt, fearing that she was losing the point
+      of some brilliant remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I used an affected word. I only meant would you please talk the thing
+      over only with Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only with Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;&rdquo; But it was no moment to expound the personal nature of
+      love. Even Margaret shrank from it, and contented herself with stroking
+      her good aunt&rsquo;s hand, and with meditating, half sensibly and half
+      poetically, on the journey that was about to begin from King&rsquo;s Cross.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong
+      feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the
+      glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and
+      sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent
+      and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands
+      and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston;
+      Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo. Italians realise this, as is
+      natural; those of them who are so unfortunate as to serve as waiters in
+      Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d&rsquo;Italia, because by it they
+      must return to their homes. And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow
+      his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however shyly, the
+      emotions of fear and love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Margaret&mdash;I hope that it will not set the reader against her&mdash;the
+      station of King&rsquo;s Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very situation&mdash;withdrawn
+      a little behind the facile splendours of St. Pancras&mdash;implied a
+      comment on the materialism of life. Those two great arches, colourless,
+      indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals
+      for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would
+      certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. If you
+      think this ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is telling you
+      about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in plenty of time for
+      the train; that Mrs. Munt, though she took a second-class ticket, was put
+      by the guard into a first (only two &ldquo;seconds&rdquo; on the train, one smoking
+      and the other babies&mdash;one cannot be expected to travel with babies);
+      and that Margaret, on her return to Wickham Place, was confronted with the
+      following telegram:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one&mdash;, HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Aunt Juley was gone&mdash;gone irrevocably, and no power on earth
+      could stop her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Most complacently did Mrs. Munt rehearse her mission. Her nieces were
+      independent young women, and it was not often that she was able to help
+      them. Emily&rsquo;s daughters had never been quite like other girls. They had
+      been left motherless when Tibby was born, when Helen was five and Margaret
+      herself but thirteen. It was before the passing of the Deceased Wife&rsquo;s
+      Sister Bill, so Mrs. Munt could without impropriety offer to go and keep
+      house at Wickham Place. But her brother-in-law, who was peculiar and a
+      German, had referred the question to Margaret, who with the crudity of
+      youth had answered, &ldquo;No, they could manage much better alone.&rdquo; Five years
+      later Mr. Schlegel had died too, and Mrs. Munt had repeated her offer.
+      Margaret, crude no longer, had been grateful and extremely nice, but the
+      substance of her answer had been the same. &ldquo;I must not interfere a third
+      time,&rdquo; thought Mrs. Munt. However, of course she did. She learnt, to her
+      horror, that Margaret, now of age, was taking her money out of the old
+      safe investments and putting it into Foreign Things, which always smash.
+      Silence would have been criminal. Her own fortune was invested in Home
+      Rails, and most ardently did she beg her niece to imitate her. &ldquo;Then we
+      should be together, dear.&rdquo; Margaret, out of politeness, invested a few
+      hundreds in the Nottingham and Derby Railway, and though the Foreign
+      Things did admirably and the Nottingham and Derby declined with the steady
+      dignity of which only Home Rails are capable, Mrs. Munt never ceased to
+      rejoice, and to say, &ldquo;I did manage that, at all events. When the smash
+      comes poor Margaret will have a nest-egg to fall back upon.&rdquo; This year
+      Helen came of age, and exactly the same thing happened in Helen&rsquo;s case;
+      she also would shift her money out of Consols, but she, too, almost
+      without being pressed, consecrated a fraction of it to the Nottingham and
+      Derby Railway. So far so good, but in social matters their aunt had
+      accomplished nothing. Sooner or later the girls would enter on the process
+      known as throwing themselves away, and if they had delayed hitherto, it
+      was only that they might throw themselves more vehemently in the future.
+      They saw too many people at Wickham Place&mdash;unshaven musicians, an
+      actress even, German cousins (one knows what foreigners are),
+      acquaintances picked up at Continental hotels (one knows what they are
+      too). It was interesting, and down at Swanage no one appreciated culture
+      more than Mrs. Munt; but it was dangerous, and disaster was bound to come.
+      How right she was, and how lucky to be on the spot when the disaster came!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It was only an hour&rsquo;s
+      journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and lower the window again and again.
+      She passed through the South Welwyn Tunnel, saw light for a moment, and
+      entered the North Welwyn Tunnel, of tragic fame. She traversed the immense
+      viaduct, whose arches span untroubled meadows and the dreamy flow of Tewin
+      Water. She skirted the parks of politicians. At times the Great North Road
+      accompanied her, more suggestive of infinity than any railway, awakening,
+      after a nap of a hundred years, to such life as is conferred by the stench
+      of motor-cars, and to such culture as is implied by the advertisements of
+      antibilious pills. To history, to tragedy, to the past, to the future,
+      Mrs. Munt remained equally indifferent; hers but to concentrate on the end
+      of her journey, and to rescue poor Helen from this dreadful mess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station for Howards End was at Hilton, one of the large villages that
+      are strung so frequently along the North Road, and that owe their size to
+      the traffic of coaching and pre-coaching days. Being near London, it had
+      not shared in the rural decay, and its long High Street had budded out
+      right and left into residential estates. For about a mile a series of
+      tiled and slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s inattentive eyes, a
+      series broken at one point by six Danish tumuli that stood shoulder to
+      shoulder along the highroad, tombs of soldiers. Beyond these tumuli,
+      habitations thickened, and the train came to a standstill in a tangle that
+      was almost a town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station, like the scenery, like Helen&rsquo;s letters, struck an
+      indeterminate note. Into which country will it lead, England or Suburbia?
+      It was new, it had island platforms and a subway, and the superficial
+      comfort exacted by business men. But it held hints of local life, personal
+      intercourse, as even Mrs. Munt was to discover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want a house,&rdquo; she confided to the ticket boy. &ldquo;Its name is Howards
+      Lodge. Do you know where it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox!&rdquo; the boy called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A young man in front of them turned around.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s wanting Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing for it but to go forward, though Mrs. Munt was too much
+      agitated even to stare at the stranger. But remembering that there were
+      two brothers, she had the sense to say to him, &ldquo;Excuse me asking, but are
+      you the younger Mr. Wilcox or the elder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The younger. Can I do anything for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well&rdquo;&mdash;she controlled herself with difficulty. &ldquo;Really. Are you?
+      I&mdash;&rdquo; She moved; away from the ticket boy and lowered her voice. &ldquo;I am
+      Miss Schlegel&rsquo;s aunt. I ought to introduce myself, oughtn&rsquo;t I? My name is
+      Mrs. Munt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was conscious that he raised his cap and said quite coolly, &ldquo;Oh,
+      rather; Miss Schlegel is stopping with us. Did you want to see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll call you a cab. No; wait a mo&mdash;&rdquo; He thought. &ldquo;Our motor&rsquo;s here.
+      I&rsquo;ll run you up in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is very kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, if you&rsquo;ll just wait till they bring out a parcel from the
+      office. This way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My niece is not with you by any chance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I came over with my father. He has gone on north in your train.
+      You&rsquo;ll see Miss Schlegel at lunch. You&rsquo;re coming up to lunch, I hope?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to come UP,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, not committing herself to
+      nourishment until she had studied Helen&rsquo;s lover a little more. He seemed a
+      gentleman, but had so rattled her round that her powers of observation
+      were numbed. She glanced at him stealthily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a feminine eye there was nothing amiss in the sharp depressions at the
+      corners of his mouth, or in the rather box-like construction of his
+      forehead. He was dark, clean-shaven, and seemed accustomed to command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In front or behind? Which do you prefer? It may be windy in front.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In front if I may; then we can talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But excuse me one moment&mdash;I can&rsquo;t think what they&rsquo;re doing with that
+      parcel.&rdquo; He strode into the booking-office, and called with a new voice:
+      &ldquo;Hi! hi, you there! Are you going to keep me waiting all day? Parcel for
+      Wilcox, Howards End. Just look sharp!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emerging, he said in quieter tones: &ldquo;This station&rsquo;s abominably organised;
+      if I had my way, the whole lot of &rsquo;em should get the sack. May I help you
+      in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is very good of you,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, as she settled herself into a
+      luxurious cavern of red leather, and suffered her person to be padded with
+      rugs and shawls. She was more civil than she had intended, but really this
+      young man was very kind. Moreover, she was a little afraid of him; his
+      self-possession was extraordinary. &ldquo;Very good indeed,&rdquo; she repeated,
+      adding: &ldquo;It is just what I should have wished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good of you to say so,&rdquo; he replied, with a slight look of surprise,
+      which, like most slight looks, escaped Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s attention. &ldquo;I was just
+      tooling my father over to catch the down train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, we heard from Helen this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Wilcox was pouring in petrol, starting his engine, and performing
+      other actions with which this story has no concern. The great car began to
+      rock, and the form of Mrs. Munt, trying to explain things, sprang
+      agreeably up and down among the red cushions. &ldquo;The mater will be very glad
+      to see you,&rdquo; he mumbled. &ldquo;Hi! I say. Parcel. Parcel for Howards End. Bring
+      it out. Hi!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bearded porter emerged with the parcel in one hand and an entry book in
+      the other. With the gathering whir of the motor these ejaculations
+      mingled: &ldquo;Sign, must I? Why the &mdash; should I sign after all this bother?
+      Not even got a pencil on you? Remember next time I report you to the
+      station-master. My time&rsquo;s of value, though yours mayn&rsquo;t be. Here&rdquo;&mdash;here
+      being a tip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extremely sorry, Mrs. Munt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you object to going through the village? It is rather a longer
+      spin, but I have one or two commissions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should love going through the village. Naturally I am very anxious to
+      talk things over with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she said this she felt ashamed, for she was disobeying Margaret&rsquo;s
+      instructions. Only disobeying them in the letter, surely. Margaret had
+      only warned her against discussing the incident with outsiders. Surely it
+      was not &ldquo;uncivilised or wrong&rdquo; to discuss it with the young man himself,
+      since chance had thrown them together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A reticent fellow, he made no reply. Mounting by her side, he put on
+      gloves and spectacles, and off they drove, the bearded porter&mdash;life
+      is a mysterious business&mdash;looking after them with admiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind was in their faces down the station road, blowing the dust into
+      Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s eyes. But as soon as they turned into the Great North Road she
+      opened fire. &ldquo;You can well imagine,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the news was a great
+      shock to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox,&rdquo; she said frankly, &ldquo;Margaret has told me everything&mdash;everything.
+      I have seen Helen&rsquo;s letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not look her in the face, as his eyes were fixed on his work; he
+      was travelling as quickly as he dared down the High Street. But he
+      inclined his head in her direction, and said: &ldquo;I beg your pardon; I didn&rsquo;t
+      catch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Helen. Helen, of course. Helen is a very exceptional person&mdash;I
+      am sure you will let me say this, feeling towards her as you do&mdash;indeed,
+      all the Schlegels are exceptional. I come in no spirit of interference,
+      but it was a great shock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They drew up opposite a draper&rsquo;s. Without replying, he turned round in his
+      seat, and contemplated the cloud of dust that they had raised in their
+      passage through the village. It was settling again, but not all into the
+      road from which he had taken it. Some of it had percolated through the
+      open windows, some had whitened the roses and gooseberries of the wayside
+      gardens, while a certain proportion had entered the lungs of the
+      villagers. &ldquo;I wonder when they&rsquo;ll learn wisdom and tar the roads,&rdquo; was his
+      comment. Then a man ran out of the draper&rsquo;s with a roll of oilcloth, and
+      off they went again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret could not come herself, on account of poor Tibby, so I am here
+      to represent her and to have a good talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to be so dense,&rdquo; said the young man, again drawing up outside a
+      shop. &ldquo;But I still haven&rsquo;t quite understood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, Mr. Wilcox&mdash;my niece and you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He pushed up his goggles and gazed at her, absolutely bewildered. Horror
+      smote her to the heart, for even she began to suspect that they were at
+      cross-purposes, and that she had commenced her mission by some hideous
+      blunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel and myself?&rdquo; he asked, compressing his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I trust there has been no misunderstanding,&rdquo; quavered Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;Her
+      letter certainly read that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you and she&mdash;&rdquo; She paused, then drooped her eyelids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I catch your meaning,&rdquo; he said stickily. &ldquo;What an extraordinary
+      mistake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you didn&rsquo;t the least&mdash;&rdquo; she stammered, getting blood-red in the
+      face, and wishing she had never been born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely, as I am already engaged to another lady.&rdquo; There was a moment&rsquo;s
+      silence, and then he caught his breath and exploded with, &ldquo;Oh, good God!
+      Don&rsquo;t tell me it&rsquo;s some silliness of Paul&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you are Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you say so at the station?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said nothing of the sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, you did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, I did not. My name is Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Younger&rdquo; may mean son as opposed to father, or second brother as opposed
+      to first. There is much to be said for either view, and later on they said
+      it. But they had other questions before them now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that Paul&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not like his voice. He sounded as if he was talking to a
+      porter, and, certain that he had deceived her at the station, she too grew
+      angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that Paul and your niece&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt&mdash;such is human nature&mdash;determined that she would
+      champion the lovers. She was not going to be bullied by a severe young
+      man. &ldquo;Yes, they care for one another very much indeed,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I dare
+      say they will tell you about it by-and-by. We heard this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Charles clenched his fist and cried, &ldquo;The idiot, the idiot, the little
+      fool!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt tried to divest herself of her rugs. &ldquo;If that is your attitude,
+      Mr. Wilcox, I prefer to walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg you will do no such thing. I take you up this moment to the house.
+      Let me tell you the thing&rsquo;s impossible, and must be stopped.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt did not often lose her temper, and when she did it was only to
+      protect those whom she loved. On this occasion she blazed out. &ldquo;I quite
+      agree, sir. The thing is impossible, and I will come up and stop it. My
+      niece is a very exceptional person, and I am not inclined to sit still
+      while she throws herself away on those who will not appreciate her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles worked his jaws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering she has only known your brother since Wednesday, and only met
+      your father and mother at a stray hotel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could you possibly lower your voice? The shopman will overhear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esprit de classe&mdash;if one may coin the phrase&mdash;was strong in Mrs.
+      Munt. She sat quivering while a member of the lower orders deposited a
+      metal funnel, a saucepan, and a garden squirt beside the roll of oilcloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right behind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo; And the lower orders vanished in a cloud of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I warn you: Paul hasn&rsquo;t a penny; it&rsquo;s useless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need to warn us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you. The warning is all the
+      other way. My niece has been very foolish, and I shall give her a good
+      scolding and take her back to London with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has to make his way out in Nigeria. He couldn&rsquo;t think of marrying for
+      years, and when he does it must be a woman who can stand the climate, and
+      is in other ways&mdash;Why hasn&rsquo;t he told us? Of course he&rsquo;s ashamed. He
+      knows he&rsquo;s been a fool. And so he has&mdash;a downright fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She grew furious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whereas Miss Schlegel has lost no time in publishing the news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were a man, Mr. Wilcox, for that last remark I&rsquo;d box your ears.
+      You&rsquo;re not fit to clean my niece&rsquo;s boots, to sit in the same room with
+      her, and you dare&mdash;you actually dare&mdash;I decline to argue with
+      such a person.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I know is, she&rsquo;s spread the thing and he hasn&rsquo;t, and my father&rsquo;s away
+      and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And all that I know is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might I finish my sentence, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles clenched his teeth and sent the motor swerving all over the lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She screamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So they played the game of Capping Families, a round of which is always
+      played when love would unite two members of our race. But they played it
+      with unusual vigour, stating in so many words that Schlegels were better
+      than Wilcoxes, Wilcoxes better than Schlegels. They flung decency aside.
+      The man was young, the woman deeply stirred; in both a vein of coarseness
+      was latent. Their quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels&mdash;inevitable
+      at the time, incredible afterwards. But it was more than usually futile. A
+      few minutes, and they were enlightened. The motor drew up at Howards End,
+      and Helen, looking very pale, ran out to meet her aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley, I have just had a telegram from Margaret; I&mdash;I meant to
+      stop your coming. It isn&rsquo;t&mdash;it&rsquo;s over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The climax was too much for Mrs. Munt. She burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley dear, don&rsquo;t. Don&rsquo;t let them know I&rsquo;ve been so silly. It wasn&rsquo;t
+      anything. Do bear up for my sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul,&rdquo; cried Charles Wilcox, pulling his gloves off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let them know. They are never to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my darling Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul! Paul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A very young man came out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul, is there any truth in this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t&mdash;I don&rsquo;t&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes or no, man; plain question, plain answer. Did or didn&rsquo;t Miss Schlegel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles, dear,&rdquo; said a voice from the garden. &ldquo;Charles, dear Charles, one
+      doesn&rsquo;t ask plain questions. There aren&rsquo;t such things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were all silent. It was Mrs. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She approached just as Helen&rsquo;s letter had described her, trailing
+      noiselessly over the lawn, and there was actually a wisp of hay in her
+      hands. She seemed to belong not to the young people and their motor, but
+      to the house, and to the tree that overshadowed it. One knew that she
+      worshipped the past, and that the instinctive wisdom the past can alone
+      bestow had descended upon her&mdash;that wisdom to which we give the
+      clumsy name of aristocracy. High born she might not be. But assuredly she
+      cared about her ancestors, and let them help her. When she saw Charles
+      angry, Paul frightened, and Mrs. Munt in tears, she heard her ancestors
+      say, &ldquo;Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most. The rest
+      can wait.&rdquo; So she did not ask questions. Still less did she pretend that
+      nothing had happened, as a competent society hostess would have done. She
+      said: &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, would you take your aunt up to your room or to my
+      room, whichever you think best. Paul, do find Evie, and tell her lunch for
+      six, but I&rsquo;m not sure whether we shall all be downstairs for it.&rdquo; And when
+      they had obeyed her, she turned to her elder son, who still stood in the
+      throbbing, stinking car, and smiled at him with tenderness, and without
+      saying a word, turned away from him towards her flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;are you aware that Paul has been playing the fool
+      again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right, dear. They have broken off the engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Engagement&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They do not love any longer, if you prefer it put that way,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Wilcox, stooping down to smell a rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Helen and her aunt returned to Wickham Place in a state of collapse, and
+      for a little time Margaret had three invalids on her hands. Mrs. Munt soon
+      recovered. She possessed to a remarkable degree the power of distorting
+      the past, and before many days were over she had forgotten the part played
+      by her own imprudence in the catastrophe. Even at the crisis she had
+      cried, &ldquo;Thank goodness, poor Margaret is saved this!&rdquo; which during the
+      journey to London evolved into, &ldquo;It had to be gone through by some one,&rdquo;
+       which in its turn ripened into the permanent form of &ldquo;The one time I
+      really did help Emily&rsquo;s girls was over the Wilcox business.&rdquo; But Helen was
+      a more serious patient. New ideas had burst upon her like a thunderclap,
+      and by them and by their reverberations she had been stunned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The truth was that she had fallen in love, not with an individual, but
+      with a family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Paul arrived she had, as it were, been tuned up into his key. The
+      energy of the Wilcoxes had fascinated her, had created new images of
+      beauty in her responsive mind. To be all day with them in the open air, to
+      sleep at night under their roof, had seemed the supreme joy of life, and
+      had led to that abandonment of personality that is a possible prelude to
+      love. She had liked giving in to Mr. Wilcox, or Evie, or Charles; she had
+      liked being told that her notions of life were sheltered or academic; that
+      Equality was nonsense, Votes for Women nonsense, Socialism nonsense, Art
+      and Literature, except when conducive to strengthening the character,
+      nonsense. One by one the Schlegel fetiches had been overthrown, and,
+      though professing to defend them, she had rejoiced. When Mr. Wilcox said
+      that one sound man of business did more good to the world than a dozen of
+      your social reformers, she had swallowed the curious assertion without a
+      gasp, and had leant back luxuriously among the cushions of his motorcar.
+      When Charles said, &ldquo;Why be so polite to servants? they don&rsquo;t understand
+      it,&rdquo; she had not given the Schlegel retort of, &ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t understand
+      it, I do.&rdquo; No; she had vowed to be less polite to servants in the future.
+      &ldquo;I am swathed in cant,&rdquo; she thought, &ldquo;and it is good for me to be stripped
+      of it.&rdquo; And all that she thought or did or breathed was a quiet
+      preparation for Paul. Paul was inevitable. Charles was taken up with
+      another girl, Mr. Wilcox was so old, Evie so young, Mrs. Wilcox so
+      different. Round the absent brother she began to throw the halo of
+      Romance, to irradiate him with all the splendour of those happy days, to
+      feel that in him she should draw nearest to the robust ideal. He and she
+      were about the same age, Evie said. Most people thought Paul handsomer
+      than his brother. He was certainly a better shot, though not so good at
+      golf. And when Paul appeared, flushed with the triumph of getting through
+      an examination, and ready to flirt with any pretty girl, Helen met him
+      halfway, or more than halfway, and turned towards him on the Sunday
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been talking of his approaching exile in Nigeria, and he should
+      have continued to talk of it, and allowed their guest to recover. But the
+      heave of her bosom flattered him. Passion was possible, and he became
+      passionate. Deep down in him something whispered, &ldquo;This girl would let you
+      kiss her; you might not have such a chance again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was &ldquo;how it happened,&rdquo; or, rather, how Helen described it to her
+      sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own. But the poetry of
+      that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there was in life for hours
+      after it&mdash;who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman to
+      sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular cynic and
+      the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity. It is so easy to
+      talk of &ldquo;passing emotion,&rdquo; and to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it
+      passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We
+      recognise that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are
+      personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for
+      an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the impulse too highly. We do not
+      admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be
+      shaken open. To Helen, at all events, her life was to bring nothing more
+      intense than the embrace of this boy who played no part in it. He had
+      drawn her out of the house, where there was danger of surprise and light;
+      he had led her by a path he knew, until they stood under the column of the
+      vast wych-elm. A man in the darkness, he had whispered &ldquo;I love you&rdquo; when
+      she was desiring love. In time his slender personality faded, the scene
+      that he had evoked endured. In all the variable years that followed she
+      never saw the like of it again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; said Margaret&mdash; &ldquo;at least, I understand as much as
+      ever is understood of these things. Tell me now what happened on the
+      Monday morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was over at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How, Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was still happy while I dressed, but as I came downstairs I got
+      nervous, and when I went into the dining-room I knew it was no good. There
+      was Evie&mdash;I can&rsquo;t explain&mdash;managing the tea-urn, and Mr. Wilcox
+      reading the Times.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was Paul there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; and Charles was talking to him about stocks and shares, and he
+      looked frightened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By slight indications the sisters could convey much to each other.
+      Margaret saw horror latent in the scene, and Helen&rsquo;s next remark did not
+      surprise her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow, when that kind of man looks frightened it is too awful. It is
+      all right for us to be frightened, or for men of another sort&mdash;father,
+      for instance; but for men like that! When I saw all the others so placid,
+      and Paul mad with terror in case I said the wrong thing, I felt for a
+      moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall of newspapers
+      and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it fell I should find nothing
+      behind it but panic and emptiness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that. The Wilcoxes struck me as being genuine people,
+      particularly the wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t really think that. But Paul was so broad-shouldered; all
+      kinds of extraordinary things made it worse, and I knew that it would
+      never do&mdash;never. I said to him after breakfast, when the others were
+      practising strokes, &lsquo;We rather lost our heads,&rsquo; and he looked better at
+      once, though frightfully ashamed. He began a speech about having no money
+      to marry on, but it hurt him to make it, and I stopped him. Then he said,
+      &lsquo;I must beg your pardon over this, Miss Schlegel; I can&rsquo;t think what came
+      over me last night.&rsquo; And I said, &lsquo;Nor what over me; never mind.&rsquo; And then
+      we parted&mdash;at least, until I remembered that I had written straight
+      off to tell you the night before, and that frightened him again. I asked
+      him to send a telegram for me, for he knew you would be coming or
+      something; and he tried to get hold of the motor, but Charles and Mr.
+      Wilcox wanted it to go to the station; and Charles offered to send the
+      telegram for me, and then I had to say that the telegram was of no
+      consequence, for Paul said Charles might read it, and though I wrote it
+      out several times, he always said people would suspect something. He took
+      it himself at last, pretending that he must walk down to get cartridges,
+      and, what with one thing and the other, it was not handed in at the
+      post-office until too late. It was the most terrible morning. Paul
+      disliked me more and more, and Evie talked cricket averages till I nearly
+      screamed. I cannot think how I stood her all the other days. At last
+      Charles and his father started for the station, and then came your
+      telegram warning me that Aunt Juley was coming by that train, and Paul&mdash;oh,
+      rather horrible&mdash;said that I had muddled it. But Mrs. Wilcox knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knew what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything; though we neither of us told her a word, and she had known
+      all along, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she must have overheard you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so, but it seemed wonderful. When Charles and Aunt Juley drove
+      up, calling each other names, Mrs. Wilcox stepped in from the garden and
+      made everything less terrible. Ugh! but it has been a disgusting business.
+      To think that&mdash;&rdquo; She sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To think that because you and a young man meet for a moment, there must
+      be all these telegrams and anger,&rdquo; supplied Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often thought about it, Helen. It&rsquo;s one of the most interesting
+      things in the world. The truth is that there is a great outer life that
+      you and I have never touched&mdash;a life in which telegrams and anger
+      count. Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme there.
+      There love means marriage settlements, death, death duties. So far I&rsquo;m
+      clear. But here my difficulty. This outer life, though obviously horrid;
+      often seems the real one&mdash;there&rsquo;s grit in it. It does breed
+      character. Do personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Meg&mdash;, that&rsquo;s what I felt, only not so clearly, when the
+      Wilcoxes were so competent, and seemed to have their hands on all the
+      ropes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you feel it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember Paul at breakfast,&rdquo; said Helen quietly. &ldquo;I shall never forget
+      him. He had nothing to fall back upon. I know that personal relations are
+      the real life, for ever and ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So the Wilcox episode fell into the background, leaving behind it memories
+      of sweetness and horror that mingled, and the sisters pursued the life
+      that Helen had commended. They talked to each other and to other people,
+      they filled the tall thin house at Wickham Place with those whom they
+      liked or could befriend. They even attended public meetings. In their own
+      fashion they cared deeply about politics, though not as politicians would
+      have us care; they desired that public life should mirror whatever is good
+      in the life within. Temperance, tolerance, and sexual equality were
+      intelligible cries to them; whereas they did not follow our Forward Policy
+      in Tibet with the keen attention that it merits, and would at times
+      dismiss the whole British Empire with a puzzled, if reverent, sigh. Not
+      out of them are the shows of history erected: the world would be a grey,
+      bloodless place were it composed entirely of Miss Schlegels. But the world
+      being what it is, perhaps they shine out in it like stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A word on their origin. They were not &ldquo;English to the back-bone,&rdquo; as their
+      aunt had piously asserted. But, on the other hand, they were not &ldquo;Germans
+      of the dreadful sort.&rdquo; Their father had belonged to a type that was more
+      prominent in Germany fifty years ago than now. He was not the aggressive
+      German, so dear to the English journalist, nor the domestic German, so
+      dear to the English wit. If one classed him at all it would be as the
+      countryman of Hegel and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be dreamy,
+      whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. Not that his life had
+      been inactive. He had fought like blazes against Denmark, Austria, France.
+      But he had fought without visualising the results of victory. A hint of
+      the truth broke on him after Sedan, when he saw the dyed moustaches of
+      Napoleon going grey; another when he entered Paris, and saw the smashed
+      windows of the Tuileries. Peace came&mdash;it was all very immense, one
+      had turned into an Empire&mdash;but he knew that some quality had vanished
+      for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him. Germany a
+      commercial Power, Germany a naval Power, Germany with colonies here and a
+      Forward Policy there, and legitimate aspirations in the other place, might
+      appeal to others, and be fitly served by them; for his own part, he
+      abstained from the fruits of victory, and naturalised himself in England.
+      The more earnest members of his family never forgave him, and knew that
+      his children, though scarcely English of the dreadful sort, would never be
+      German to the back-bone. He had obtained work in one of our provincial
+      universities, and there married Poor Emily (or Die Englanderin, as the
+      case may be), and as she had money, they proceeded to London, and came to
+      know a good many people. But his gaze was always fixed beyond the sea. It
+      was his hope that the clouds of materialism obscuring the Fatherland would
+      part in time, and the mild intellectual light re-emerge. &ldquo;Do you imply
+      that we Germans are stupid, Uncle Ernst?&rdquo; exclaimed a haughty and
+      magnificent nephew. Uncle Ernst replied, &ldquo;To my mind. You use the
+      intellect, but you no longer care about it. That I call stupidity.&rdquo; As the
+      haughty nephew did not follow, he continued, &ldquo;You only care about the
+      things that you can use, and therefore arrange them in the following
+      order: Money, supremely useful; intellect, rather useful; imagination, of
+      no use at all. No&rdquo;&mdash;for the other had protested&mdash;&ldquo;your
+      Pan-Germanism is no more imaginative than is our Imperialism over here. It
+      is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a
+      thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square
+      mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven. That
+      is not imagination. No, it kills it. When their poets over here try to
+      celebrate bigness they are dead at once, and naturally. Your poets too are
+      dying, your philosophers, your musicians, to whom Europe has listened for
+      two hundred years. Gone. Gone with the little courts that nurtured them&mdash;gone
+      with Esterhazy and Weimar. What? What&rsquo;s that? Your universities? Oh yes,
+      you have learned men, who collect more facts than do the learned men of
+      England. They collect facts, and facts, and empires of facts. But which of
+      them will rekindle the light within?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To all this Margaret listened, sitting on the haughty nephew&rsquo;s knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a unique education for the little girls. The haughty nephew would
+      be at Wickham Place one day, bringing with him an even haughtier wife,
+      both convinced that Germany was appointed by God to govern the world. Aunt
+      Juley would come the next day, convinced that Great Britain had been
+      appointed to the same post by the same authority. Were both these
+      loud-voiced parties right? On one occasion they had met and Margaret with
+      clasped hands had implored them to argue the subject out in her presence.
+      Whereat they blushed, and began to talk about the weather. &ldquo;Papa,&rdquo; she
+      cried&mdash;she was a most offensive child&mdash;&ldquo;why will they not
+      discuss this most clear question?&rdquo; Her father, surveying the parties
+      grimly, replied that he did not know. Putting her head on one side,
+      Margaret then remarked, &ldquo;To me one of two things is very clear; either God
+      does not know his own mind about England and Germany, or else these do not
+      know the mind of God.&rdquo; A hateful little girl, but at thirteen she had
+      grasped a dilemma that most people travel through life without perceiving.
+      Her brain darted up and down; it grew pliant and strong. Her conclusion
+      was, that any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any organisation,
+      and from this she never varied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen advanced along the same lines, though with a more irresponsible
+      tread. In character she resembled her sister, but she was pretty, and so
+      apt to have a more amusing time. People gathered round her more readily,
+      especially when they were new acquaintances, and she did enjoy a little
+      homage very much. When their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham
+      Place, she often absorbed the whole of the company, while Margaret&mdash;both
+      were tremendous talkers&mdash;fell flat. Neither sister bothered about
+      this. Helen never apologised afterwards, Margaret did not feel the
+      slightest rancour. But looks have their influence upon character. The
+      sisters were alike as little girls, but at the time of the Wilcox episode
+      their methods were beginning to diverge; the younger was rather apt to
+      entice people, and, in enticing them, to be herself enticed; the elder
+      went straight ahead, and accepted an occasional failure as part of the
+      game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little need be premised about Tibby. He was now an intelligent man of
+      sixteen, but dyspeptic and difficile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It will be generally admitted that Beethoven&rsquo;s Fifth Symphony is the most
+      sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and
+      conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap
+      surreptitiously when the tunes come&mdash;of course, not so as to disturb
+      the others&mdash;or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the
+      music&rsquo;s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like
+      Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score
+      open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who remembers
+      all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch; or like Fraulein Mosebach&rsquo;s
+      young man, who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach: in any case,
+      the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit
+      that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. It is cheap, even if you hear
+      it in the Queen&rsquo;s Hall, dreariest music-room in London, though not as
+      dreary as the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; and even if you sit on the
+      extreme left of that hall, so that the brass bumps at you before the rest
+      of the orchestra arrives, it is still cheap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom is Margaret talking to?&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, at the conclusion of the
+      first movement. She was again in London on a visit to Wickham Place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen looked down the long line of their party, and said that she did not
+      know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect so,&rdquo; Helen replied. Music enwrapped her, and she could not enter
+      into the distinction that divides young men whom one takes an interest in
+      from young men whom one knows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You girls are so wonderful in always having&mdash;Oh dear! one mustn&rsquo;t
+      talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the Andante had begun&mdash;very beautiful, but bearing a family
+      likeness to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had written,
+      and, to Helen&rsquo;s mind, rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of
+      the first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third. She heard the
+      tune through once, and then her attention wandered, and she gazed at the
+      audience, or the organ, or the architecture. Much did she censure the
+      attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen&rsquo;s Hall, inclining
+      each to each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow pantaloons, on which
+      the October sunlight struck. &ldquo;How awful to marry a man like those Cupids!&rdquo;
+       thought Helen. Here Beethoven started decorating his tune, so she heard
+      him through once more, and then she smiled at her Cousin Frieda. But
+      Frieda, listening to Classical Music, could not respond. Herr Liesecke,
+      too, looked as if wild horses could not make him inattentive; there were
+      lines across his forehead, his lips were parted, his pince-nez at right
+      angles to his nose, and he had laid a thick, white hand on either knee.
+      And next to her was Aunt Juley, so British, and wanting to tap. How
+      interesting that row of people was! What diverse influences had gone to
+      the making! Here Beethoven, after humming and hawing with great sweetness,
+      said &ldquo;Heigho,&rdquo; and the Andante came to an end. Applause, and a round of
+      &ldquo;wunderschoning&rdquo; and pracht volleying from the German contingent. Margaret
+      started talking to her new young man; Helen said to her aunt: &ldquo;Now comes
+      the wonderful movement: first of all the goblins, and then a trio of
+      elephants dancing&rdquo;; and Tibby implored the company generally to look out
+      for the transitional passage on the drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the what, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the drum, Aunt Juley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; look out for the part where you think you have done with the goblins
+      and they come back,&rdquo; breathed Helen, as the music started with a goblin
+      walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him.
+      They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made them so terrible
+      to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as
+      splendour or heroism in the world. After the interlude of elephants
+      dancing, they returned and made the observation for the second time. Helen
+      could not contradict them, for, once at all events, she had felt the same,
+      and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse. Panic and emptiness!
+      Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right. Her brother raised his
+      finger; it was the transitional passage on the drum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold of the goblins
+      and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in person. He gave them a
+      little push, and they began to walk in a major key instead of in a minor,
+      and then&mdash;he blew with his mouth and they were scattered! Gusts of
+      splendour, gods and demigods contending with vast swords, colour and
+      fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory,
+      magnificent death! Oh, it all burst before the girl, and she even
+      stretched out her gloved hands as if it was tangible. Any fate was
+      titanic; any contest desirable; conqueror and conquered would alike be
+      applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the goblins&mdash;they had not really been there at all? They were
+      only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse
+      would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President Roosevelt, would
+      say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They
+      might return&mdash;and they did. It was as if the splendour of life might
+      boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the
+      terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked
+      quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and
+      emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall. Beethoven
+      chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with
+      his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He
+      brought back the gusts of splendour, the heroism, the youth, the
+      magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman
+      joy, he led his Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were
+      there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can
+      trust Beethoven when he says other things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She desired to be alone. The
+      music had summed up to her all that had happened or could happen in her
+      career.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She read it as a tangible statement, which could never be superseded. The
+      notes meant this and that to her, and they could have no other meaning,
+      and life could have no other meaning. She pushed right out of the building
+      and walked slowly down the outside staircase, breathing the autumnal air,
+      and then she strolled home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret,&rdquo; called Mrs. Munt, &ldquo;is Helen all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is always going away in the middle of a programme,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The music has evidently moved her deeply,&rdquo; said Fraulein Mosebach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me,&rdquo; said Margaret&rsquo;s young man, who had for some time been
+      preparing a sentence, &ldquo;but that lady has, quite inadvertently, taken my
+      umbrella.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, good gracious me!&mdash;I am so sorry. Tibby, run after Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby, love, you must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t of any consequence,&rdquo; said the young man, in truth a little
+      uneasy about his umbrella.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of course it is. Tibby! Tibby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby rose to his feet, and wilfully caught his person on the backs of the
+      chairs. By the time he had tipped up the seat and had found his hat, and
+      had deposited his full score in safety, it was &ldquo;too late&rdquo; to go after
+      Helen. The Four Serious Songs had begun, and one could not move during
+      their performance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My sister is so careless,&rdquo; whispered Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; replied the young man; but his voice was dead and cold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you would give me your address&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not at all, not at all;&rdquo; and he wrapped his greatcoat over his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret&rsquo;s ears. Brahms, for
+      all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed what it felt like to be
+      suspected of stealing an umbrella. For this fool of a young man thought
+      that she and Helen and Tibby had been playing the confidence trick on him,
+      and that if he gave his address they would break into his rooms some
+      midnight or other and steal his walking-stick too. Most ladies would have
+      laughed, but Margaret really minded, for it gave her a glimpse into
+      squalor. To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can
+      indulge; the poor cannot afford it. As soon as Brahms had grunted himself
+      out, she gave him her card and said, &ldquo;That is where we live; if you
+      preferred, you could call for the umbrella after the concert, but I didn&rsquo;t
+      like to trouble you when it has all been our fault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was W. It was
+      sad to see him corroded with suspicion, and yet not daring to be impolite,
+      in case these well-dressed people were honest after all. She took it as a
+      good sign that he said to her, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a fine programme this afternoon, is
+      it not?&rdquo; for this was the remark with which he had originally opened,
+      before the umbrella intervened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Beethoven&rsquo;s fine,&rdquo; said Margaret, who was not a female of the
+      encouraging type. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like the Brahms, though, nor the Mendelssohn
+      that came first and ugh! I don&rsquo;t like this Elgar that&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, what?&rdquo; called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. &ldquo;The &lsquo;Pomp and
+      Circumstance&rsquo; will not be fine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!&rdquo; cried her aunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for &lsquo;Pomp and
+      Circumstance,&rsquo; and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him to
+      hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,&mdash;you musn&rsquo;t run down our English
+      composers, Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin,&rdquo; said Fraulein
+      Mosebach, &ldquo;on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art. And
+      English literature, except Shakespeare, and he&rsquo;s a German. Very well,
+      Frieda, you may go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common impulse,
+      they rose to their feet and fled from &ldquo;Pomp and Circumstance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true,&rdquo; said Herr
+      Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music
+      started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&mdash;&rdquo; loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag
+      behind her on the seat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sure enough, there was Frieda&rsquo;s reticule, containing her address book, her
+      pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a bother&mdash;what a family we are! Fr&mdash;frieda!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said all those who thought the music fine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s the number they want in Finsbury Circus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might I&mdash;couldn&rsquo;t I&mdash;&rdquo; said the suspicious young man, and got
+      very red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I would be so grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the bag&mdash;money clinking inside it&mdash;and slipped up the
+      gangway with it. He was just in time to catch them at the swing-door, and
+      he received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her
+      cavalier. He returned to his seat upsides with the world. The trust that
+      they had reposed in him was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his
+      mistrust for them, and that probably he would not be &ldquo;had&rdquo; over his
+      umbrella. This young man had been &ldquo;had&rdquo; in the past badly, perhaps
+      overwhelmingly&mdash;and now most of his energies went in defending
+      himself against the unknown. But this afternoon&mdash;perhaps on account
+      of music&mdash;he perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what
+      is the good of being alive? Wickham Place, W., though a risk, was as safe
+      as most things, and he would risk it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So when the concert was over and Margaret said, &ldquo;We live quite near; I am
+      going there now. Could you walk round with me, and we&rsquo;ll find your
+      umbrella?&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; peaceably, and followed her out of the
+      Queen&rsquo;s Hall. She wished that he was not so anxious to hand a lady
+      downstairs, or to carry a lady&rsquo;s programme for her&mdash;his class was
+      near enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him
+      interesting on the whole&mdash;every one interested the Schlegels on the
+      whole at that time&mdash;and while her lips talked culture, her heart was
+      planning to invite him to tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How tired one gets after music!&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you find the atmosphere of Queen&rsquo;s Hall oppressive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, horribly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you go there much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen would have exclaimed, &ldquo;So do I. I love the gallery,&rdquo; and thus have
+      endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these things. But
+      Margaret had an almost morbid horror of &ldquo;drawing people out,&rdquo; of &ldquo;making
+      things go.&rdquo; She had been to the gallery at Covent Garden, but she did not
+      &ldquo;attend&rdquo; it, preferring the more expensive seats; still less did she love
+      it. So she made no reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This year I have been three times&mdash;to &lsquo;Faust,&rsquo; &lsquo;Tosca,&rsquo; and&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Was it &ldquo;Tannhouser&rdquo; or &ldquo;Tannhoyser&rdquo;? Better not risk the word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret disliked &ldquo;Tosca&rdquo; and &ldquo;Faust.&rdquo; And so, for one reason and another,
+      they walked on in silence, chaperoned by the voice of Mrs. Munt, who was
+      getting into difficulties with her nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do in a WAY remember the passage, Tibby, but when every instrument is
+      so beautiful, it is difficult to pick out one thing rather than another. I
+      am sure that you and Helen take me to the very nicest concerts. Not a dull
+      note from beginning to end. I only wish that our German friends had stayed
+      till it finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely you haven&rsquo;t forgotten the drum steadily beating on the low C,
+      Aunt Juley?&rdquo; came Tibby&rsquo;s voice. &ldquo;No one could. It&rsquo;s unmistakable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A specially loud part?&rdquo; hazarded Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;Of course I do not go in for
+      being musical,&rdquo; she added, the shot failing. &ldquo;I only care for music&mdash;a
+      very different thing. But still I will say this for myself&mdash;I do know
+      when I like a thing and when I don&rsquo;t. Some people are the same about
+      pictures. They can go into a picture gallery&mdash;Miss Conder can&mdash;and
+      say straight off what they feel, all round the wall. I never could do
+      that. But music is so different from pictures, to my mind. When it comes
+      to music I am as safe as houses, and I assure you, Tibby, I am by no means
+      pleased by everything. There was a thing&mdash;something about a faun in
+      French&mdash;which Helen went into ecstasies over, but I thought it most
+      tinkling and superficial, and said so, and I held to my opinion too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you agree?&rdquo; asked Margaret. &ldquo;Do you think music is so different from
+      pictures?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I should have thought so, kind of,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So should I. Now, my sister declares they&rsquo;re just the same. We have great
+      arguments over it. She says I&rsquo;m dense; I say she&rsquo;s sloppy.&rdquo; Getting under
+      way, she cried: &ldquo;Now, doesn&rsquo;t it seem absurd to you? What is the good of
+      the Arts if they&rsquo;re interchangeable? What is the good of the ear if it
+      tells you the same as the eye? Helen&rsquo;s one aim is to translate tunes into
+      the language of painting, and pictures into the language of music. It&rsquo;s
+      very ingenious, and she says several pretty things in the process, but
+      what&rsquo;s gained, I&rsquo;d like to know? Oh, it&rsquo;s all rubbish, radically false. If
+      Monet&rsquo;s really Debussy, and Debussy&rsquo;s really Monet, neither gentleman is
+      worth his salt&mdash;that&rsquo;s my opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evidently these sisters quarrelled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, this very symphony that we&rsquo;ve just been having&mdash;she won&rsquo;t let
+      it alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish; turns it into
+      literature. I wonder if the day will ever return when music will be
+      treated as music. Yet I don&rsquo;t know. There&rsquo;s my brother&mdash;behind us. He
+      treats music as music, and oh, my goodness! He makes me angrier than any
+      one, simply furious. With him I daren&rsquo;t even argue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An unhappy family, if talented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, of course, the real villain is Wagner. He has done more than any man
+      in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of the arts. I do feel that
+      music is in a very serious state just now, though extraordinarily
+      interesting. Every now and then in history there do come these terrible
+      geniuses, like Wagner, who stir up all the wells of thought at once. For a
+      moment it&rsquo;s splendid. Such a splash as never was. But afterwards&mdash;such
+      a lot of mud; and the wells&mdash;as it were, they communicate with each
+      other too easily now, and not one of them will run quite clear. That&rsquo;s
+      what Wagner&rsquo;s done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds. If only he
+      could talk like this, he would have caught the world. Oh, to acquire
+      culture! Oh, to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh, to be well
+      informed, discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But it
+      would take one years. With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours in
+      the evening, how was it possible to catch up with leisured women, who had
+      been reading steadily from childhood? His brain might be full of names, he
+      might have even heard of Monet and Debussy; the trouble was that he could
+      not string them together into a sentence, he could not make them &ldquo;tell,&rdquo;
+       he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella. Yes, the umbrella was
+      the real trouble. Behind Monet and Debussy the umbrella persisted, with
+      the steady beat of a drum. &ldquo;I suppose my umbrella will be all right,&rdquo; he
+      was thinking. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really mind about it. I will think about music
+      instead. I suppose my umbrella will be all right.&rdquo; Earlier in the
+      afternoon he had worried about seats. Ought he to have paid as much as two
+      shillings? Earlier still he had wondered, &ldquo;Shall I try to do without a
+      programme?&rdquo; There had always been something to worry him ever since he
+      could remember, always something that distracted him in the pursuit of
+      beauty. For he did pursue beauty, and, therefore, Margaret&rsquo;s speeches did
+      flutter away from him like birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret talked ahead, occasionally saying, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think so? don&rsquo;t you
+      feel the same?&rdquo; And once she stopped, and said, &ldquo;Oh, do interrupt me!&rdquo;
+       which terrified him. She did not attract him, though she filled him with
+      awe. Her figure was meagre, her face seemed all teeth and eyes, her
+      references to her sister and her brother were uncharitable. For all her
+      cleverness and culture, she was probably one of those soulless,
+      atheistical women who have been so shown up by Miss Corelli. It was
+      surprising (and alarming) that she should suddenly say, &ldquo;I do hope that
+      you&rsquo;ll come in and have some tea. We should be so glad. I have dragged you
+      so far out of your way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had arrived at Wickham Place. The sun had set, and the backwater, in
+      deep shadow, was filling with a gentle haze. To the right the fantastic
+      sky-line of the flats towered black against the hues of evening; to the
+      left the older houses raised a square-cut, irregular parapet against the
+      grey. Margaret fumbled for her latch-key. Of course she had forgotten it.
+      So, grasping her umbrella by its ferrule, she leant over the area and
+      tapped at the dining-room window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen! Let us in!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; said a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been taking this gentleman&rsquo;s umbrella.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Taken a what?&rdquo; said Helen, opening the door. &ldquo;Oh, what&rsquo;s that? Do come
+      in! How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you must not be so ramshackly. You took this gentleman&rsquo;s umbrella
+      away from Queen&rsquo;s Hall, and he has had the trouble of coming round for
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I am so sorry!&rdquo; cried Helen, all her hair flying. She had pulled off
+      her hat as soon as she returned, and had flung herself into the big
+      dining-room chair. &ldquo;I do nothing but steal umbrellas. I am so very sorry!
+      Do come in and choose one. Is yours a hooky or a nobbly? Mine&rsquo;s a nobbly&mdash;at
+      least, I THINK it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The light was turned on, and they began to search the hall, Helen, who had
+      abruptly parted with the Fifth Symphony, commenting with shrill little
+      cries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you talk, Meg! You stole an old gentleman&rsquo;s silk top-hat. Yes, she
+      did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact. She thought it was a muff. Oh,
+      heavens! I&rsquo;ve knocked the In-and-Out card down. Where&rsquo;s Frieda? Tibby, why
+      don&rsquo;t you ever&mdash;No, I can&rsquo;t remember what I was going to say. That
+      wasn&rsquo;t it, but do tell the maids to hurry tea up. What about this
+      umbrella?&rdquo; She opened it. &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s all gone along the seams. It&rsquo;s an
+      appalling umbrella. It must be mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took it from her, murmured a few words of thanks, and then fled, with
+      the lilting step of the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you will stop&mdash;&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;Now, Helen, how stupid
+      you&rsquo;ve been!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whatever have I done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see that you&rsquo;ve frightened him away? I meant him to stop to
+      tea. You oughtn&rsquo;t to talk about stealing or holes in an umbrella. I saw
+      his nice eyes getting so miserable. No, it&rsquo;s not a bit of good now.&rdquo; For
+      Helen had darted out into the street, shouting, &ldquo;Oh, do stop!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say it is all for the best,&rdquo; opined Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;We know nothing
+      about the young man, Margaret, and your drawing-room is full of very
+      tempting little things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Helen cried: &ldquo;Aunt Juley, how can you! You make me more and more
+      ashamed. I&rsquo;d rather he had been a thief and taken all the apostle spoons
+      than that I&mdash;Well, I must shut the front-door, I suppose. One more
+      failure for Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+      Seeing that her aunt did not understand, she added: &ldquo;You remember &lsquo;rent&rsquo;?
+      It was one of father&rsquo;s words&mdash;Rent to the ideal, to his own faith in
+      human nature. You remember how he would trust strangers, and if they
+      fooled him he would say, &lsquo;It&rsquo;s better to be fooled than to be suspicious&rsquo;&mdash;that
+      the confidence trick is the work of man, but the want-of-confidence trick
+      is the work of the devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember something of the sort now,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, rather tartly, for
+      she longed to add, &ldquo;It was lucky that your father married a wife with
+      money.&rdquo; But this was unkind, and she contented herself with, &ldquo;Why, he
+      might have stolen the little Ricketts picture as well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better that he had,&rdquo; said Helen stoutly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I agree with Aunt Juley,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather mistrust people
+      than lose my little Ricketts. There are limits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, had stolen upstairs to
+      see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the teapot&mdash;almost
+      too deftly&mdash;rejected the orange pekoe that the parlour-maid had
+      provided, poured in five spoonfuls of a superior blend, filled up with
+      really boiling water, and now called to the ladies to be quick or they
+      would lose the aroma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Auntie Tibby,&rdquo; called Helen, while Margaret, thoughtful again,
+      said: &ldquo;In a way, I wish we had a real boy in the house&mdash;the kind of
+      boy who cares for men. It would make entertaining so much easier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I,&rdquo; said her sister. &ldquo;Tibby only cares for cultured females singing
+      Brahms.&rdquo; And when they joined him she said rather sharply: &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you
+      make that young man welcome, Tibby? You must do the host a little, you
+      know. You ought to have taken his hat and coaxed him into stopping,
+      instead of letting him be swamped by screaming women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s no good looking superior. I mean what I say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave Tibby alone!&rdquo; said Margaret, who could not bear her brother to be
+      scolded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the house a regular hen-coop!&rdquo; grumbled Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dear!&rdquo; protested Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;How can you say such dreadful things!
+      The number of men you get here has always astonished me. If there is any
+      danger it&rsquo;s the other way round.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but it&rsquo;s the wrong sort of men, Helen means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; corrected Helen. &ldquo;We get the right sort of man, but the
+      wrong side of him, and I say that&rsquo;s Tibby&rsquo;s fault. There ought to be a
+      something about the house&mdash;an&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A touch of the W&rsquo;s, perhaps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen put out her tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are the W&rsquo;s?&rdquo; asked Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The W&rsquo;s are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you don&rsquo;t, so
+      there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose that ours is a female house,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;and one must just
+      accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don&rsquo;t mean that this house is full of women.
+      I am trying to say something much more clever. I mean that it was
+      irrevocably feminine, even in father&rsquo;s time. Now I&rsquo;m sure you understand!
+      Well, I&rsquo;ll give you another example. It&rsquo;ll shock you, but I don&rsquo;t care.
+      Suppose Queen Victoria gave a dinner-party, and that the guests had been
+      Leighton, Millais, Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you
+      suppose that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic?
+      Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to that. So
+      with our house&mdash;it must be feminine, and all we can do is to see that
+      it isn&rsquo;t effeminate. Just as another house that I can mention, but won&rsquo;t,
+      sounded irrevocably masculine, and all its inmates can do is to see that
+      it isn&rsquo;t brutal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That house being the W&rsquo;s house, I presume,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not going to be told about the W&rsquo;s, my child,&rdquo; Helen cried, &ldquo;so
+      don&rsquo;t you think it. And on the other hand, I don&rsquo;t the least mind if you
+      find out, so don&rsquo;t you think you&rsquo;ve done anything clever, in either case.
+      Give me a cigarette.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do what you can for the house,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;The drawing-room
+      reeks of smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine. Atmosphere is
+      probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen Victoria&rsquo;s dinner-party&mdash;if
+      something had been just a little Different&mdash;perhaps if she&rsquo;d worn a
+      clinging Liberty tea-gown instead of a magenta satin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With an India shawl over her shoulders&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bursts of disloyal laughter&mdash;you must remember that they are half
+      German&mdash;greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively, &ldquo;How
+      inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about Art.&rdquo; And the
+      conversation drifted away and away, and Helen&rsquo;s cigarette turned to a spot
+      in the darkness, and the great flats opposite were sown with lighted
+      windows which vanished and were relit again, and vanished incessantly.
+      Beyond them the thoroughfare roared gently&mdash;a tide that could never
+      be quiet, while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the
+      moon was rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man into the
+      dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate&mdash;and that is so
+      firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he had no tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For that little incident had impressed the three women more than might be
+      supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint that all is not for
+      the best in the best of all possible worlds, and that beneath these
+      superstructures of wealth and art there wanders an ill-fed boy, who has
+      recovered his umbrella indeed, but who has left no address behind him, and
+      no name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to
+      be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with
+      gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are
+      gentlefolk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was not
+      in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people whom he knew had
+      dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he was poor, and would admit
+      it; he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority to the rich.
+      This may be splendid of him. But he was inferior to most rich people,
+      there is not the least doubt of it. He was not as courteous as the average
+      rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and
+      his body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he was
+      modern they were always craving better food. Had he lived some centuries
+      ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the past, he would have had
+      a definite status, his rank and his income would have corresponded. But in
+      his day the angel of Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with
+      leathern wings, and proclaiming, &ldquo;All men are equal&mdash;all men, that is
+      to say, who possess umbrellas,&rdquo; and so he was obliged to assert gentility,
+      lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of
+      Democracy are inaudible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he walked away from Wickham Place, his first care was to prove that he
+      was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in his pride, he
+      tried to wound them in return. They were probably not ladies. Would real
+      ladies have asked him to tea? They were certainly ill-natured and cold. At
+      each step his feeling of superiority increased. Would a real lady have
+      talked about stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves after all,
+      and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a chloroformed
+      handkerchief over his face. He walked on complacently as far as the Houses
+      of Parliament. There an empty stomach asserted itself, and told him that
+      he was a fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Dealtry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nice evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Dealtry, a fellow clerk, passed on, and Leonard stood wondering
+      whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him, or
+      whether he would walk. He decided to walk&mdash;it is no good giving in,
+      and he had spent money enough at Queen&rsquo;s Hall&mdash;and he walked over
+      Westminster Bridge, in front of St. Thomas&rsquo;s Hospital, and through the
+      immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at Vauxhall.
+      In the tunnel he paused and listened to the roar of the trains. A sharp
+      pain darted through his head, and he was conscious of the exact form of
+      his eye sockets. He pushed on for another mile, and did not slacken speed
+      until he stood at the entrance of a road called Camelia Road which was at
+      present his home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he stopped again, and glanced suspiciously to right and left, like a
+      rabbit that is going to bolt into its hole. A block of flats, constructed
+      with extreme cheapness, towered on either hand. Farther down the road two
+      more blocks were being built, and beyond these an old house was being
+      demolished to accommodate another pair. It was the kind of scene that may
+      be observed all over London, whatever the locality&mdash;bricks and mortar
+      rising and falling with the restlessness of the water in a fountain as the
+      city receives more and more men upon her soil. Camelia Road would soon
+      stand out like a fortress, and command, for a little, an extensive view.
+      Only for a little. Plans were out for the erection of flats in Magnolia
+      Road also. And again a few years, and all the flats in either road might
+      be pulled down, and new buildings, of a vastness at present unimaginable,
+      might arise where they had fallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evening, Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester,&rdquo;
+       repeated Mr. Cunningham, tapping the Sunday paper, in which the calamity
+      in question had just been announced to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes,&rdquo; said Leonard, who was not going to let on that he had not
+      bought a Sunday paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be
+      stationary in 1960.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call it a very serious thing, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-evening, Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-evening, Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats, and turned, not upstairs, but
+      down, into what is known to house agents as a semi-basement, and to other
+      men as a cellar. He opened the door, and cried, &ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; with the pseudo
+      geniality of the Cockney. There was no reply. &ldquo;Hullo!&rdquo; he repeated. The
+      sitting-room was empty, though the electric light had been left burning. A
+      look of relief came over his face, and he flung himself into the armchair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sitting-room contained, besides the armchair, two other chairs, a
+      piano, a three-legged table, and a cosy corner. Of the walls, one was
+      occupied by the window, the other by a draped mantelshelf bristling with
+      Cupids. Opposite the window was the door, and beside the door a bookcase,
+      while over the piano there extended one of the masterpieces of Maud
+      Goodman. It was an amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the
+      curtains were drawn, and the lights turned on, and the gas-stove unlit.
+      But it struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the
+      dwelling-place. It had been too easily gained, and could be relinquished
+      too easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged table, and
+      a photograph frame, honourably poised upon it, slid sideways, fell off
+      into the fireplace, and smashed. He swore in a colourless sort of way, and
+      picked the photograph up. It represented a young lady called Jacky, and
+      had been taken at the time when young ladies called Jacky were often
+      photographed with their mouths open. Teeth of dazzling whiteness extended
+      along either of Jacky&rsquo;s jaws, and positively weighed her head sideways,
+      so large were they and so numerous. Take my word for it, that smile was
+      simply stunning, and it is only you and I who will be fastidious, and
+      complain that true joy begins in the eyes, and that the eyes of Jacky did
+      not accord with her smile, but were anxious and hungry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard tried to pull out the fragments of glass, and cut his fingers and
+      swore again. A drop of blood fell on the frame, another followed, spilling
+      over on to the exposed photograph. He swore more vigorously, and dashed
+      into the kitchen, where he bathed his hands. The kitchen was the same size
+      as the sitting-room; beyond it was a bedroom. This completed his home. He
+      was renting the flat furnished; of all the objects that encumbered it none
+      were his own except the photograph frame, the Cupids, and the books.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn, damn, damnation!&rdquo; he murmured, together with such other words as he
+      had learnt from older men. Then he raised his hand to his forehead and
+      said, &ldquo;Oh, damn it all&mdash;&rdquo; which meant something different. He pulled
+      himself together. He drank a little tea, black and silent, that still
+      survived upon an upper shelf. He swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake.
+      Then he went back to the sitting-room, settled himself anew, and began to
+      read a volume of Ruskin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven miles to the north of Venice&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command of
+      admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking to us from his gondola.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the
+      city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level,
+      and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and
+      there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin; he understood him to be
+      the greatest master of English Prose. He read forward steadily,
+      occasionally making a few notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and
+      first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what is very
+      peculiar to this church&mdash;its luminousness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he adapt it
+      to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with modifications,
+      when he next wrote a letter to his brother, the lay-reader? For example:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and
+      first (for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already),
+      what is very peculiar to this flat&mdash;its obscurity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something told him that the modifications would not do; and that
+      something, had he known it, was the spirit of English Prose. &ldquo;My flat is
+      dark as well as stuffy.&rdquo; Those were the words for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping melodiously of Effort and
+      Self-Sacrifice, full of high purpose, full of beauty, full even of
+      sympathy and the love of men, yet somehow eluding all that was actual and
+      insistent in Leonard&rsquo;s life. For it was the voice of one who had never
+      been dirty or hungry, and had not guessed successfully what dirt and
+      hunger are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard listened to it with reverence. He felt that he was being done good
+      to, and that if he kept on with Ruskin, and the Queen&rsquo;s Hall Concerts, and
+      some pictures by Watts, he would one day push his head out of the grey
+      waters and see the universe. He believed in sudden conversion, a belief
+      which may be right, but which is peculiarly attractive to a half-baked
+      mind. It is the basis of much popular religion; in the domain of business
+      it dominates the Stock Exchange, and becomes that &ldquo;bit of luck&rdquo; by which
+      all successes and failures are explained. &ldquo;If only I had a bit of luck,
+      the whole thing would come straight... He&rsquo;s got a most magnificent place
+      down at Streatham and a 20 h.p. Fiat, but then, mind you, he&rsquo;s had luck...
+      I&rsquo;m sorry the wife&rsquo;s so late, but she never has any luck over catching
+      trains.&rdquo; Leonard was superior to these people; he did believe in effort
+      and in a steady preparation for the change that he desired. But of a
+      heritage that may expand gradually, he had no conception; he hoped to come
+      to Culture suddenly, much as the Revivalist hopes to come to Jesus. Those
+      Miss Schlegels had come to it; they had done the trick; their hands were
+      upon the ropes, once and for all. And meanwhile, his flat was dark, as
+      well as stuffy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently there was a noise on the staircase. He shut up Margaret&rsquo;s card
+      in the pages of Ruskin, and opened the door. A woman entered, of whom it
+      is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was
+      awesome. She seemed all strings and bell-pulls&mdash;ribbons, chains, bead
+      necklaces that clinked and caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round
+      her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double
+      row of pearls, her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be
+      detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was flowery,
+      resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed with mustard
+      and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes, and there no.
+      She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or rather hairs,
+      they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down her back,
+      lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny,
+      rippled around her forehead. The face&mdash;the face does not signify. It
+      was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so
+      numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so white.
+      Yes, Jacky was past her prime, whatever that prime may have been. She was
+      descending quicker than most women into the colourless years, and the look
+      in her eyes confessed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ho!&rdquo; said Leonard, greeting the apparition with much spirit, and
+      helping it off with its boa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky, in husky tones, replied, &ldquo;What ho!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Been out?&rdquo; he asked. The question sounds superfluous, but it cannot have
+      been really, for the lady answered, &ldquo;No,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;Oh, I am so tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m tired,&rdquo; said he, hanging the boa up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Len, I am so tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been to that classical concert I told you about,&rdquo; said Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came back as soon as it was over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Any one been round to our place?&rdquo; asked Jacky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I&rsquo;ve seen. I met Mr. Cunningham outside, and we passed a few
+      remarks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, not Mr. Cunningham?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you mean Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Mr. Cunningham.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been out to tea at a lady friend&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her secret being at last given&mdash;to the world, and the name of the
+      lady friend being even adumbrated, Jacky made no further experiments in
+      the difficult and tiring art of conversation. She never had been a great
+      talker. Even in her photographic days she had relied upon her smile and
+      her figure to attract, and now that she was
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+      &ldquo;On the shelf,
+       On the shelf,
+       Boys, boys, I&rsquo;m on the shelf,&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      she was not likely to find her tongue. Occasional bursts of song (of which
+      the above is an example) still issued from her lips, but the spoken word
+      was rare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sat down on Leonard&rsquo;s knee, and began to fondle him. She was now a
+      massive woman of thirty-three, and her weight hurt him, but he could not
+      very well say anything. Then she said, &ldquo;Is that a book you&rsquo;re reading?&rdquo;
+       and he said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a book,&rdquo; and drew it from her unreluctant grasp.
+      Margaret&rsquo;s card fell out of it. It fell face downwards, and he murmured,
+      &ldquo;Bookmarker.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Len&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; he asked, a little wearily, for she only had one topic of
+      conversation when she sat upon his knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do love me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jacky, you know that I do. How can you ask such questions!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do love me, Len, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A pause. The other remark was still due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Len&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well? What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Len, you will make it all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t have you ask me that again,&rdquo; said the boy, flaring up into a
+      sudden passion. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve promised to marry you when I&rsquo;m of age, and that&rsquo;s
+      enough. My word&rsquo;s my word. I&rsquo;ve promised to marry you as soon as ever I&rsquo;m
+      twenty-one, and I can&rsquo;t keep on being worried. I&rsquo;ve worries enough. It
+      isn&rsquo;t likely I&rsquo;d throw you over, let alone my word, when I&rsquo;ve spent all
+      this money. Besides, I&rsquo;m an Englishman, and I never go back on my word.
+      Jacky, do be reasonable. Of course I&rsquo;ll marry you. Only do stop badgering
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When&rsquo;s your birthday, Len?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve told you again and again, the eleventh of November next. Now get off
+      my knee a bit; some one must get supper, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky went through to the bedroom, and began to see to her hat. This meant
+      blowing at it with short sharp puffs. Leonard tidied up the sitting-room,
+      and began to prepare their evening meal. He put a penny into the slot of
+      the gas-meter, and soon the flat was reeking with metallic fumes. Somehow
+      he could not recover his temper, and all the time he was cooking he
+      continued to complain bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It really is too bad when a fellow isn&rsquo;t trusted. It makes one feel so
+      wild, when I&rsquo;ve pretended to the people here that you&rsquo;re my wife&mdash;all
+      right, all right, you SHALL be my wife&mdash;and I&rsquo;ve bought you the ring
+      to wear, and I&rsquo;ve taken this flat furnished, and it&rsquo;s far more than I can
+      afford, and yet you aren&rsquo;t content, and I&rsquo;ve also not told the truth when
+      I&rsquo;ve written home.&rdquo; He lowered his voice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;d stop it.&rdquo; In a tone of
+      horror, that was a little luxurious, he repeated: &ldquo;My brother&rsquo;d stop it.
+      I&rsquo;m going against the whole world, Jacky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I am, Jacky. I don&rsquo;t take any heed of what any one says. I
+      just go straight forward, I do. That&rsquo;s always been my way. I&rsquo;m not one of
+      your weak knock-kneed chaps. If a woman&rsquo;s in trouble, I don&rsquo;t leave her in
+      the lurch. That&rsquo;s not my street. No, thank you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell you another thing too. I care a good deal about improving
+      myself by means of Literature and Art, and so getting a wider outlook. For
+      instance, when you came in I was reading Ruskin&rsquo;s Stones of Venice. I
+      don&rsquo;t say this to boast, but just to show you the kind of man I am. I can
+      tell you, I enjoyed that classical concert this afternoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent. When supper was ready&mdash;and
+      not before&mdash;she emerged from the bedroom, saying: &ldquo;But you do love
+      me, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They began with a soup square, which Leonard had just dissolved in some
+      hot water. It was followed by the tongue&mdash;a freckled cylinder of
+      meat, with a little jelly at the top, and a great deal of yellow fat at
+      the bottom&mdash;ending with another square dissolved in water (jelly:
+      pineapple), which Leonard had prepared earlier in the day. Jacky ate
+      contentedly enough, occasionally looking at her man with those anxious
+      eyes, to which nothing else in her appearance corresponded, and which yet
+      seemed to mirror her soul. And Leonard managed to convince his stomach
+      that it was having a nourishing meal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few statements. She
+      observed that her &ldquo;likeness&rdquo; had been broken. He found occasion to remark,
+      for the second time, that he had come straight back home after the concert
+      at Queen&rsquo;s Hall. Presently she sat upon his knee. The inhabitants of
+      Camelia Road tramped to and fro outside the window, just on a level with
+      their heads, and the family in the flat on the ground-floor began to sing,
+      &ldquo;Hark, my soul, it is the Lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That tune fairly gives me the hump,&rdquo; said Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky followed this, and said that, for her part, she thought it a lovely
+      tune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I&rsquo;ll play you something lovely. Get up, dear, for a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg. He played badly and
+      vulgarly, but the performance was not without its effect, for Jacky said
+      she thought she&rsquo;d be going to bed. As she receded, a new set of interests
+      possessed the boy, and he began to think of what had been said about music
+      by that odd Miss Schlegel&mdash;the one that twisted her face about so
+      when she spoke. Then the thoughts grew sad and envious. There was the girl
+      named Helen, who had pinched his umbrella, and the German girl who had
+      smiled at him pleasantly, and Herr some one, and Aunt some one, and the
+      brother&mdash;all, all with their hands on the ropes. They had all passed
+      up that narrow, rich staircase at Wickham Place to some ample room,
+      whither he could never follow them, not if he read for ten hours a day.
+      Oh, it was no good, this continual aspiration. Some are born cultured; the
+      rest had better go in for whatever comes easy. To see life steadily and to
+      see it whole was not for the likes of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the darkness beyond the kitchen a voice called, &ldquo;Len?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You in bed?&rdquo; he asked, his forehead twitching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she called him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must clean my boots ready for the morning,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she called him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I rather want to get this chapter done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He closed his ears against her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Jacky, nothing; I&rsquo;m reading a book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he answered, catching her degraded deafness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently she called him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ruskin had visited Torcello by this time, and was ordering his gondoliers
+      to take him to Murano. It occurred to him, as he glided over the
+      whispering lagoons, that the power of Nature could not be shortened by the
+      folly, nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery of such as
+      Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margaret,&rdquo; cried her aunt next morning, &ldquo;such a most unfortunate
+      thing has happened. I could not get you alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The most unfortunate thing was not very serious. One of the flats in the
+      ornate block opposite had been taken furnished by the Wilcox family,
+      &ldquo;coming up, no doubt, in the hope of getting into London society.&rdquo; That
+      Mrs. Munt should be the first to discover the misfortune was not
+      remarkable, for she was so interested in the flats, that she watched their
+      every mutation with unwearying care. In theory she despised them&mdash;they
+      took away that old-world look&mdash;they cut off the sun&mdash;flats house
+      a flashy type of person. But if the truth had been known, she found her
+      visits to Wickham Place twice as amusing since Wickham Mansions had
+      arisen, and would in a couple of days learn more about them than her
+      nieces in a couple of months, or her nephew in a couple of years. She
+      would stroll across and make friends with the porters, and inquire what
+      the rents were, exclaiming for example: &ldquo;What! a hundred and twenty for a
+      basement? You&rsquo;ll never get it!&rdquo; And they would answer: &ldquo;One can but try,
+      madam.&rdquo; The passenger lifts, the arrangement for coals (a great temptation
+      for a dishonest porter), were all familiar matters to her, and perhaps a
+      relief from the politico-economical-esthetic atmosphere that reigned at
+      the Schlegels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret received the information calmly, and did not agree that it would
+      throw a cloud over poor Helen&rsquo;s life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but Helen isn&rsquo;t a girl with no interests,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;She has
+      plenty of other things and other people to think about. She made a false
+      start with the Wilcoxes, and she&rsquo;ll be as willing as we are to have
+      nothing more to do with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a clever girl, dear, how very oddly you do talk. Helen&rsquo;ll HAVE to
+      have something more to do with them, now that they&rsquo;re all opposite. She
+      may meet that Paul in the street. She cannot very well not bow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she must bow. But look here; let&rsquo;s do the flowers. I was going
+      to say, the will to be interested in him has died, and what else matters?
+      I look on that disastrous episode (over which you were so kind) as the
+      killing of a nerve in Helen. It&rsquo;s dead, and she&rsquo;ll never be troubled with
+      it again. The only things that matter are the things that interest one.
+      Bowing, even calling and leaving cards, even a dinner-party&mdash;we can
+      do all those things to the Wilcoxes, if they find it agreeable; but the
+      other thing, the one important thing&mdash;never again. Don&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a most questionable
+      statement&mdash;that any emotion, any interest once vividly aroused, can
+      wholly die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I also have the honour to inform you that the Wilcoxes are bored with us.
+      I didn&rsquo;t tell you at the time&mdash;it might have made you angry, and you
+      had enough to worry you&mdash;but I wrote a letter to Mrs. W, and
+      apologised for the trouble that Helen had given them. She didn&rsquo;t answer
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very rude!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder. Or was it sensible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Margaret, most rude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In either case one can class it as reassuring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt sighed. She was going back to Swanage on the morrow, just as her
+      nieces were wanting her most. Other regrets crowded upon her: for
+      instance, how magnificently she would have cut Charles if she had met him
+      face to face. She had already seen him, giving an order to the porter&mdash;and
+      very common he looked in a tall hat. But unfortunately his back was turned
+      to her, and though she had cut his back, she could not regard this as a
+      telling snub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will be careful, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; she exhorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, certainly. Fiendishly careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Helen must be careful, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Careful over what?&rdquo; cried Helen, at that moment coming into the room with
+      her cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&rdquo; said Margaret, seized with a momentary awkwardness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Careful over what, Aunt Juley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt assumed a cryptic air. &ldquo;It is only that a certain family, whom
+      we know by name but do not mention, as you said yourself last night after
+      the concert, have taken the flat opposite from the Mathesons&mdash;where
+      the plants are in the balcony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen began some laughing reply, and then disconcerted them all by
+      blushing. Mrs. Munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed, &ldquo;What, Helen,
+      you don&rsquo;t mind them coming, do you?&rdquo; and deepened the blush to crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I don&rsquo;t mind,&rdquo; said Helen a little crossly. &ldquo;It is that you and
+      Meg are both so absurdly grave about it, when there&rsquo;s nothing to be grave
+      about at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not grave,&rdquo; protested Margaret, a little cross in her turn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you look grave; doesn&rsquo;t she, Frieda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel grave, that&rsquo;s all I can say; you&rsquo;re going quite on the wrong
+      tack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she does not feel grave,&rdquo; echoed Mrs. Munt. &ldquo;I can bear witness to
+      that. She disagrees&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hark!&rdquo; interrupted Fraulein Mosebach. &ldquo;I hear Bruno entering the hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Herr Liesecke was due at Wickham Place to call for the two younger
+      girls. He was not entering the hall&mdash;in fact, he did not enter it for
+      quite five minutes. But Frieda detected a delicate situation, and said
+      that she and Helen had much better wait for Bruno down below, and leave
+      Margaret and Mrs. Munt to finish arranging the flowers. Helen acquiesced.
+      But, as if to prove that the situation was not delicate really, she
+      stopped in the doorway and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you say the Mathesons&rsquo; flat, Aunt Juley? How wonderful you are! I
+      never knew that the name of the woman who laced too tightly was Matheson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Helen,&rdquo; said her cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, Helen,&rdquo; said her aunt; and continued to Margaret almost in the same
+      breath: &ldquo;Helen cannot deceive me. She does mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hush!&rdquo; breathed Margaret. &ldquo;Frieda&rsquo;ll hear you, and she can be so
+      tiresome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She minds,&rdquo; persisted Mrs. Munt, moving thoughtfully about the room, and
+      pulling the dead chrysanthemums out of the vases. &ldquo;I knew she&rsquo;d mind&mdash;and
+      I&rsquo;m sure a girl ought to! Such an experience! Such awful coarse-grained
+      people! I know more about them than you do, which you forget, and if
+      Charles had taken you that motor drive&mdash;well, you&rsquo;d have reached the
+      house a perfect wreck. Oh, Margaret, you don&rsquo;t know what you are in for!
+      They&rsquo;re all bottled up against the drawing-room window. There&rsquo;s Mrs.
+      Wilcox&mdash;I&rsquo;ve seen her. There&rsquo;s Paul. There&rsquo;s Evie, who is a minx.
+      There&rsquo;s Charles&mdash;I saw him to start with. And who would an elderly
+      man with a moustache and a copper-coloured face be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox, possibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it. And there&rsquo;s Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a shame to call his face copper colour,&rdquo; complained Margaret. &ldquo;He
+      has a remarkably good complexion for a man of his age.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt, triumphant elsewhere, could afford to concede Mr. Wilcox his
+      complexion. She passed on from it to the plan of campaign that her nieces
+      should pursue in the future. Margaret tried to stop her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen did not take the news quite as I expected, but the Wilcox nerve is
+      dead in her really, so there&rsquo;s no need for plans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s as well to be prepared.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;it&rsquo;s as well not to be prepared.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not explain
+      in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for all the
+      emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.
+      It is necessary to prepare for an examination, or a dinner-party, or a
+      possible fall in the price of stock: those who attempt human relations
+      must adopt another method, or fail. &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;d sooner risk it,&rdquo; was her
+      lame conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But imagine the evenings,&rdquo; exclaimed her aunt, pointing to the Mansions
+      with the spout of the watering can. &ldquo;Turn the electric light on here or
+      there, and it&rsquo;s almost the same room. One evening they may forget to draw
+      their blinds down, and you&rsquo;ll see them; and the next, you yours, and
+      they&rsquo;ll see you. Impossible to sit out on the balconies. Impossible to
+      water the plants, or even speak. Imagine going out of the front-door, and
+      they come out opposite at the same moment. And yet you tell me that plans
+      are unnecessary, and you&rsquo;d rather risk it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope to risk things all my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margaret, most dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But after all,&rdquo; she continued with a smile, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s never any great risk
+      as long as you have money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, shame! What a shocking speech!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Money pads the edges of things,&rdquo; said Miss Schlegel. &ldquo;God help those who
+      have none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this is something quite new!&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas
+      as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that
+      are portable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and
+      the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our
+      feet that we forget its very existence. It&rsquo;s only when we see some one
+      near us tottering that we realise all that an independent income means.
+      Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think
+      that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is
+      not the absence of love, but the absence of coin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call that rather cynical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to
+      criticise others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of
+      the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always
+      reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from
+      those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last
+      June, if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people, and couldn&rsquo;t invoke
+      railways and motor-cars to part them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more like Socialism,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one&rsquo;s hand
+      spread open on the table. I&rsquo;m tired of these rich people who pretend to be
+      poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that
+      keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred
+      pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as
+      fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed&mdash;from
+      the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of
+      six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don&rsquo;t want to
+      steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to
+      steal them and do steal them sometimes, and that what&rsquo;s a joke up here is
+      down there reality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There they go&mdash;there goes Fraulein Mosebach. Really, for a German
+      she does dress charmingly. Oh!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen was looking up at the Wilcoxes&rsquo; flat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, I interrupted you. What was it you were saying about
+      reality?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had worked round to myself, as usual,&rdquo; answered Margaret in tones that
+      were suddenly preoccupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do tell me this, at all events. Are you for the rich or for the poor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too difficult. Ask me another. Am I for poverty or for riches? For
+      riches. Hurrah for riches!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For riches!&rdquo; echoed Mrs. Munt, having, as it were, at last secured her
+      nut.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. For riches. Money for ever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So am I, and so, I am afraid, are most of my acquaintances at Swanage,
+      but I am surprised that you agree with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much, Aunt Juley. While I have talked theories, you have
+      done the flowers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, dear. I wish you would let me help you in more important
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, would you be very kind? Would you come round with me to the
+      registry office? There&rsquo;s a housemaid who won&rsquo;t say yes but doesn&rsquo;t say
+      no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On their way thither they too looked up at the Wilcoxes&rsquo; flat. Evie was in
+      the balcony, &ldquo;staring most rudely,&rdquo; according to Mrs. Munt. Oh yes, it was
+      a nuisance, there was no doubt of it. Helen was proof against a passing
+      encounter, but&mdash;Margaret began to lose confidence. Might it reawake
+      the dying nerve if the family were living close against her eyes? And
+      Frieda Mosebach was stopping with them for another fortnight, and Frieda
+      was sharp, abominably sharp, and quite capable of remarking, &ldquo;You love one
+      of the young gentlemen opposite, yes?&rdquo; The remark would be untrue, but of
+      the kind which, if stated often enough, may become true; just as the
+      remark, &ldquo;England and Germany are bound to fight,&rdquo; renders war a little
+      more likely each time that it is made, and is therefore made the more
+      readily by the gutter press of either nation. Have the private emotions
+      also their gutter press? Margaret thought so, and feared that good Aunt
+      Juley and Frieda were typical specimens of it. They might, by continual
+      chatter, lead Helen into a repetition of the desires of June. Into a
+      repetition&mdash;they could not do more; they could not lead her into
+      lasting love. They were&mdash;she saw it clearly&mdash;Journalism; her
+      father, with all his defects and wrong-headedness, had been Literature,
+      and had he lived, he would have persuaded his daughter rightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The registry office was holding its morning reception. A string of
+      carriages filled the street. Miss Schlegel waited her turn, and finally
+      had to be content with an insidious &ldquo;temporary,&rdquo; being rejected by genuine
+      housemaids on the ground of her numerous stairs. Her failure depressed
+      her, and though she forgot the failure, the depression remained. On her
+      way home she again glanced up at the Wilcoxes&rsquo; flat, and took the rather
+      matronly step of speaking about the matter to Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you must tell me whether this thing worries you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If what?&rdquo; said Helen, who was washing her hands for lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Ws&rsquo; coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really.&rdquo; Then she admitted that she was a little worried on Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      account; she implied that Mrs. Wilcox might reach backward into deep
+      feelings, and be pained by things that never touched the other members of
+      that clan. &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t mind if Paul points at our house and says, &lsquo;There
+      lives the girl who tried to catch me.&rsquo; But she might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If even that worries you, we could arrange something. There&rsquo;s no reason
+      we should be near people who displease us or whom we displease, thanks to
+      our money. We might even go away for a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am going away. Frieda&rsquo;s just asked me to Stettin, and I shan&rsquo;t be
+      back till after the New Year. Will that do? Or must I fly the country
+      altogether? Really, Meg, what has come over you to make such a fuss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;m getting an old maid, I suppose. I thought I minded nothing, but
+      really I&mdash;I should be bored if you fell in love with the same man
+      twice and&rdquo;&mdash;she cleared her throat&mdash;&ldquo;you did go red, you know,
+      when Aunt Juley attacked you this morning. I shouldn&rsquo;t have referred to it
+      otherwise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Helen&rsquo;s laugh rang true, as she raised a soapy hand to heaven and
+      swore that never, nowhere and nohow, would she again fall in love with any
+      of the Wilcox family, down to its remotest collaterals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which was to develop so
+      quickly and with such strange results, may perhaps have had its beginnings
+      at Speyer, in the spring. Perhaps the elder lady, as she gazed at the
+      vulgar, ruddy cathedral, and listened to the talk of her husband and
+      Helen, may have detected in the other and less charming of the sisters a
+      deeper sympathy, a sounder judgment. She was capable of detecting such
+      things. Perhaps it was she who had desired the Miss Schlegels to be
+      invited to Howards End, and Margaret whose presence she had particularly
+      desired. All this is speculation; Mrs. Wilcox has left few clear
+      indications behind her. It is certain that she came to call at Wickham
+      Place a fortnight later, the very day that Helen was going with her cousin
+      to Stettin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen!&rdquo; cried Fraulein Mosebach in awestruck tones (she was now in her
+      cousin&rsquo;s confidence)&mdash;&ldquo;his mother has forgiven you!&rdquo; And then,
+      remembering that in England the new-comer ought not to call before she is
+      called upon, she changed her tone from awe to disapproval, and opined that
+      Mrs. Wilcox was keine Dame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bother the whole family!&rdquo; snapped Margaret. &ldquo;Helen, stop giggling and
+      pirouetting, and go and finish your packing. Why can&rsquo;t the woman leave us
+      alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I shall do with Meg,&rdquo; Helen retorted, collapsing upon
+      the stairs. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s got Wilcox and Box upon the brain. Meg, Meg, I don&rsquo;t
+      love the young gentleman; I don&rsquo;t love the young gentleman, Meg, Meg. Can
+      a body speak plainer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly her love has died,&rdquo; asserted Fraulein Mosebach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Most certainly it has, Frieda, but that will not prevent me from being
+      bored with the Wilcoxes if I return the call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Helen simulated tears, and Fraulein Mosebach, who thought her
+      extremely amusing, did the same. &ldquo;Oh, boo hoo! boo hoo hoo! Meg&rsquo;s going to
+      return the call, and I can&rsquo;t. &lsquo;Cos why? &lsquo;Cos I&rsquo;m going to German-eye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are going to Germany, go and pack; if you aren&rsquo;t, go and call on
+      the Wilcoxes instead of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Meg, Meg, I don&rsquo;t love the young gentleman; I don&rsquo;t love the young&mdash;O
+      lud, who&rsquo;s that coming down the stairs? I vow &lsquo;tis my brother. O crimini!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A male&mdash;even such a male as Tibby&mdash;was enough to stop the
+      foolery. The barrier of sex, though decreasing among the civilised, is
+      still high, and higher on the side of women. Helen could tell her sister
+      all, and her cousin much about Paul; she told her brother nothing. It was
+      not prudishness, for she now spoke of &ldquo;the Wilcox ideal&rdquo; with laughter,
+      and even with a growing brutality. Nor was it precaution, for Tibby seldom
+      repeated any news that did not concern himself. It was rather the feeling
+      that she betrayed a secret into the camp of men, and that, however trivial
+      it was on this side of the barrier, it would become important on that. So
+      she stopped, or rather began to fool on other subjects, until her
+      long-suffering relatives drove her upstairs. Fraulein Mosebach followed
+      her, but lingered to say heavily over the banisters to Margaret, &ldquo;It is
+      all right&mdash;she does not love the young man&mdash;he has not been
+      worthy of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know; thanks very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I did right to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ever so many thanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rdquo; asked Tibby. No one told him, and he proceeded into the
+      dining-room, to eat plums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening Margaret took decisive action. The house was very quiet, and
+      the fog&mdash;we are in November now&mdash;pressed against the windows
+      like an excluded ghost. Frieda and Helen and all their luggages had gone.
+      Tibby, who was not feeling well, lay stretched on a sofa by the fire.
+      Margaret sat by him, thinking. Her mind darted from impulse to impulse,
+      and finally marshalled them all in review. The practical person, who knows
+      what he wants at once, and generally knows nothing else, will accuse her
+      of indecision. But this was the way her mind worked. And when she did act,
+      no one could accuse her of indecision then. She hit out as lustily as if
+      she had not considered the matter at all. The letter that she wrote Mrs.
+      Wilcox glowed with the native hue of resolution. The pale cast of thought
+      was with her a breath rather than a tarnish, a breath that leaves the
+      colours all the more vivid when it has been wiped away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MRS. WILCOX,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have to write something discourteous. It would be better if we did not
+      meet. Both my sister and my aunt have given displeasure to your family,
+      and, in my sister&rsquo;s case, the grounds for displeasure might recur. So far
+      as I know she no longer occupies her thoughts with your son. But it would
+      not be fair, either to her or to you, if they met, and it is therefore
+      right that our acquaintance, which began so pleasantly, should end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear that you will not agree with this; indeed, I know that you will
+      not, since you have been good enough to call on us. It is only an instinct
+      on my part, and no doubt the instinct is wrong. My sister would,
+      undoubtedly, say that it is wrong. I write without her knowledge, and I
+      hope that you will not associate her with my discourtesy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Believe me,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M. J. SCHLEGEL.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret sent this letter round by the post. Next morning she received the
+      following reply by hand:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MISS SCHLEGEL,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should not have written me such a letter. I called to tell you that
+      Paul has gone abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;RUTH WILCOX.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret&rsquo;s cheeks burnt. She could not finish her breakfast. She was on
+      fire with shame. Helen had told her that the youth was leaving England,
+      but other things had seemed more important, and she had forgotten. All her
+      absurd anxieties fell to the ground, and in their place arose the
+      certainty that she had been rude to Mrs. Wilcox. Rudeness affected
+      Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it
+      is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. She flung
+      on a hat and shawl, just like a poor woman, and plunged into the fog,
+      which still continued. Her lips were compressed, the letter remained in
+      her hand, and in this state she crossed the street, entered the marble
+      vestibule of the flats, eluded the concierges, and ran up the stairs till
+      she reached the second floor. She sent in her name, and to her surprise
+      was shown straight into Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, I have made the baddest blunder. I am more, more ashamed
+      and sorry than I can say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox bowed gravely. She was offended, and did not pretend to the
+      contrary. She was sitting up in bed, writing letters on an invalid table
+      that spanned her knees. A breakfast tray was on another table beside her.
+      The light of the fire, the light from the window, and the light of a
+      candle-lamp, which threw a quivering halo round her hands combined to
+      create a strange atmosphere of dissolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew he was going to India in November, but I forgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He sailed on the 17th for Nigeria, in Africa.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew&mdash;I know. I have been too absurd all through. I am very much
+      ashamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am more sorry than I can say, and I hope that you will forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter, Miss Schlegel. It is good of you to have come round so
+      promptly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does matter,&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;I have been rude to you; and my sister
+      is not even at home, so there was not even that excuse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has just gone to Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She gone as well,&rdquo; murmured the other. &ldquo;Yes, certainly, it is quite safe&mdash;safe,
+      absolutely, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been worrying too!&rdquo; exclaimed Margaret, getting more and more
+      excited, and taking a chair without invitation. &ldquo;How perfectly
+      extraordinary! I can see that you have. You felt as I do; Helen mustn&rsquo;t
+      meet him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did think it best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a most difficult question,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, smiling, and a
+      little losing her expression of annoyance. &ldquo;I think you put it best in
+      your letter&mdash;it was an instinct, which may be wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t that your son still&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no; he often&mdash;my Paul is very young, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She repeated: &ldquo;An instinct which may be wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, they belong to types that can fall in love, but couldn&rsquo;t
+      live together. That&rsquo;s dreadfully probable. I&rsquo;m afraid that in nine cases
+      out of ten Nature pulls one way and human nature another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are indeed &lsquo;other words,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox. &ldquo;I had nothing so
+      coherent in my head. I was merely alarmed when I knew that my boy cared
+      for your sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, I have always been wanting to ask you. How DID you know? Helen was so
+      surprised when our aunt drove up, and you stepped forward and arranged
+      things. Did Paul tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to be gained by discussing that,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox after
+      a moment&rsquo;s pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox, were you very angry with us last June? I wrote you a letter
+      and you didn&rsquo;t answer it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was certainly against taking Mrs. Matheson&rsquo;s flat. I knew it was
+      opposite your house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s all right now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You only think? You aren&rsquo;t sure? I do love these little muddles tidied
+      up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I&rsquo;m sure,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, moving with uneasiness beneath the
+      clothes. &ldquo;I always sound uncertain over things. It is my way of speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right, and I&rsquo;m sure, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the maid came in to remove the breakfast-tray. They were interrupted,
+      and when they resumed conversation it was on more normal lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must say good-bye now&mdash;you will be getting up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;please stop a little longer&mdash;I am taking a day in bed. Now
+      and then I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought of you as one of the early risers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Howards End&mdash;yes; there is nothing to get up for in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing to get up for?&rdquo; cried the scandalised Margaret. &ldquo;When there are
+      all the autumn exhibitions, and Ysaye playing in the afternoon! Not to
+      mention people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth is, I am a little tired. First came the wedding, and then Paul
+      went off, and, instead of resting yesterday, I paid a round of calls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A wedding?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; Charles, my elder son, is married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We took the flat chiefly on that account, and also that Paul could get
+      his African outfit. The flat belongs to a cousin of my husband&rsquo;s, and she
+      most kindly offered it to us. So before the day came we were able to make
+      the acquaintance of Dolly&rsquo;s people, which we had not yet done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret asked who Dolly&rsquo;s people were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fussell. The father is in the Indian army&mdash;retired; the brother is
+      in the army. The mother is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So perhaps these were the &ldquo;chinless sunburnt men&rdquo; whom Helen had espied
+      one afternoon through the window. Margaret felt mildly interested in the
+      fortunes of the Wilcox family. She had acquired the habit on Helen&rsquo;s
+      account, and it still clung to her. She asked for more information about
+      Miss Dolly Fussell that was, and was given it in even, unemotional tones.
+      Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s voice, though sweet and compelling, had little range of
+      expression. It suggested that pictures, concerts, and people are all of
+      small and equal value. Only once had it quickened&mdash;when speaking of
+      Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles and Albert Fussell have known one another some time. They belong
+      to the same club, and are both devoted to golf. Dolly plays golf too,
+      though I believe not so well; and they first met in a mixed foursome. We
+      all like her, and are very much pleased. They were married on the 11th, a
+      few days before Paul sailed. Charles was very anxious to have his brother
+      as best man, so he made a great point of having it on the 11th. The
+      Fussells would have preferred it after Christmas, but they were very nice
+      about it. There is Dolly&rsquo;s photograph&mdash;in that double frame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you quite certain that I&rsquo;m not interrupting, Mrs. Wilcox?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will stay. I&rsquo;m enjoying this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly&rsquo;s photograph was now examined. It was signed &ldquo;For dear Mims,&rdquo; which
+      Mrs. Wilcox interpreted as &ldquo;the name she and Charles had settled that she
+      should call me.&rdquo; Dolly looked silly, and had one of those triangular faces
+      that so often prove attractive to a robust man. She was very pretty. From
+      her Margaret passed to Charles, whose features prevailed opposite. She
+      speculated on the forces that had drawn the two together till God parted
+      them. She found time to hope that they would be happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have gone to Naples for their honeymoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lucky people!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can hardly imagine Charles in Italy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t he care for travelling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He likes travel, but he does see through foreigners so. What he enjoys
+      most is a motor tour in England, and I think that would have carried the
+      day if the weather had not been so abominable. His father gave him a car
+      for a wedding present, which for the present is being stored at Howards
+      End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you have a garage there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. My husband built a little one only last month, to the west of the
+      house, not far from the wych-elm, in what used to be the paddock for the
+      pony.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The last words had an indescribable ring about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the pony gone?&rdquo; asked Margaret after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The pony? Oh, dead, ever so long ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wych-elm I remember. Helen spoke of it as a very splendid tree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the finest wych-elm in Hertfordshire. Did your sister tell you
+      about the teeth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, it might interest you. There are pigs&rsquo; teeth stuck into the trunk,
+      about four feet from the ground. The country people put them in long ago,
+      and they think that if they chew a piece of the bark, it will cure the
+      toothache. The teeth are almost grown over now, and no one comes to the
+      tree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should. I love folklore and all festering superstitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one believed in
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it did. It would cure anything&mdash;once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I remember cases&mdash;you see I lived at Howards End long,
+      long before Mr. Wilcox knew it. I was born there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The conversation again shifted. At the time it seemed little more than
+      aimless chatter. She was interested when her hostess explained that
+      Howards End was her own property. She was bored when too minute an account
+      was given of the Fussell family, of the anxieties of Charles concerning
+      Naples, of the movements of Mr. Wilcox and Evie, who were motoring in
+      Yorkshire. Margaret could not bear being bored. She grew inattentive,
+      played with the photograph frame, dropped it, smashed Dolly&rsquo;s glass,
+      apologised, was pardoned, cut her finger thereon, was pitied, and finally
+      said she must be going&mdash;there was all the housekeeping to do, and she
+      had to interview Tibby&rsquo;s riding-master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the curious note was struck again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Miss Schlegel, good-bye. Thank you for coming. You have cheered
+      me up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m so glad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I wonder whether you ever think about yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of nothing else,&rdquo; said Margaret, blushing, but letting her hand
+      remain in that of the invalid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder. I wondered at Heidelberg.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;M sure!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I almost think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; asked Margaret, for there was a long pause&mdash;a pause that was
+      somehow akin to the flicker of the fire, the quiver of the reading-lamp
+      upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a pause of shifting and
+      eternal shadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I almost think you forget you&rsquo;re a girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was startled and a little annoyed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m twenty-nine,&rdquo; she
+      remarked. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not so wildly girlish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you say that? Do you mean that I have been gauche and rude?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A shake of the head. &ldquo;I only meant that I am fifty-one, and that to me
+      both of you&mdash;Read it all in some book or other; I cannot put things
+      clearly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve got it&mdash;inexperience. I&rsquo;m no better than Helen, you mean,
+      and yet I presume to advise her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You have got it. Inexperience is the word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inexperience,&rdquo; repeated Margaret, in serious yet buoyant tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, I have everything to learn&mdash;absolutely everything&mdash;just
+      as much as Helen. Life&rsquo;s very difficult and full of surprises. At all
+      events, I&rsquo;ve got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight
+      ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged&mdash;well,
+      one can&rsquo;t do all these things at once, worse luck, because they&rsquo;re so
+      contradictory. It&rsquo;s then that proportion comes in&mdash;to live by
+      proportion. Don&rsquo;t BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let
+      proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed,
+      and a deadlock&mdash;Gracious me, I&rsquo;ve started preaching!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, you put the difficulties of life splendidly,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox,
+      withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows. &ldquo;It is just what I should
+      have liked to say about them myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information about
+      life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show of modesty,
+      and has pretended to an inexperience that she certainly did not feel. She
+      had kept house for over ten years; she had entertained, almost with
+      distinction; she had brought up a charming sister, and was bringing up a
+      brother. Surely, if experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet the
+      little luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s honour was not a
+      success. The new friend did not blend with the &ldquo;one or two delightful
+      people&rdquo; who had been asked to meet her, and the atmosphere was one of
+      polite bewilderment. Her tastes were simple, her knowledge of culture
+      slight, and she was not interested in the New English Art Club, nor in the
+      dividing-line between Journalism and Literature, which was started as a
+      conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with cries of
+      joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was half over did they
+      realise that the principal guest had taken no part in the chase. There was
+      no common topic. Mrs. Wilcox, whose life had been spent in the service of
+      husband and sons, had little to say to strangers who had never shared it,
+      and whose age was half her own. Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her
+      delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-car, all
+      jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice she deplored the
+      weather, twice criticised the train service on the Great Northern Railway.
+      They vigorously assented, and rushed on, and when she inquired whether
+      there was any news of Helen, her hostess was too much occupied in placing
+      Rothenstein to answer. The question was repeated: &ldquo;I hope that your sister
+      is safe in Germany by now.&rdquo; Margaret checked herself and said, &ldquo;Yes, thank
+      you; I heard on Tuesday.&rdquo; But the demon of vociferation was in her, and
+      the next moment she was off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you ever know
+      any one living at Stettin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour, a young man low
+      down in the Education Office, began to discuss what people who lived at
+      Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a thing as Stettininity?
+      Margaret swept on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging warehouses.
+      At least, our cousins do, but aren&rsquo;t particularly rich. The town isn&rsquo;t
+      interesting, except for a clock that rolls its eyes, and the view of the
+      Oder, which truly is something special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would love
+      the Oder! The river, or rather rivers&mdash;there seem to be dozens of
+      them&mdash;are intense blue, and the plain they run through an intensest
+      green.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no, it&rsquo;s like music.
+      The course of the Oder is to be like music. It&rsquo;s obliged to remind her of
+      a symphonic poem. The part by the landing-stage is in B minor, if I
+      remember rightly, but lower down things get extremely mixed. There is a
+      slodgy theme in several keys at once, meaning mud-banks, and another for
+      the navigable canal, and the exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major,
+      pianissimo.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?&rdquo; asked the man,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They make a great deal of it,&rdquo; replied Margaret, unexpectedly rushing off
+      on a new track. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s affectation to compare the Oder to music,
+      and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses of Stettin take beauty
+      seriously, which we don&rsquo;t, and the average Englishman doesn&rsquo;t, and
+      despises all who do. Now don&rsquo;t say &lsquo;Germans have no taste,&rsquo; or I shall
+      scream. They haven&rsquo;t. But&mdash;but&mdash;such a tremendous but!&mdash;they
+      take poetry seriously. They do take poetry seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything gained by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss it
+      through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking beauty to
+      enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come. At Heidelberg
+      I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose voice broke with sobs as he repeated
+      some mawkish poetry. So easy for me to laugh&mdash;I, who never repeat
+      poetry, good or bad, and cannot remember one fragment of verse to thrill
+      myself with. My blood boils&mdash;well, I&rsquo;m half German, so put it down
+      to patriotism&mdash;when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the average
+      islander for things Teutonic, whether they&rsquo;re Bocklin or my veterinary
+      surgeon. &lsquo;Oh, Bocklin,&rsquo; they say; &lsquo;he strains after beauty, he peoples
+      Nature with gods too consciously.&rsquo; Of course Bocklin strains, because he
+      wants something&mdash;beauty and all the other intangible gifts that are
+      floating about the world. So his landscapes don&rsquo;t come off, and Leader&rsquo;s
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure that I agree. Do you?&rdquo; said he, turning to Mrs. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She replied: &ldquo;I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;&rdquo; and a
+      chill fell on the conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It&rsquo;s such a snub to be
+      told you put things splendidly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech interested me so much.
+      Generally people do not seem quite to like Germany. I have long wanted to
+      hear what is said on the other side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give us your side.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no side. But my husband&rdquo;&mdash;her voice softened, the chill
+      increased&mdash;&ldquo;has very little faith in the Continent, and our children
+      have all taken after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in bad form?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to grounds. She was not
+      intellectual, nor even alert, and it was odd that, all the same, she
+      should give the idea of greatness. Margaret, zigzagging with her friends
+      over Thought and Art, was conscious of a personality that transcended
+      their own and dwarfed their activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs.
+      Wilcox; there was not even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious
+      or uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life were out
+      of focus; one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she seemed more
+      out of focus than usual, and nearer the line that divides daily life from
+      a life that may be of greater importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will admit, though, that the Continent&mdash;it seems silly to speak
+      of &lsquo;the Continent,&rsquo; but really it is all more like itself than any part of
+      it is like England. England is unique. Do have another jelly first. I was
+      going to say that the Continent, for good or for evil, is interested in
+      ideas. Its Literature and Art have what one might call the kink of the
+      unseen about them, and this persists even through decadence and
+      affectation. There is more liberty of action in England, but for liberty
+      of thought go to bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with
+      humility vital questions that we here think ourselves too good to touch
+      with tongs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not want to go to Prussia,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox &ldquo;not even to see that
+      interesting view that you were describing. And for discussing with
+      humility I am too old. We never discuss anything at Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you ought to!&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Discussion keeps a house alive. It
+      cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It cannot stand without them,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, unexpectedly catching on
+      to the thought, and rousing, for the first and last time, a faint hope in
+      the breasts of the delightful people. &ldquo;It cannot stand without them, and I
+      sometimes think&mdash;But I cannot expect your generation to agree, for
+      even my daughter disagrees with me here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind us or her. Do say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and discussion to
+      men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a little silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE extraordinarily
+      strong,&rdquo; said a girl opposite, leaning forward and crumbling her bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too thankful not to
+      have a vote myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t mean the vote, though, did we?&rdquo; supplied Margaret. &ldquo;Aren&rsquo;t we
+      differing on something much wider, Mrs. Wilcox? Whether women are to
+      remain what they have been since the dawn of history; or whether, since
+      men have moved forward so far, they too may move forward a little now. I
+      say they may. I would even admit a biological change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse,&rdquo; said the man.
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve turned disgracefully strict.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox also rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested plays. Do you like
+      MacDowell? Do you mind his only having two noises? If you must really go,
+      I&rsquo;ll see you out. Won&rsquo;t you even have coffee?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They left the dining-room closing the door behind them, and as Mrs. Wilcox
+      buttoned up her jacket, she said: &ldquo;What an interesting life you all lead
+      in London!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion. &ldquo;We lead the lives
+      of gibbering monkeys. Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;really&mdash;We have something
+      quiet and stable at the bottom. We really have. All my friends have. Don&rsquo;t
+      pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed it, but forgive me by coming
+      again, alone, or by asking me to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am used to young people,&rdquo; said Mrs. Wilcox, and with each word she
+      spoke the outlines of known things grew dim. &ldquo;I hear a great deal of
+      chatter at home, for we, like you, entertain a great deal. With us it is
+      more sport and politics, but&mdash;I enjoyed my lunch very much, Miss
+      Schlegel, dear, and am not pretending, and only wish I could have joined
+      in more. For one thing, I&rsquo;m not particularly well just to-day. For
+      another, you younger people move so quickly that it dazes me. Charles is
+      the same, Dolly the same. But we are all in the same boat, old and young.
+      I never forget that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn emotion, they shook
+      hands. The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret re-entered the
+      dining-room; her friends had been talking over her new friend, and had
+      dismissed her as uninteresting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Several days passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people&mdash;there are many of
+      them&mdash;who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our
+      interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round
+      them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a
+      definite name for such behaviour&mdash;flirting&mdash;and if carried far
+      enough it is punishable by law. But no law&mdash;not public opinion even&mdash;punishes
+      those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they
+      inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as
+      intolerable. Was she one of these?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner&rsquo;s impatience, she wanted
+      everything to be settled up immediately. She mistrusted the periods of
+      quiet that are essential to true growth. Desiring to book Mrs. Wilcox as a
+      friend, she pressed on the ceremony, pencil, as it were, in hand, pressing
+      the more because the rest of the family were away, and the opportunity
+      seemed favourable. But the elder woman would not be hurried. She refused
+      to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to reopen discussion of Helen and
+      Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised as a short-cut. She took her time,
+      or perhaps let time take her, and when the crisis did come all was ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come shopping?
+      Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand with the presents.
+      She had taken some more days in bed, and must make up for lost time.
+      Margaret accepted, and at eleven o&rsquo;clock one cheerless morning they
+      started out in a brougham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First of all,&rdquo; began Margaret, &ldquo;we must make a list and tick off the
+      people&rsquo;s names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken up any
+      moment. Have you any ideas?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Wilcox rather hopelessly. &ldquo;Everything is sure to be there. I am not a good
+      shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is quite right&mdash;one
+      ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then, and write your own name at
+      the top of the page.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, hooray!&rdquo; said Margaret, writing it. &ldquo;How very kind of you to start
+      with me!&rdquo; But she did not want to receive anything expensive. Their
+      acquaintance was singular rather than intimate, and she divined that the
+      Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure on outsiders; the more compact
+      families do. She did not want to be thought a second Helen, who would
+      snatch presents since she could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed
+      like a second Aunt Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity
+      of demeanour was best, and she added: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really want a Yuletide
+      gift, though. In fact, I&rsquo;d rather not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;ve odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that money can
+      buy. I want more people, but no more things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance, Miss
+      Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely fortnight. It
+      has so happened that I have been left alone, and you have stopped me from
+      brooding. I am too apt to brood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is so,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;if I have happened to be of use to you,
+      which I didn&rsquo;t know, you cannot pay me back with anything tangible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of something
+      as we go about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was written
+      opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was white, and when
+      they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At times they passed through a
+      clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s vitality was low that morning, and it was
+      Margaret who decided on a horse for this little girl, a golliwog for that,
+      for the rector&rsquo;s wife a copper warming-tray. &ldquo;We always give the servants
+      money.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, do you, yes, much easier,&rdquo; replied Margaret but felt the
+      grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing from a
+      forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys. Vulgarity
+      reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual exhortation against temperance
+      reform, invited men to &ldquo;Join our Christmas goose club&rdquo;&mdash;one bottle of
+      gin, etc., or two, according to subscription. A poster of a woman in
+      tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little red devils, who had
+      come in again that year, were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards. Margaret
+      was no morbid idealist. She did not wish this spate of business and
+      self-advertisement checked. It was only the occasion of it that struck her
+      with amazement annually. How many of these vacillating shoppers and tired
+      shop-assistants realised that it was a divine event that drew them
+      together? She realised it, though standing outside in the matter. She was
+      not a Christian in the accepted sense; she did not believe that God had
+      ever worked among us as a young artisan. These people, or most of them,
+      believed it, and if pressed, would affirm it in words. But the visible
+      signs of their belief were Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud
+      displaced, a little money spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and
+      forgotten. Inadequate. But in public who shall express the unseen
+      adequately? It is private life that holds out the mirror to infinity;
+      personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints at a personality
+      beyond our daily vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I do like Christmas on the whole,&rdquo; she announced. &ldquo;In its clumsy way,
+      it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it? I am only used to country Christmases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour&mdash;carols at
+      the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids, followed by
+      Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with songs from Helen. The
+      drawing-room does very well for that. We put the tree in the
+      powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted, and with
+      the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty. I wish we might have a
+      powder-closet in our next house. Of course, the tree has to be very small,
+      and the presents don&rsquo;t hang on it. No; the presents reside in a sort of
+      rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You spoke of your &lsquo;next house,&rsquo; Miss Schlegel. Then are you leaving
+      Wickham Place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been there long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All our lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will be very sorry to leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father&mdash;&rdquo; She broke
+      off, for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket
+      Stores, and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private greeting cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If possible, something distinctive,&rdquo; she sighed. At the counter she found
+      a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with her insipidly,
+      wasting much time. &ldquo;My husband and our daughter are motoring.&rdquo; &ldquo;Bertha,
+      too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as this. While
+      they talked, she went through a volume of specimen cards, and submitted
+      one for Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s inspection. Mrs. Wilcox was delighted&mdash;so
+      original, words so sweet; she would order a hundred like that, and could
+      never be sufficiently grateful. Then, just as the assistant was booking
+      the order, she said: &ldquo;Do you know, I&rsquo;ll wait. On second thoughts, I&rsquo;ll
+      wait. There&rsquo;s plenty of time still, isn&rsquo;t there, and I shall be able to
+      get Evie&rsquo;s opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were in, she
+      said, &ldquo;But couldn&rsquo;t you get it renewed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lease, I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How very kind
+      of you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely something could be done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down Wickham
+      Place, and build flats like yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how horrible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Landlords are horrible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she said vehemently: &ldquo;It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it isn&rsquo;t right.
+      I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do pity you from the
+      bottom of my heart. To be parted from your house, your father&rsquo;s house&mdash;it
+      oughtn&rsquo;t to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather die than&mdash;Oh,
+      poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right, if people mayn&rsquo;t die
+      in the room where they were born? My dear, I am so sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired by the
+      shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are fond
+      of ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you saw, it is an
+      ordinary London house. We shall easily find another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again my lack of experience, I suppose!&rdquo; said Margaret, easing away from
+      the subject. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say anything when you take up that line, Mrs.
+      Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me&mdash;foreshortened into a
+      backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming&mdash;wonderfully well read
+      for my age, but incapable&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. &ldquo;Come down with me to Howards End now,&rdquo;
+       she said, more vehemently than ever. &ldquo;I want you to see it. You have never
+      seen it. I want to hear what you say about it, for you do put things so
+      wonderfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face of her
+      companion. &ldquo;Later on I should love it,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s hardly
+      the weather for such an expedition, and we ought to start when we&rsquo;re
+      fresh. Isn&rsquo;t the house shut up, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Might I come some other day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. &ldquo;Back to Wickham Place,
+      please!&rdquo; was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been snubbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind&mdash;the
+      Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That is why I
+      dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town chiefly to shop, but got
+      through nothing, and now he writes that they must cut their tour short,
+      the weather is so bad, and the police-traps have been so bad&mdash;nearly
+      as bad as in Surrey. Ours is such a careful chauffeur, and my husband
+      feels it particularly hard that they should be treated like road-hogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, naturally he&mdash;he isn&rsquo;t a road-hog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to suffer
+      with the lower animals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove homewards. The
+      city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets oppressing like the galleries of
+      a mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the lighted
+      windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was rather a
+      darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to find a more
+      grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a dozen times, but
+      something throttled her. She felt petty and awkward, and her meditations
+      on Christmas grew more cynical. Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is
+      there a single Londoner to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for
+      excitement and for elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had she
+      seen any example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself? She had
+      failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a little queer
+      and imaginative&mdash;she, whose birthright it was to nourish imagination!
+      Better to have accepted, to have tired themselves a little by the journey,
+      than coldly to reply, &ldquo;Might I come some other day?&rdquo; Her cynicism left
+      her. There would be no other day. This shadowy woman would never ask her
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due civilities, and
+      Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up the hall to the lift. As
+      the glass doors closed on it she had the sense of an imprisonment The
+      beautiful head disappeared first, still buried in the muff; the long
+      trailing skirt followed. A woman of undefinable rarity was going up
+      heavenward, like a specimen in a bottle. And into what a heaven&mdash;a
+      vault as of hell, sooty black, from which soot descended!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on talking.
+      Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something drove him to do the
+      unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her a long account of the
+      day-school that he sometimes patronised. The account was interesting, and
+      she had often pressed him for it before, but she could not attend now, for
+      her mind was focussed on the invisible. She discerned that Mrs. Wilcox,
+      though a loving wife and mother, had only one passion in life&mdash;her
+      house&mdash;and that the moment was solemn when she invited a friend to
+      share this passion with her. To answer &ldquo;another day&rdquo; was to answer as a
+      fool. &ldquo;Another day&rdquo; will do for brick and mortar, but not for the Holy of
+      Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured. Her own curiosity was
+      slight. She had heard more than enough about it in the summer. The nine
+      windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had no pleasant connections for her,
+      and she would have preferred to spend the afternoon at a concert. But
+      imagination triumphed. While her brother held forth she determined to go,
+      at whatever cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go, too. When lunch was
+      over she stepped over to the flats.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs, and took
+      a hansom to King&rsquo;s Cross. She was convinced that the escapade was
+      important, though it would have puzzled her to say why. There was question
+      of imprisonment and escape, and though she did not know the time of the
+      train, she strained her eyes for St. Pancras&rsquo;s clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the clock of King&rsquo;s Cross swung into sight, a second moon in that
+      infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was a train for
+      Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in her agitation for a
+      single. As she did so, a grave and happy voice saluted her and thanked
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will come if I still may,&rdquo; said Margaret, laughing nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my house is
+      most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show you my meadow
+      properly except at sunrise. These fogs&rdquo;&mdash;she pointed at the station
+      roof&mdash;&ldquo;never spread far. I dare say they are sitting in the sun in
+      Hertfordshire, and you will never repent joining them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall never repent joining you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood the train,
+      breasting the darkness without. They never reached it. Before imagination
+      could triumph, there were cries of &ldquo;Mother! mother!&rdquo; and a heavy-browed
+      girl darted out of the cloak-room and seized Mrs. Wilcox by the arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie!&rdquo; she gasped&mdash;&ldquo;Evie, my pet&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl called, &ldquo;Father! I say! look who&rsquo;s here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie, dearest girl, why aren&rsquo;t you in Yorkshire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;motor smash&mdash;changed plans&mdash;father&rsquo;s coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Ruth!&rdquo; cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them, &ldquo;what in the name of all
+      that&rsquo;s wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Henry dear!&mdash;here&rsquo;s a lovely surprise&mdash;but let me introduce&mdash;but
+      I think you know Miss Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; he replied, not greatly interested. &ldquo;But how&rsquo;s yourself, Ruth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fit as a fiddle,&rdquo; she answered gaily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but there a
+      wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman himself
+      admits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;But as we&rsquo;ve insured against third party risks, it won&rsquo;t so much
+      matter&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;Cart and car being practically at right angles&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left alone. No one
+      wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King&rsquo;s Cross between her husband and
+      her daughter, listening to both of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The funeral was over. The carriages had rolled away through the soft mud,
+      and only the poor remained. They approached to the newly-dug shaft and
+      looked their last at the coffin, now almost hidden beneath the spadefuls
+      of clay. It was their moment. Most of them were women from the dead
+      woman&rsquo;s district, to whom black garments had been served out by Mr.
+      Wilcox&rsquo;s orders. Pure curiosity had brought others. They thrilled with the
+      excitement of a death, and of a rapid death, and stood in groups or moved
+      between the graves, like drops of ink. The son of one of them, a
+      wood-cutter, was perched high above their heads, pollarding one of the
+      churchyard elms. From where he sat he could see the village of Hilton,
+      strung upon the North Road, with its accreting suburbs; the sunset beyond,
+      scarlet and orange, winking at him beneath brows of grey; the church; the
+      plantations; and behind him an unspoilt country of fields and farms. But
+      he, too, was rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth. He tried to tell
+      his mother down below all that he had felt when he saw the coffin
+      approaching: how he could not leave his work, and yet did not like to go
+      on with it; how he had almost slipped out of the tree, he was so upset;
+      the rooks had cawed, and no wonder&mdash;it was as if rooks knew too. His
+      mother claimed the prophetic power herself&mdash;she had seen a strange
+      look about Mrs. Wilcox for some time. London had done the mischief, said
+      others. She had been a kind lady; her grandmother had been kind, too&mdash;a
+      plainer person, but very kind. Ah, the old sort was dying out! Mr. Wilcox,
+      he was a kind gentleman. They advanced to the topic again and again,
+      dully, but with exaltation. The funeral of a rich person was to them what
+      the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is to the educated. It was Art; though
+      remote from life, it enhanced life&rsquo;s values, and they witnessed it avidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grave-diggers, who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval&mdash;they
+      disliked Charles; it was not a moment to speak of such things, but they
+      did not like Charles Wilcox&mdash;the grave-diggers finished their work
+      and piled up the wreaths and crosses above it. The sun set over Hilton;
+      the grey brows of the evening flushed a little, and were cleft with one
+      scarlet frown. Chattering sadly to each other, the mourners passed through
+      the lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down to the
+      village. The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer, poised above the
+      silence and swaying rhythmically. At last the bough fell beneath his saw.
+      With a grunt, he descended, his thoughts dwelling no longer on death, but
+      on love, for he was mating. He stopped as he passed the new grave; a sheaf
+      of tawny chrysanthemums had caught his eye. &ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t ought to have
+      coloured flowers at buryings,&rdquo; he reflected. Trudging on a few steps, he
+      stopped again, looked furtively at the dusk, turned back, wrenched a
+      chrysanthemum from the sheaf, and hid it in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After him came silence absolute. The cottage that abutted on the
+      churchyard was empty, and no other house stood near. Hour after hour the
+      scene of the interment remained without an eye to witness it. Clouds
+      drifted over it from the west; or the church may have been a ship,
+      high-prowed, steering with all its company towards infinity. Towards
+      morning the air grew colder, the sky clearer, the surface of the earth
+      hard and sparkling above the prostrate dead. The wood-cutter, returning
+      after a night of joy, reflected: &ldquo;They lilies, they chrysants; it&rsquo;s a pity
+      I didn&rsquo;t take them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast. Charles and Evie sat in
+      the dining-room, with Mrs. Charles. Their father, who could not bear to
+      see a face, breakfasted upstairs. He suffered acutely. Pain came over him
+      in spasms, as if it was physical, and even while he was about to eat, his
+      eyes would fill with tears, and he would lay down the morsel untasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He remembered his wife&rsquo;s even goodness during thirty years. Not anything
+      in detail&mdash;not courtship or early raptures&mdash;but just the
+      unvarying virtue, that seemed to him a woman&rsquo;s noblest quality. So many
+      women are capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion or frivolity. Not
+      so his wife. Year after year, summer and winter, as bride and mother, she
+      had been the same, he had always trusted her. Her tenderness! Her
+      innocence! The wonderful innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth
+      knew no more of worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her
+      garden, or the grass in her field. Her idea of business&mdash;&ldquo;Henry, why
+      do people who have enough money try to get more money?&rdquo; Her idea of
+      politics&mdash;&ldquo;I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could
+      meet, there would be no more wars,&rdquo; Her idea of religion&mdash;ah, this
+      had been a cloud, but a cloud that passed. She came of Quaker stock, and
+      he and his family, formerly Dissenters, were now members of the Church of
+      England. The rector&rsquo;s sermons had at first repelled her, and she had
+      expressed a desire for &ldquo;a more inward light,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;not so much for
+      myself as for baby&rdquo; (Charles). Inward light must have been granted, for he
+      heard no complaints in later years. They brought up their three children
+      without dispute. They had never disputed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She lay under the earth now. She had gone, and as if to make her going the
+      more bitter, had gone with a touch of mystery that was all unlike her.
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me you knew of it?&rdquo; he had moaned, and her faint
+      voice had answered: &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to, Henry&mdash;I might have been wrong&mdash;and
+      every one hates illnesses.&rdquo; He had been told of the horror by a strange
+      doctor, whom she had consulted during his absence from town. Was this
+      altogether just? Without fully explaining, she had died. It was a fault on
+      her part, and&mdash;tears rushed into his eyes&mdash;what a little fault!
+      It was the only time she had deceived him in those thirty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose to his feet and looked out of the window, for Evie had come in
+      with the letters, and he could meet no one&rsquo;s eye. Ah yes&mdash;she had
+      been a good woman&mdash;she had been steady. He chose the word
+      deliberately. To him steadiness included all praise. He himself, gazing at
+      the wintry garden, is in appearance a steady man. His face was not as
+      square as his son&rsquo;s, and, indeed, the chin, though firm enough in outline,
+      retreated a little, and the lips, ambiguous, were curtained by a
+      moustache. But there was no external hint of weakness. The eyes, if
+      capable of kindness and good-fellowship, if ruddy for the moment with
+      tears, were the eyes of one who could not be driven. The forehead, too,
+      was like Charles&rsquo;s. High and straight, brown and polished, merging
+      abruptly into temples and skull, it had the effect of a bastion that
+      protected his head from the world. At times it had the effect of a blank
+      wall. He had dwelt behind it, intact and happy, for fifty years. &ldquo;The
+      post&rsquo;s come, father,&rdquo; said Evie awkwardly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks. Put it down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has the breakfast been all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, thanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl glanced at him and at it with constraint. She did not know what
+      to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles says do you want the Times?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ll read it later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ring if you want anything, father, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve all I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having sorted the letters from the circulars, she went back to the
+      dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father&rsquo;s eaten nothing,&rdquo; she announced, sitting down with wrinkled brows
+      behind the tea-urn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles did not answer, but after a moment he ran quickly upstairs, opened
+      the door, and said &ldquo;Look here father, you must eat, you know;&rdquo; and having
+      paused for a reply that did not come, stole down again. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to
+      read his letters first, I think,&rdquo; he said evasively; &ldquo;I dare say he will
+      go on with his breakfast afterwards.&rdquo; Then he took up the Times, and for
+      some time there was no sound except the clink of cup against saucer and of
+      knife on plate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mrs. Charles sat between her silent companions terrified at the
+      course of events, and a little bored. She was a rubbishy little creature,
+      and she knew it. A telegram had dragged her from Naples to the death-bed
+      of a woman whom she had scarcely known. A word from her husband had
+      plunged her into mourning. She desired to mourn inwardly as well, but she
+      wished that Mrs. Wilcox, since fated to die, could have died before the
+      marriage, for then less would have been expected of her. Crumbling her
+      toast, and too nervous to ask for the butter, she remained almost
+      motionless, thankful only for this, that her father-in-law was having his
+      breakfast upstairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last Charles spoke. &ldquo;They had no business to be pollarding those elms
+      yesterday,&rdquo; he said to his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must make a note of that,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I am surprised that the
+      rector allowed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it may not be the rector&rsquo;s affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose else could it be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lord of the manor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Butter, Dolly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Evie dear. Charles&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know one could pollard elms. I thought one only pollarded
+      willows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, one can pollard elms.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why oughtn&rsquo;t the elms in the churchyard to be pollarded?&rdquo; Charles
+      frowned a little, and turned again to his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another point. I must speak to Chalkeley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, rather; you must complain to Chalkeley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s no good his saying he is not responsible for those men. He is
+      responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, rather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Brother and sister were not callous. They spoke thus, partly because they
+      desired to keep Chalkeley up to the mark&mdash;a healthy desire in its way&mdash;partly
+      because they avoided the personal note in life. All Wilcoxes did. It did
+      not seem to them of supreme importance. Or it may be as Helen supposed:
+      they realised its importance, but were afraid of it. Panic and emptiness,
+      could one glance behind. They were not callous, and they left the
+      breakfast-table with aching hearts. Their mother never had come in to
+      breakfast. It was in the other rooms, and especially in the garden, that
+      they felt her loss most. As Charles went out to the garage, he was
+      reminded at every step of the woman who had loved him and whom he could
+      never replace. What battles he had fought against her gentle conservatism!
+      How she had disliked improvements, yet how loyally she had accepted them
+      when made! He and his father&mdash;what trouble they had had to get this
+      very garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to yield them the
+      paddock for it&mdash;the paddock that she loved more dearly than the
+      garden itself! The vine&mdash;she had got her way about the vine. It still
+      encumbered the south wall with its unproductive branches. And so with
+      Evie, as she stood talking to the cook. Though she could take up her
+      mother&rsquo;s work inside the house, just as the man could take it up without,
+      she felt that something unique had fallen out of her life. Their grief,
+      though less poignant than their father&rsquo;s, grew from deeper roots, for a
+      wife may be replaced; a mother never. Charles would go back to the office.
+      There was little at Howards End. The contents of his mother&rsquo;s will had
+      long been known to them. There were no legacies, no annuities, none of the
+      posthumous bustle with which some of the dead prolong their activities.
+      Trusting her husband, she had left him everything without reserve. She was
+      quite a poor woman&mdash;the house had been all her dowry, and the house
+      would come to Charles in time. Her watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended to
+      reserve for Paul, while Evie would take the jewellery and lace. How easily
+      she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit laudable, though he did
+      not intend to adopt it himself, whereas Margaret would have seen in it an
+      almost culpable indifference to earthly fame. Cynicism&mdash;not the
+      superficial cynicism that snarls and sneers, but the cynicism that can go
+      with courtesy and tenderness&mdash;that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      will. She wanted not to vex people. That accomplished, the earth might
+      freeze over her for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, there was nothing for Charles to wait for. He could not go on with his
+      honeymoon, so he would go up to London and work&mdash;he felt too
+      miserable hanging about. He and Dolly would have the furnished flat while
+      his father rested quietly in the country with Evie. He could also keep an
+      eye on his own little house, which was being painted and decorated for him
+      in one of the Surrey suburbs, and in which he hoped to install himself
+      soon after Christmas. Yes, he would go up after lunch in his new motor,
+      and the town servants, who had come down for the funeral, would go up by
+      train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He found his father&rsquo;s chauffeur in the garage, said &ldquo;Morning&rdquo; without
+      looking at the man&rsquo;s face, and bending over the car, continued: &ldquo;Hullo! my
+      new car&rsquo;s been driven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has it, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Charles, getting rather red; &ldquo;and whoever&rsquo;s driven it hasn&rsquo;t
+      cleaned it properly, for there&rsquo;s mud on the axle. Take it off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man went for the cloths without a word. He was a chauffeur as ugly as
+      sin&mdash;not that this did him disservice with Charles, who thought charm
+      in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the little Italian beast with
+      whom they had started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles&mdash;&rdquo; His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost, a
+      dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat forming
+      the capital thereof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One minute, I&rsquo;m busy. Well, Crane, who&rsquo;s been driving it, do you
+      suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know, I&rsquo;m sure, sir. No one&rsquo;s driven it since I&rsquo;ve been back, but,
+      of course, there&rsquo;s the fortnight I&rsquo;ve been away with the other car in
+      Yorkshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mud came off easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles, your father&rsquo;s down. Something&rsquo;s happened. He wants you in the
+      house at once. Oh, Charles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while you were
+      away, Crane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The gardener, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir; no one&rsquo;s had the motor out, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t, of course, say for the time I&rsquo;ve been in Yorkshire. No more mud
+      now, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his heart
+      had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his father. But it was
+      not a morning for complaints. Ordering the motor to be round after lunch,
+      he joined his wife, who had all the while been pouring out some incoherent
+      story about a letter and a Miss Schlegel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted. Want was
+      to him the only cause of action. And the question in this case was
+      correct, for his wife replied, &ldquo;She wants Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Howards End? Now, Crane, just don&rsquo;t forget to put on the Stepney wheel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, mind you don&rsquo;t forget, for I&mdash;Come, little woman.&rdquo; When they
+      were out of the chauffeur&rsquo;s sight he put his arm round her waist and
+      pressed her against him. All his affection and half his attention&mdash;it
+      was what he granted her throughout their happy married life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you haven&rsquo;t listened, Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s wrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I keep on telling you&mdash;Howards End. Miss Schlegel&rsquo;s got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got what?&rdquo; said Charles, unclasping her. &ldquo;What the dickens are you
+      talking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Charles, you promised not to say those naughty&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, I&rsquo;m in no mood for foolery. It&rsquo;s no morning for it either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you&mdash;I keep on telling you&mdash;Miss Schlegel&mdash;she&rsquo;s
+      got it&mdash;your mother&rsquo;s left it to her&mdash;and you&rsquo;ve all got to move
+      out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HOWARDS END?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HOWARDS END!&rdquo; she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so Evie came
+      dashing out of the shubbery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly, go back at once! My father&rsquo;s much annoyed with you. Charles&rdquo;&mdash;she
+      hit herself wildly&mdash;&ldquo;come in at once to father. He&rsquo;s had a letter
+      that&rsquo;s too awful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily across the
+      gravel path. There the house was with the nine windows, the unprolific
+      vine. He exclaimed, &ldquo;Schlegels again!&rdquo; and as if to complete chaos, Dolly
+      said, &ldquo;Oh no, the matron of the nursing home has written instead of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, all three of you!&rdquo; cried his father, no longer inert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Wilcox&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you not to go out to the garage. I&rsquo;ve heard you all shouting in
+      the garden. I won&rsquo;t have it. Come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can&rsquo;t discuss private matters
+      in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here; read these. See
+      what you make.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the procession. The
+      first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs. Wilcox had desired her,
+      when the funeral should be over, to forward the enclosed. The enclosed&mdash;it
+      was from his mother herself. She had written: &ldquo;To my husband: I should
+      like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we&rsquo;re going to have a talk about this?&rdquo; he remarked, ominously
+      calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let&rsquo;s sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Evie, don&rsquo;t waste time, sit&mdash;down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of yesterday&mdash;indeed,
+      of this morning suddenly receded into a past so remote that they seemed
+      scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy breathings were heard. They were
+      calming themselves. Charles, to steady them further, read the enclosure
+      out loud: &ldquo;A note in my mother&rsquo;s handwriting, in an envelope addressed to
+      my father, sealed. Inside: &lsquo;I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have
+      Howards End.&rsquo; No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron of that
+      nursing home. Now, the question is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly interrupted him. &ldquo;But I say that note isn&rsquo;t legal. Houses ought to
+      be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in front of
+      either ear&mdash;a symptom that she had not yet learnt to respect, and she
+      asked whether she might see the note. Charles looked at his father for
+      permission, who said abstractedly, &ldquo;Give it her.&rdquo; She seized it, and at
+      once exclaimed: &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s only in pencil! I said so. Pencil never
+      counts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, speaking
+      from out of his fortress. &ldquo;We are aware of that. Legally, I should be
+      justified in tearing it up and throwing it into the fire. Of course, my
+      dear, we consider you as one of the family, but it will be better if you
+      do not interfere with what you do not understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated: &ldquo;The
+      question is&mdash;&rdquo; He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table from
+      plates and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the tablecloth. &ldquo;The
+      question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the fortnight we were all away,
+      whether she unduly&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that,&rdquo; said his father, whose nature was nobler than his
+      son&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That she would have&mdash;that it is a case of undue influence. No, to my
+      mind the question is the&mdash;the invalid&rsquo;s condition at the time she
+      wrote.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don&rsquo;t admit it is my
+      mother&rsquo;s writing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you just said it was!&rdquo; cried Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind if I did,&rdquo; he blazed out; &ldquo;and hold your tongue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her handkerchief from
+      her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed her. Evie was scowling like
+      an angry boy. The two men were gradually assuming the manner of the
+      committee-room. They were both at their best when serving on committees.
+      They did not make the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but
+      disposed of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before
+      them now, and on it they turned their well-trained brains. Charles, after
+      a little demur, accepted the writing as genuine, and they passed on to the
+      next point. It is the best&mdash;perhaps the only&mdash;way of dodging
+      emotion. They were the average human article, and had they considered the
+      note as a whole it would have driven them miserable or mad. Considered
+      item by item, the emotional content was minimised, and all went forward
+      smoothly. The clock ticked, the coals blazed higher, and contended with
+      the white radiance that poured in through the windows. Unnoticed, the sun
+      occupied his sky, and the shadows of the tree stems, extraordinarily
+      solid, fell like trenches of purple across the frosted lawn. It was a
+      glorious winter morning. Evie&rsquo;s fox terrier, who had passed for white, was
+      only a dirty grey dog now, so intense was the purity that surrounded him.
+      He was discredited, but the blackbirds that he was chasing glowed with
+      Arabian darkness, for all the conventional colouring of life had been
+      altered. Inside, the clock struck ten with a rich and confident note.
+      Other clocks confirmed it, and the discussion moved towards its close.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To follow it is unnecessary. It is rather a moment when the commentator
+      should step forward. Ought the Wilcoxes to have offered their home to
+      Margaret? I think not. The appeal was too flimsy. It was not legal; it had
+      been written in illness, and under the spell of a sudden friendship; it
+      was contrary to the dead woman&rsquo;s intentions in the past, contrary to her
+      very nature, so far as that nature was understood by them. To them Howards
+      End was a house: they could not know that to her it had been a spirit, for
+      which she sought a spiritual heir. And&mdash;pushing one step farther in
+      these mists&mdash;may they not have decided even better than they
+      supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of the spirit can be
+      bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp
+      of hay with dew on it&mdash;can passion for such things be transmitted
+      where there is no bond of blood? No; the Wilcoxes are not to be blamed.
+      The problem is too terrific, and they could not even perceive a problem.
+      No; it is natural and fitting that after due debate they should tear the
+      note up and throw it on to their dining-room fire. The practical moralist
+      may acquit them absolutely. He who strives to look deeper may acquit them&mdash;almost.
+      For one hard fact remains. They did neglect a personal appeal. The woman
+      who had died did say to them, &ldquo;Do this,&rdquo; and they answered, &ldquo;We will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The incident made a most painful impression on them. Grief mounted into
+      the brain and worked there disquietingly. Yesterday they had lamented:
+      &ldquo;She was a dear mother, a true wife; in our absence she neglected her
+      health and died.&rdquo; To-day they thought: &ldquo;She was not as true, as dear, as
+      we supposed.&rdquo; The desire for a more inward light had found expression at
+      last, the unseen had impacted on the seen, and all that they could say was
+      &ldquo;Treachery.&rdquo; Mrs. Wilcox had been treacherous to the family, to the laws
+      of property, to her own written word. How did she expect Howards End to be
+      conveyed to Miss Schlegel? Was her husband, to whom it legally belonged,
+      to make it over to her as a free gift? Was the said Miss Schlegel to have
+      a life interest in it, or to own it absolutely? Was there to be no
+      compensation for the garage and other improvements that they had made
+      under the assumption that all would be theirs some day? Treacherous!
+      treacherous and absurd! When we think the dead both treacherous and
+      absurd, we have gone far towards reconciling ourselves to their departure.
+      That note, scribbled in pencil, sent through the matron, was
+      unbusinesslike as well as cruel, and decreased at once the value of the
+      woman who had written it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well!&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, rising from the table. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have
+      thought it possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother couldn&rsquo;t have meant it,&rdquo; said Evie, still frowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my girl, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother believed so in ancestors too&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t like her to leave
+      anything to an outsider, who&rsquo;d never appreciate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The whole thing is unlike her,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;If Miss Schlegel had been
+      poor, if she had wanted a house, I could understand it a little. But she
+      has a house of her own. Why should she want another? She wouldn&rsquo;t have any
+      use for Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That time may prove,&rdquo; murmured Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; asked his sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presumably she knows&mdash;mother will have told her. She got twice or
+      three times into the nursing home. Presumably she is awaiting
+      developments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a horrid woman!&rdquo; And Dolly, who had recovered, cried, &ldquo;Why, she may
+      be coming down to turn us out now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles put her right. &ldquo;I wish she would,&rdquo; he said ominously. &ldquo;I could
+      then deal with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So could I,&rdquo; echoed his father, who was feeling rather in the cold.
+      Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral arrangements and in
+      telling him to eat his breakfast, but the boy as he grew up was a little
+      dictatorial, and assumed the post of chairman too readily. &ldquo;I could deal
+      with her, if she comes, but she won&rsquo;t come. You&rsquo;re all a bit hard on Miss
+      Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Paul business was pretty scandalous, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want no more of the Paul business, Charles, as I said at the time, and
+      besides, it is quite apart from this business. Margaret Schlegel has been
+      officious and tiresome during this terrible week, and we have all suffered
+      under her, but upon my soul she&rsquo;s honest. She&rsquo;s NOT in collusion with the
+      matron. I&rsquo;m absolutely certain of it. Nor was she with the doctor, I&rsquo;m
+      equally certain of that. She did not hide anything from us, for up to that
+      very afternoon she was as ignorant as we are. She, like ourselves, was a
+      dupe&mdash;&rdquo; He stopped for a moment. &ldquo;You see, Charles, in her terrible
+      pain your mother put us all in false positions. Paul would not have left
+      England, you would not have gone to Italy, nor Evie and I into Yorkshire,
+      if only we had known. Well, Miss Schlegel&rsquo;s position has been equally
+      false. Take all in all, she has not come out of it badly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie said: &ldquo;But those chrysanthemums&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or coming down to the funeral at all&mdash;&rdquo; echoed Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t she come down? She had the right to, and she stood far back
+      among the Hilton women. The flowers&mdash;certainly we should not have
+      sent such flowers, but they may have seemed the right thing to her, Evie,
+      and for all you know they may be the custom in Germany.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I forget she isn&rsquo;t really English,&rdquo; cried Evie. &ldquo;That would explain a
+      lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a cosmopolitan,&rdquo; said Charles, looking at his watch. &ldquo;I admit I&rsquo;m
+      rather down on cosmopolitans. My fault, doubtless. I cannot stand them,
+      and a German cosmopolitan is the limit. I think that&rsquo;s about all, isn&rsquo;t
+      it? I want to run down and see Chalkeley. A bicycle will do. And, by the
+      way, I wish you&rsquo;d speak to Crane some time. I&rsquo;m certain he&rsquo;s had my new
+      car out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has he done it any harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case I shall let it pass. It&rsquo;s not worth while having a row.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles and his father sometimes disagreed. But they always parted with an
+      increased regard for one another, and each desired no doughtier comrade
+      when it was necessary to voyage for a little past the emotions. So the
+      sailors of Ulysses voyaged past the Sirens, having first stopped one
+      another&rsquo;s ears with wool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Charles need not have been anxious. Miss Schlegel had never heard of his
+      mother&rsquo;s strange request. She was to hear of it in after years, when she
+      had built up her life differently, and it was to fit into position as the
+      headstone of the corner. Her mind was bent on other questions now, and by
+      her also it would have been rejected as the fantasy of an invalid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was parting from these Wilcoxes for the second time. Paul and his
+      mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and ebbed out of
+      it for ever. The ripple had left no traces behind; the wave had strewn at
+      her feet fragments torn from the unknown. A curious seeker, she stood for
+      a while at the verge of the sea that tells so little, but tells a little,
+      and watched the outgoing of this last tremendous tide. Her friend had
+      vanished in agony, but not, she believed, in degradation. Her withdrawal
+      had hinted at other things besides disease and pain. Some leave our life
+      with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox had taken the
+      middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She had kept
+      proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her friends, but
+      not too much; she had shut up her heart&mdash;almost, but not entirely. It
+      is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die&mdash;neither as
+      victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye
+      the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last word&mdash;whatever it would be&mdash;had certainly not been said
+      in Hilton churchyard. She had not died there. A funeral is not death, any
+      more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy
+      devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would
+      register the quick motions of man. In Margaret&rsquo;s eyes Mrs. Wilcox had
+      escaped registration. She had gone out of life vividly, her own way, and
+      no dust was so truly dust as the contents of that heavy coffin, lowered
+      with ceremonial until it rested on the dust of the earth, no flowers so
+      utterly wasted as the chrysanthemums that the frost must have withered
+      before morning. Margaret had once said she &ldquo;loved superstition.&rdquo; It was
+      not true. Few women had tried more earnestly to pierce the accretions in
+      which body and soul are enwrapped. The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped her
+      in her work. She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a human
+      being is, and to what he may aspire. Truer relationships gleamed. Perhaps
+      the last word would be hope&mdash;hope even on this side of the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile, she could take an interest in the survivors. In spite of her
+      Christmas duties, in spite of her brother, the Wilcoxes continued to play
+      a considerable part in her thoughts. She had seen so much of them in the
+      final week. They were not &ldquo;her sort,&rdquo; they were often suspicious and
+      stupid, and deficient where she excelled; but collision with them
+      stimulated her, and she felt an interest that verged into liking, even for
+      Charles. She desired to protect them, and often felt that they could
+      protect her, excelling where she was deficient. Once past the rocks of
+      emotion, they knew so well what to do, whom to send for; their hands were
+      on all the ropes, they had grit as well as grittiness and she valued grit
+      enormously. They led a life that she could not attain to&mdash;the outer
+      life of &ldquo;telegrams and anger,&rdquo; which had detonated when Helen and Paul had
+      touched in June, and had detonated again the other week. To Margaret this
+      life was to remain a real force. She could not despise it, as Helen and
+      Tibby affected to do. It fostered such virtues as neatness, decision, and
+      obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they have formed our
+      civilisation. They form character, too; Margaret could not doubt it; they
+      keep the soul from becoming sloppy. How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes,
+      when it takes all sorts to make a world?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t brood too much,&rdquo; she wrote to Helen, &ldquo;on the superiority of the
+      unseen to the seen. It&rsquo;s true, but to brood on it is medieval. Our
+      business is not to contrast the two, but to reconcile them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen replied that she had no intention of brooding on such a dull
+      subject. What did her sister take her for? The weather was magnificent.
+      She and the Mosebachs had gone tobogganing on the only hill that Pomerania
+      boasted. It was fun, but over-crowded, for the rest of Pomerania had gone
+      there too. Helen loved the country, and her letter glowed with physical
+      exercise and poetry. She spoke of the scenery, quiet, yet august; of the
+      snow-clad fields, with their scampering herds of deer; of the river and
+      its quaint entrance into the Baltic Sea; of the Oderberge, only three
+      hundred feet high, from which one slid all too quickly back into the
+      Pomeranian plains, and yet these Oderberge were real mountains, with
+      pine-forests, streams, and views complete. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t size that counts so
+      much as the way things are arranged.&rdquo; In another paragraph she referred to
+      Mrs. Wilcox sympathetically, but the news had not bitten into her. She had
+      not realised the accessories of death, which are in a sense more memorable
+      than death itself. The atmosphere of precautions and recriminations, and
+      in the midst a human body growing more vivid because it was in pain; the
+      end of that body in Hilton churchyard; the survival of something that
+      suggested hope, vivid in its turn against life&rsquo;s workaday cheerfulness;&mdash;all
+      these were lost to Helen, who only felt that a pleasant lady could now be
+      pleasant no longer. She returned to Wickham Place full of her own affairs&mdash;she
+      had had another proposal&mdash;and Margaret, after a moment&rsquo;s hesitation,
+      was content that this should be so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The proposal had not been a serious matter. It was the work of Fraulein
+      Mosebach, who had conceived the large and patriotic notion of winning back
+      her cousins to the Fatherland by matrimony. England had played Paul
+      Wilcox, and lost; Germany played Herr Forstmeister some one&mdash;Helen
+      could not remember his name. Herr Forstmeister lived in a wood, and,
+      standing on the summit of the Oderberge, he had pointed out his house to
+      Helen, or rather, had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay. She
+      had exclaimed, &ldquo;Oh, how lovely! That&rsquo;s the place for me!&rdquo; and in the
+      evening Frieda appeared in her bedroom. &ldquo;I have a message, dear Helen,&rdquo;
+       etc., and so she had, but had been very nice when Helen laughed; quite
+      understood&mdash;a forest too solitary and damp&mdash;quite agreed, but
+      Herr Forstmeister believed he had assurance to the contrary. Germany had
+      lost, but with good-humour; holding the manhood of the world, she felt
+      bound to win. &ldquo;And there will even be some one for Tibby,&rdquo; concluded
+      Helen. &ldquo;There now, Tibby, think of that; Frieda is saving up a little girl
+      for you, in pig-tails and white worsted stockings but the feet of the
+      stockings are pink as if the little girl had trodden in strawberries. I&rsquo;ve
+      talked too much. My head aches. Now you talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby consented to talk. He too was full of his own affairs, for he had
+      just been up to try for a scholarship at Oxford. The men were down, and
+      the candidates had been housed in various colleges, and had dined in hall.
+      Tibby was sensitive to beauty, the experience was new, and he gave a
+      description of his visit that was almost glowing. The august and mellow
+      University, soaked with the richness of the western counties that it has
+      served for a thousand years, appealed at once to the boy&rsquo;s taste; it was
+      the kind of thing he could understand, and he understood it all the better
+      because it was empty. Oxford is&mdash;Oxford; not a mere receptacle for
+      youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to love it rather than
+      to love one another; such at all events was to be its effect on Tibby. His
+      sisters sent him there that he might make friends, for they knew that his
+      education had been cranky, and had severed him from other boys and men. He
+      made no friends. His Oxford remained Oxford empty, and he took into life
+      with him, not the memory of a radiance, but the memory of a colour scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It pleased Margaret to hear her brother and sister talking. They did not
+      get on overwell as a rule. For a few moments she listened to them, feeling
+      elderly and benign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then something occurred to her, and she interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, I told you about poor Mrs. Wilcox; that sad business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had a correspondence with her son. He was winding up the estate,
+      and wrote to ask me whether his mother had wanted me to have anything. I
+      thought it good of him, considering I knew her so little. I said that she
+      had once spoken of giving me a Christmas present, but we both forgot about
+      it afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope Charles took the hint.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;that is to say, her husband wrote later on, and thanked me for
+      being a little kind to her, and actually gave me her silver vinaigrette.
+      Don&rsquo;t you think that is extraordinarily generous? It has made me like him
+      very much. He hopes that this will not be the end of our acquaintance, but
+      that you and I will go and stop with Evie some time in the future. I like
+      Mr. Wilcox. He is taking up his work&mdash;rubber&mdash;it is a big
+      business. I gather he is launching out rather. Charles is in it, too.
+      Charles is married&mdash;a pretty little creature, but she doesn&rsquo;t seem
+      wise. They took on the flat, but now they have gone off to a house of
+      their own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, after a decent pause, continued her account of Stettin. How quickly
+      a situation changes! In June she had been in a crisis; even in November
+      she could blush and be unnatural; now it was January and the whole affair
+      lay forgotten. Looking back on the past six months, Margaret realised the
+      chaotic nature of our daily life, and its difference from the orderly
+      sequence that has been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of
+      false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we
+      nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful career
+      must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the
+      most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of
+      him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our
+      national morality is duly silent. It assumes that preparation against
+      danger is in itself a good, and that men, like nations, are the better for
+      staggering through life fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has
+      scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but
+      not in the way morality would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable,
+      but the essence of it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a
+      romance, and its essence is romantic beauty. Margaret hoped that for the
+      future she would be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to lead its
+      life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming gracefully on the
+      grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept past them, money had been
+      spent and renewed, reputations won and lost, and the city herself,
+      emblematic of their lives, rose and fell in a continual flux, while her
+      shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the
+      fields of Hertfordshire. This famous building had arisen, that was doomed.
+      To-day Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn of Regent
+      Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more strongly of
+      petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings heard each
+      other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the air, and saw
+      less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the leaves were falling by midsummer;
+      the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an artistic
+      cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future will probably
+      ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town. One can understand
+      the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces, the public has heard a
+      little too much&mdash;they seem Victorian, while London is Georgian&mdash;and
+      those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum
+      swings back to her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualises it
+      as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without purpose, and excitable
+      without love; as a spirit that has altered before it can be chronicled; as
+      a heart that certainly beats, but with no pulsation of humanity. It lies
+      beyond everything; Nature, with all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than
+      do these crowds of men. A friend explains himself; the earth is explicable&mdash;from
+      her we came, and we must return to her. But who can explain Westminster
+      Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning&mdash;the city inhaling&mdash;or
+      the same thoroughfares in the evening&mdash;the city exhaling her
+      exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very
+      stars, the voids of the universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and
+      stamped with a human face. London is religion&rsquo;s opportunity&mdash;not the
+      decorous religion of theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the
+      continuous flow would be tolerable if a man of our own sort&mdash;not any
+      one pompous or tearful&mdash;were caring for us up in the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him, too, away
+      from his moorings, and Margaret&rsquo;s eyes were not opened until the lease of
+      Wickham Place expired. She had always known that it must expire, but the
+      knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event. Then the
+      house was suddenly ringed with pathos. It had seen so much happiness. Why
+      had it to be swept away? In the streets of the city she noted for the
+      first time the architecture of hurry and heard the language of hurry on
+      the mouths of its inhabitants&mdash;clipped words, formless sentences,
+      potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by month things were
+      stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population still rose, but what
+      was the quality of the men born? The particular millionaire who owned the
+      freehold of Wickham Place, and desired to erect Babylonian flats upon it&mdash;what
+      right had he to stir so large a portion of the quivering jelly? He was not
+      a fool&mdash;she had heard him expose Socialism&mdash;but true insight
+      began just where his intelligence ended, and one gathered that this was
+      the case with most millionaires. What right had such men&mdash;But
+      Margaret checked herself. That way lies madness. Thank goodness, she, too,
+      had some money, and could purchase a new home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter vacation,
+      and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk with him. Did
+      he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby didn&rsquo;t know that he did
+      know. Did he at all know what he wanted to do? He was equally uncertain,
+      but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to be quite free of any
+      profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went on sewing for a few minutes
+      before she replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly happy.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es.&rdquo; said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious
+      quiver, as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round, through,
+      over, and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped him, and finally
+      dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the Subject under
+      discussion. That bleat of Tibby&rsquo;s infuriated Helen. But Helen was now down
+      in the dining room preparing a speech about political economy. At times
+      her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don&rsquo;t you think? Then
+      there&rsquo;s Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides&rdquo;&mdash;shifting to the
+      general&mdash;&ldquo;every one is the better for some regular work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall stick to it,&rdquo; she continued, smiling. &ldquo;I am not saying it to
+      educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in the last century
+      men have developed the desire for work, and they must not starve it. It&rsquo;s
+      a new desire. It goes with a great deal that&rsquo;s bad, but in itself it&rsquo;s
+      good, and I hope that for women, too, &lsquo;not to work&rsquo; will soon become as
+      shocking as &lsquo;not to be married&rsquo; was a hundred years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no experience of this profound desire to which you allude,&rdquo;
+       enunciated Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we&rsquo;ll leave the subject till you do. I&rsquo;m not going to rattle you
+      round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of the men you like
+      most, and see how they&rsquo;ve arranged them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most,&rdquo; said Tibby faintly, and leant so far back
+      in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m not serious because I don&rsquo;t use the traditional
+      arguments&mdash;making money, a sphere awaiting you, and so on&mdash;all
+      of which are, for various reasons, cant.&rdquo; She sewed on. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m only your
+      sister. I haven&rsquo;t any authority over you, and I don&rsquo;t want to have any.
+      Just to put before you what I think the Truth. You see&rdquo;&mdash;she shook
+      off the pince-nez to which she had recently taken&mdash;&ldquo;in a few years we
+      shall be the same age practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men
+      are so much nicer than women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has nobody arst you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only ninnies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do people ask Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plentifully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about your ninnies, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They were men who had nothing better to do,&rdquo; said his sister, feeling
+      that she was entitled to score this point. &ldquo;So take warning; you must
+      work, or else you must pretend to work, which is what I do. Work, work,
+      work if you&rsquo;d save your soul and your body. It is honestly a necessity,
+      dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their
+      defects of temper and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than
+      many who are better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
+      regularly and honestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spare me the Wilcoxes,&rdquo; he moaned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not. They are the right sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, goodness me, Meg&mdash;!&rdquo; he protested, suddenly sitting up, alert
+      and angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine personality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they&rsquo;re as near the right sort as you can imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no&mdash;oh, no!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny, but
+      who came back so ill from Nigeria. He&rsquo;s gone out there again, Evie Wilcox
+      tells me&mdash;out to his duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duty&rdquo; always elicited a groan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t want the money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly work&mdash;dull
+      country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh water and food...
+      A nation that can produce men of that sort may well be proud. No wonder
+      England has become an Empire.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;EMPIRE!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t bother over results,&rdquo; said Margaret, a little sadly. &ldquo;They are
+      too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An Empire bores me, so
+      far, but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up. London bores me,
+      but what thousands of splendid people are labouring to make London&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What it is,&rdquo; he sneered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation. How
+      paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I,&rdquo; said Tibby, &ldquo;want civilisation without activity, which, I expect,
+      is what we shall find in the other place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you want that.
+      You can find it at Oxford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stupid&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I&rsquo;m stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I&rsquo;ll even live in Oxford
+      if you like&mdash;North Oxford. I&rsquo;ll live anywhere except Bournemouth,
+      Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge
+      Wells and Surbiton and Bedford. There on no account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;London, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London. However, there&rsquo;s
+      no reason we shouldn&rsquo;t have a house in the country and also a flat in
+      town, provided we all stick together and contribute. Though of course&mdash;Oh,
+      how one does maunder on and to think, to think of the people who are
+      really poor. How do they live? Not to move about the world would kill me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a state of
+      extreme excitement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my dears, what do you think? You&rsquo;ll never guess. A woman&rsquo;s been here
+      asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?&rdquo; (Helen was fond of supplying her own
+      surprise.) &ldquo;Yes, for her husband, and it really is so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not anything to do with Bracknell?&rdquo; cried Margaret, who had lately taken
+      on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives and boots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up,
+      Tibby!) It&rsquo;s no one we know. I said, &lsquo;Hunt, my good woman; have a good
+      look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the
+      antimacassars. Husband? husband?&rsquo; Oh, and she so magnificently dressed and
+      tinkling like a chandelier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Helen, what did really happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door
+      like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open.
+      Then we began&mdash;very civilly. &lsquo;I want my husband, what I have reason
+      to believe is here.&rsquo; No&mdash;how unjust one is. She said &lsquo;whom,&rsquo; not
+      &lsquo;what.&rsquo; She got it perfectly. So I said, &lsquo;Name, please?&rsquo; and she said,
+      &lsquo;Lan, Miss,&rsquo; and there we were.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what an extraordinary&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding here.
+      Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my beauty, and
+      never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you were pleased,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; Helen squeaked. &ldquo;A perfectly delightful experience. Oh, Mrs.
+      Lanoline&rsquo;s a dear&mdash;she asked for a husband as if he were an umbrella.
+      She mislaid him Saturday afternoon&mdash;and for a long time suffered no
+      inconvenience. But all night, and all this morning her apprehensions grew.
+      Breakfast didn&rsquo;t seem the same&mdash;no, no more did lunch, and so she
+      strolled up to 2 Wickham Place as being the most likely place for the
+      missing article.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how on earth&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t begin how on earthing. &lsquo;I know what I know,&rsquo; she kept repeating,
+      not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked her what she did
+      know. Some knew what others knew, and others didn&rsquo;t, and then others again
+      had better be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent! She had a face like a
+      silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of orris-root. We chatted pleasantly a
+      little about husbands, and I wondered where hers was too, and advised her
+      to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed that Mr. Lanoline&rsquo;s a
+      notty, notty man, and hasn&rsquo;t no business to go on the lardy-da. But I
+      think she suspected me up to the last. Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about
+      this. Now, Meg, remember&mdash;bags I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bag it by all means,&rdquo; murmured Margaret, putting down her work. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not
+      sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible volcano smoking
+      somewhere, doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so&mdash;she doesn&rsquo;t really mind. The admirable creature
+      isn&rsquo;t capable of tragedy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her husband may be, though,&rdquo; said Margaret, moving to the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs.
+      Lanoline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was she pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her figure may have been good once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain between
+      Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned sadly to
+      house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She feared, fantastically,
+      that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil and squalor, into
+      nearer contact with such episodes as these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby and I have again been wondering where we&rsquo;ll live next September,&rdquo;
+       she said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby had better first wonder what he&rsquo;ll do,&rdquo; retorted Helen; and that
+      topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and after tea Helen
+      went on preparing her speech, and Margaret prepared one, too, for they
+      were going out to a discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts
+      were poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint
+      smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had both
+      decayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day, just as they
+      were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called. He was a clerk in the
+      employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company. Thus much from his
+      card. He had come &ldquo;about the lady yesterday.&rdquo; Thus much from Annie, who
+      had shown him into the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cheers, children!&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s Mrs. Lanoline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not the gay
+      dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless, who had already
+      the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so common in London,
+      and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing presences. One
+      guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy
+      whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who
+      have lost the life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit.
+      Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of primitive good
+      looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might have been straight, and
+      the chest that might have broadened, wondered whether it paid to give up
+      the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had
+      worked in her own case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted
+      whether it humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf
+      that stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many the
+      good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew this type very
+      well&mdash;the vague aspirations, the mental dishonesty, the familiarity
+      with the outsides of books. She knew the very tones in which he would
+      address her. She was only unprepared for an example of her own
+      visiting-card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?&rdquo; said he, uneasily
+      familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I can&rsquo;t say I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that was how it happened, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don&rsquo;t remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a concert at the Queen&rsquo;s Hall. I think you will recollect,&rdquo; he
+      added pretentiously, &ldquo;when I tell you that it included a performance of
+      the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We hear the Fifth practically every time it&rsquo;s done, so I&rsquo;m not sure&mdash;do
+      you remember, Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thought not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I don&rsquo;t remember. That&rsquo;s the only Beethoven I ever remember
+      specially.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Likely enough,&rdquo; Helen laughed, &ldquo;for I steal umbrellas even oftener than I
+      hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mistake arose out of my card, did it?&rdquo; interposed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the mistake arose&mdash;it was a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and
+      that she could find you?&rdquo; she continued, pushing him forward, for, though
+      he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s so, calling too&mdash;a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why&mdash;?&rdquo; began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said to my wife,&rdquo; he continued more rapidly &ldquo;I said to Mrs. Bast, &lsquo;I
+      have to pay a call on some friends,&rsquo; and Mrs. Bast said to me, &lsquo;Do go.&rsquo;
+      While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and
+      thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I
+      beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we may
+      have inadvertently caused you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No inconvenience,&rdquo; said Helen; &ldquo;but I still don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was
+      obviously lying, and Helen didn&rsquo;t see why he should get off. She had the
+      cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister&rsquo;s pressure, she said, &ldquo;I still
+      don&rsquo;t understand. When did you say you paid this call?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call? What call?&rdquo; said he, staring as if her question had been a foolish
+      one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This afternoon call.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the afternoon, of course!&rdquo; he replied, and looked at Tibby to see how
+      the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, &ldquo;Saturday
+      afternoon or Sunday afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;S&mdash;Saturday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; said Helen; &ldquo;and you were still calling on Sunday, when your
+      wife came here. A long visit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t call that fair,&rdquo; said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome. There
+      was fight in his eyes. &ldquo;I know what you mean, and it isn&rsquo;t so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t let us mind,&rdquo; said Margaret, distressed again by odours from
+      the abyss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was something else,&rdquo; he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking down.
+      &ldquo;I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was good of you to come and explain,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The rest is naturally
+      no concern of ours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I want&mdash;I wanted&mdash;have you ever read The Ordeal of
+      Richard Feverel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don&rsquo;t you see,
+      like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson&rsquo;s Prince
+      Otto?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I
+      wanted&mdash;&rdquo; He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his
+      culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. &ldquo;I walked all the Saturday
+      night,&rdquo; said Leonard. &ldquo;I walked.&rdquo; A thrill of approval ran through the
+      sisters. But culture closed in again. He asked whether they had ever read
+      E. V. Lucas&rsquo;s Open Road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Said Helen, &ldquo;No doubt it&rsquo;s another beautiful book, but I&rsquo;d rather hear
+      about your road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I walked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How far?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my watch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were you walking alone, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, straightening himself; &ldquo;but we&rsquo;d been talking it over at
+      the office. There&rsquo;s been a lot of talk at the office lately about these
+      things. The fellows there said one steers by the Pole Star, and I looked
+      it up in the celestial atlas, but once out of doors everything gets so
+      mixed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t talk to me about the Pole Star,&rdquo; interrupted Helen, who was
+      becoming interested. &ldquo;I know its little ways. It goes round and round, and
+      you go round after it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then the trees,
+      and towards morning it got cloudy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room. He knew
+      that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did not want to hear
+      him trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more than they
+      knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm more easily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you start from?&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;Do tell us more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the office I said
+      to myself, &lsquo;I must have a walk once in a way. If I don&rsquo;t take this walk
+      now, I shall never take it.&rsquo; I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon, and then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not good country there, is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and being out was
+      the great thing. I did get into woods, too, presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, go on,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it&rsquo;s dark.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you actually go off the roads?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it is that
+      it&rsquo;s more difficult to find one&rsquo;s way.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Bast, you&rsquo;re a born adventurer,&rdquo; laughed Margaret. &ldquo;No professional
+      athlete would have attempted what you&rsquo;ve done. It&rsquo;s a wonder your walk
+      didn&rsquo;t end in a broken neck. Whatever did your wife say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Professional athletes never move without lanterns and compasses,&rdquo; said
+      Helen. &ldquo;Besides, they can&rsquo;t walk. It tires them. Go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but the wood. This &lsquo;ere wood. How did you get out of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a good bit
+      uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the road went off
+      into grass, and I got into another wood. That was awful, with gorse
+      bushes. I did wish I&rsquo;d never come, but suddenly it got light&mdash;just
+      while I seemed going under one tree. Then I found a road down to a
+      station, and took the first train I could back to London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But was the dawn wonderful?&rdquo; asked Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With unforgettable sincerity he replied, &ldquo;No.&rdquo; The word flew again like a
+      pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had seemed ignoble or
+      literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R. L. S. and the &ldquo;love of the
+      earth&rdquo; and his silk top-hat. In the presence of these women Leonard had
+      arrived, and he spoke with a flow, an exultation, that he had seldom
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so cold
+      too. I&rsquo;m glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more than I can
+      say. And besides&mdash;you can believe me or not as you choose&mdash;I was
+      very hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon&mdash;I meant it to last me all
+      night like other dinners. I never thought that walking would make such a
+      difference. Why, when you&rsquo;re walking you want, as it were, a breakfast and
+      luncheon and tea during the night as well, and I&rsquo;d nothing but a packet of
+      Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn&rsquo;t what you may call
+      enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did stick. I&mdash;I
+      was determined. Oh, hang it all! what&rsquo;s the good&mdash;I mean, the good of
+      living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day, same old game,
+      same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You
+      ought to see once in a way what&rsquo;s going on outside, if it&rsquo;s only nothing
+      particular after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should just think you ought,&rdquo; said Helen, sitting on the edge of
+      the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sound of a lady&rsquo;s voice recalled him from sincerity, and he said:
+      &ldquo;Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard
+      Jefferies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you&rsquo;re wrong there. It didn&rsquo;t. It came from
+      something far greater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies&mdash;Borrow,
+      Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and the outburst ended
+      in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault is ours, not
+      theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts, and are not to blame if, in our
+      weakness, we mistake the sign-post for the destination. And Leonard had
+      reached the destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness
+      covered its amenities, and  its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night.
+      Every twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see
+      for himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater
+      than Jefferies&rsquo; books&mdash;the  spirit that led Jefferies to write them;
+      and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was part of the
+      eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you don&rsquo;t think I was foolish?&rdquo; he asked becoming again the naive
+      and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens, no!&rdquo; replied Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heaven help us if we do!&rdquo; replied Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand&mdash;not
+      if I explained for days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it wasn&rsquo;t foolish!&rdquo; cried Helen, her eyes aflame. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve pushed back
+      the boundaries; I think it splendid of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve not been content to dream as we have&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though we have walked, too&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must show you a picture upstairs&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their evening
+      party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bother, not to say dash&mdash;I had forgotten we were dining out; but
+      do, do, come round again and have a talk.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, you must&mdash;do,&rdquo;
+       echoed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: &ldquo;No, I shall not. It&rsquo;s better
+      like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why better?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look back
+      on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life. Really. I
+      mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and there we had
+      better leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s rather a sad view of life, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Things so often get spoiled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; flashed Helen, &ldquo;but people don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true
+      imagination and false. What he said wasn&rsquo;t wrong, but it wasn&rsquo;t right, and
+      a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument might
+      be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever. He thanked
+      the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a moment&rsquo;s
+      awkwardness, and then Helen said: &ldquo;Go, then; perhaps you know best; but
+      never forget you&rsquo;re better than Jefferies.&rdquo; And he went. Their hansom
+      caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and vanished
+      with its accomplished load into the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric
+      lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the side
+      streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson
+      battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated the
+      splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted
+      ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She had never known the
+      clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted
+      wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and to
+      brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance. The Miss Schlegels&mdash;or,
+      to speak more accurately, his interview with them&mdash;were to fill such
+      a corner, nor was it by any means the first time that he had talked
+      intimately to strangers. The habit was analogous to a debauch, an outlet,
+      though the worst of outlets, for instincts that would not be denied.
+      Terrifying him, it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he
+      was confiding secrets to people whom he had scarcely seen. It brought him
+      many fears and some pleasant memories. Perhaps the keenest happiness he
+      had ever known was during a railway journey to Cambridge, where a
+      decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken to him. They had got into
+      conversation, and gradually Leonard flung reticence aside, told some of
+      his domestic troubles and hinted at the rest. The undergraduate, supposing
+      they could start a friendship, asked him to &ldquo;coffee after hall,&rdquo; which he
+      accepted, but afterwards grew shy, and took care not to stir from the
+      commercial hotel where he lodged. He did not want Romance to collide with
+      the Porphyrion, still less with Jacky, and people with fuller, happier
+      lives are slow to understand this. To the Schlegels, as to the
+      undergraduate, he was an interesting creature, of whom they wanted to see
+      more. But they to him were denizens of Romance, who must keep to the
+      corner he had assigned them, pictures that must not walk out of their
+      frames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His behaviour over Margaret&rsquo;s visiting-card had been typical. His had
+      scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no
+      inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave
+      his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were
+      enough. Here &ldquo;that card&rdquo; had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was untidy,
+      and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that
+      card, eh?&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, don&rsquo;t you wish you knew what that card was?&rdquo; &ldquo;Len, who&rsquo;s
+      Miss Schlegel?&rdquo; etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke, now as a
+      grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It followed them
+      when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It was submitted to third
+      parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it became the battlefield on which
+      the souls of Leonard and his wife contended. Why did he not say, &ldquo;A lady
+      took my umbrella, another gave me this that I might call for my umbrella&rdquo;?
+      Because Jacky would have disbelieved him? Partly, but chiefly because he
+      was sentimental. No affection gathered round the card, but it symbolised
+      the life of culture, that Jacky should never spoil. At night he would say
+      to himself, &ldquo;Well, at all events, she doesn&rsquo;t know about that card. Yah!
+      done her there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear. She drew
+      her own conclusion&mdash;she was only capable of drawing one conclusion&mdash;and
+      in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the Friday Leonard had
+      refused to speak to her, and had spent the evening observing the stars. On
+      the Saturday he went up, as usual, to town, but he came not back Saturday
+      night, nor Sunday morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The inconvenience grew
+      intolerable, and though she was now of a retiring habit, and shy of women,
+      she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned in her absence. The card,
+      the fatal card, was gone from the pages of Ruskin, and he guessed what had
+      happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter. &ldquo;I know
+      where you&rsquo;ve been, but you don&rsquo;t know where I&rsquo;ve been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky sighed, said, &ldquo;Len, I do think you might explain,&rdquo; and resumed
+      domesticity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too silly&mdash;or
+      it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt them. His reticence
+      was not entirely the shoddy article that a business life promotes, the
+      reticence that pretends that nothing is something, and hides behind the
+      Daily Telegraph. The adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an adventure
+      for a clerk to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh at him, you
+      who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle beside you and all
+      the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may laugh who think
+      adventures silly. But do not be surprised if Leonard is shy whenever he
+      meets you, and if the Schlegels rather than Jacky hear about the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent joy. He
+      was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as he journeyed
+      home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of wealth had fallen,
+      and there had been&mdash;he could not phrase it&mdash;a general assertion
+      of the wonder of the world. &ldquo;My conviction,&rdquo; says the mystic, &ldquo;gains
+      infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it,&rdquo; and they had
+      agreed that there was something beyond life&rsquo;s daily grey. He took off his
+      top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed the unknown
+      to be books, literature, clever conversation, culture. One raised oneself
+      by study, and got upsides with the world. But in that quick interchange a
+      new light dawned. Was that &ldquo;something&rdquo; walking in the dark among the
+      suburban hills?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street. London came
+      back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but all whom he passed
+      looked at him with a hostility that was the more impressive because it was
+      unconscious. He put his hat on. It was too big; his head disappeared like
+      a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at the touch of the
+      curly brim. He wore it a little backwards, and its effect was greatly to
+      elongate the face and to bring out the distance between the eyes and the
+      moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism. No one felt uneasy as he
+      titupped along the pavements, the heart of a man ticking fast in his
+      chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor -->
+      <!--  --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they were
+      both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that could
+      stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies, had more
+      kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at one part of
+      the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast and of no one
+      else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues collided, fell
+      ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all. The dinner-party
+      was really an informal discussion club; there was a paper after it, read
+      amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room, but dealing more or
+      less thoughtfully with some topic of general interest. After the paper
+      came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast also figured, appearing now as
+      a bright spot in civilisation, now as a dark spot, according to the
+      temperament of the speaker. The subject of the paper had been, &ldquo;How ought
+      I to dispose of my money?&rdquo; the reader professing to be a millionaire on
+      the point of death, inclined to bequeath her fortune for the foundation of
+      local art galleries, but open to conviction from other sources. The
+      various parts had been assigned beforehand, and some of the speeches were
+      amusing. The hostess assumed the ungrateful role of &ldquo;the millionaire&rsquo;s
+      eldest son,&rdquo; and implored her expiring parent not to dislocate Society by
+      allowing such vast sums to pass out of the family. Money was the fruit of
+      self-denial, and the second generation had a right to profit by the
+      self-denial of the first. What right had &ldquo;Mr. Bast&rdquo; to profit? The
+      National Gallery was good enough for the likes of him. After property had
+      had its say&mdash;a saying that is necessarily ungracious&mdash;the
+      various philanthropists stepped forward. Something must be done for &ldquo;Mr.
+      Bast&rdquo;; his conditions must be improved without impairing his independence;
+      he must have a free library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid
+      in such a way that he did not know it was being paid; it must be made
+      worth his while to join the Territorials; he must be forcibly parted from
+      his uninspiring wife, the money going to her as compensation; he must be
+      assigned a Twin Star, some member of the leisured classes who would watch
+      over him ceaselessly (groans from Helen); he must be given food but no
+      clothes, clothes but no food, a third-return ticket to Venice, without
+      either food or clothes when he arrived there. In short, he might be given
+      anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And here Margaret interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Order, order, Miss Schlegel!&rdquo; said the reader of the paper. &ldquo;You are
+      here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the Society for the
+      Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. I cannot
+      have you speaking out of your role. It makes my poor head go round, and I
+      think you forget that I am very ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your head won&rsquo;t go round if only you&rsquo;ll listen to my argument,&rdquo; said
+      Margaret. &ldquo;Why not give him the money itself? You&rsquo;re supposed to have
+      about thirty thousand a year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I? I thought I had a million.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that.
+      Still, it doesn&rsquo;t matter. Whatever you&rsquo;ve got, I order you to give as many
+      poor men as you can three hundred a year each.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that would be pauperising them,&rdquo; said an earnest girl, who liked the
+      Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise a man.
+      It is these little driblets, distributed among too many, that do the harm.
+      Money&rsquo;s educational. It&rsquo;s far more educational than the things it buys.&rdquo;
+       There was a protest. &ldquo;In a sense,&rdquo; added Margaret, but the protest
+      continued. &ldquo;Well, isn&rsquo;t the most civilized thing going, the man who has
+      learnt to wear his income properly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly what your Mr. Basts won&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give them a chance. Give them money. Don&rsquo;t dole them out poetry-books and
+      railway-tickets like babies. Give them the wherewithal to buy these
+      things. When your Socialism comes it may be different, and we may think in
+      terms of commodities instead of cash. Till it comes give people cash, for
+      it is the warp of civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The imagination
+      ought to play upon money and realise it vividly, for it&rsquo;s the&mdash;the
+      second most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over and hushed
+      up, there is so little clear thinking&mdash;oh, political economy, of
+      course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes, and
+      admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the result of
+      independent means. Money: give Mr. Bast money, and don&rsquo;t bother about his
+      ideals. He&rsquo;ll pick up those for himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to
+      misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily life,
+      cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss Schlegel
+      was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what it would
+      profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own soul. She
+      answered, &ldquo;Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until he had gained a
+      little of the world.&rdquo; Then they said, &ldquo;No, we do not believe it,&rdquo; and she
+      admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul in the
+      superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the deed, but
+      she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this
+      world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to clear and
+      passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had attacked the fabric of
+      Society&mdash;Property, Interest, etc.; she only fixed her eyes on a few
+      human beings, to see how, under present conditions, they could be made
+      happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the many-coloured efforts
+      thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in an
+      universal grey. To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was the
+      utmost she dare hope for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had a bad
+      time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her, and in keeping
+      the administration of the millionaire&rsquo;s money in their own hands. The
+      earnest girl brought forward a scheme of &ldquo;personal supervision and mutual
+      help,&rdquo; the effect of which was to alter poor people until they became
+      exactly like people who were not so poor. The hostess pertinently remarked
+      that she, as eldest son, might surely rank among the millionaire&rsquo;s
+      legatees. Margaret weakly admitted the claim, and another claim was at
+      once set up by Helen, who declared that she had been the millionaire&rsquo;s
+      housemaid for over forty years, overfed and underpaid; was nothing to be
+      done for her, so corpulent and poor? The millionaire then read out her
+      last will and testament, in which she left the whole of her fortune to the
+      Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then she died. The serious parts of the
+      discussion had been of higher merit than the playful&mdash;in a men&rsquo;s
+      debate is the reverse more general?&mdash;but the meeting broke up
+      hilariously enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed to their homes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen and Margaret walked with the earnest girl as far as Battersea Bridge
+      Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she had gone they were
+      conscious of an alleviation, and of the great beauty of the evening. They
+      turned back towards Oakley Street. The lamps and the plane-trees,
+      following the line of the embankment, struck a note of dignity that is
+      rare in English cities. The seats, almost deserted, were here and there
+      occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled out from the
+      houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the rising tide. There
+      is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It is an open space
+      used rightly, a blessing more frequent in Germany than here. As Margaret
+      and Helen sat down, the city behind them seemed to be a vast theatre, an
+      opera-house in which some endless trilogy was performing, and they
+      themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers, who did not mind losing a
+      little of the second act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doesn&rsquo;t matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The earnest girl&rsquo;s train rumbled away over the bridge.
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we won&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people. The
+      discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough with him in a
+      spirit of excitement, but think of rational intercourse. We mustn&rsquo;t play
+      at friendship. No, it&rsquo;s no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s Mrs. Lanoline, too,&rdquo; Helen yawned. &ldquo;So dull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so, and possibly worse than dull.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to know how he got hold of your card.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he said&mdash;something about a concert and an umbrella.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then did the card see the wife&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, come to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes; did you
+      say money is the warp of the world?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what&rsquo;s the woof?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much what one chooses,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s something that isn&rsquo;t
+      money&mdash;one can&rsquo;t say more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walking at night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Tibby, Oxford?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it&rsquo;s that. For
+      Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One&rsquo;s own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was sitting
+      with friends many seats away, heard this, rose to his feet, and strolled
+      along towards the speakers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than people,&rdquo;
+       continued Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Meg? They&rsquo;re so much nicer generally. I&rsquo;d rather think of that
+      forester&rsquo;s house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Forstmeister who lived
+      in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The
+      more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It&rsquo;s one of
+      the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a
+      place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you do?&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;I thought I recognised your voices. Whatever
+      are you both doing down here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit out on
+      Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented this, but
+      Margaret accepted it as part of the good man&rsquo;s equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an age it is since I&rsquo;ve seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in the
+      Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paul?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting down
+      between them. &ldquo;Oh, Paul&rsquo;s all right. We had a line from Madeira. He&rsquo;ll be
+      at work again by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh&mdash;&rdquo; said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t the climate of Nigeria too horrible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some one&rsquo;s got to go,&rdquo; he said simply. &ldquo;England will never keep her trade
+      overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices. Unless we get firm in
+      West Africa, Ger&mdash;untold complications may follow. Now tell me all
+      your news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ve had a splendid evening,&rdquo; cried Helen, who always woke up at the
+      advent of a visitor. &ldquo;We belong to a kind of club that reads papers,
+      Margaret and I&mdash;all women, but there is a discussion after. This
+      evening it was on how one ought to leave one&rsquo;s money&mdash;whether to
+      one&rsquo;s family, or to the poor, and if so how&mdash;oh, most interesting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man of business smiled. Since his wife&rsquo;s death he had almost doubled
+      his income. He was an important figure at last, a reassuring name on
+      company prospectuses, and life had treated him very well. The world seemed
+      in his grasp as he listened to the River Thames, which still flowed inland
+      from the sea. So wonderful to the girls, it held no mysteries for him. He
+      had helped to shorten its long tidal trough by taking shares in the lock
+      at Teddington, and if he and other capitalists thought good, some day it
+      could be shortened again. With a good dinner inside him and an amiable but
+      academic woman on either flank, he felt that his hands were on all the
+      ropes of life, and that what he did not know could not be worth knowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sounds a most original entertainment!&rdquo; he exclaimed, and laughed in his
+      pleasant way. &ldquo;I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing. But she hasn&rsquo;t
+      the time. She&rsquo;s taken to breeding Aberdeen terriers&mdash;jolly little
+      dogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect we&rsquo;d better be doing the same, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We pretend we&rsquo;re improving ourselves, you see,&rdquo; said Helen a little
+      sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns, and she
+      had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just made
+      would have impressed her favourably. &ldquo;We suppose it a good thing to waste
+      an evening once a fortnight over a debate, but, as my sister says, it may
+      be better to breed dogs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all. I don&rsquo;t agree with your sister. There&rsquo;s nothing like a debate
+      to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when I was a
+      youngster. It would have helped me no end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quickness&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I&rsquo;ve missed scoring a point
+      because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven&rsquo;t. Oh, I
+      believe in these discussions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The patronising tone, thought Margaret, came well enough from a man who
+      was old enough to be their father. She had always maintained that Mr.
+      Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had
+      pained her, but it was pleasant to listen to him now, and to watch his
+      thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars. But Helen
+      was nettled. The aim of their debates she implied was Truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, it doesn&rsquo;t much matter what subject you take,&rdquo; said he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed and said, &ldquo;But this is going to be far better than the
+      debate itself.&rdquo; Helen recovered herself and laughed too. &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t go
+      on,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just put our special case to Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He&rsquo;ll be more lenient to a special case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It&rsquo;s this. We&rsquo;ve just
+      come across a young fellow, who&rsquo;s evidently very poor, and who seems
+      interest&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his profession?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you remember, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug. He seems
+      interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could help him. He is
+      married to a wife whom he doesn&rsquo;t seem to care for much. He likes books,
+      and what one may roughly call adventure, and if he had a chance&mdash;But
+      he is so poor. He lives a life where all the money is apt to go on
+      nonsense and clothes. One is so afraid that circumstances will be too
+      strong for him and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our debate.
+      He wasn&rsquo;t the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his point. Suppose a
+      millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help such a man. How
+      should he be helped? Should he be given three hundred pounds a year
+      direct, which was Margaret&rsquo;s plan? Most of them thought this would
+      pauperise him. Should he and those like him be given free libraries? I
+      said &lsquo;No!&rsquo; He doesn&rsquo;t want more books to read, but to read books rightly.
+      My suggestion was he should be given something every year towards a summer
+      holiday, but then there is his wife, and they said she would have to go
+      too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think? Imagine that you
+      were a millionaire, and wanted to help the poor. What would you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard
+      indicated, laughed exuberantly. &ldquo;My dear Miss Schlegel, I will not rush in
+      where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not add another plan to
+      the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested. My only
+      contribution is this: let your young friend clear out of the Porphyrion
+      Fire Insurance Company with all possible speed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lowered his voice. &ldquo;This is between friends. It&rsquo;ll be in the Receiver&rsquo;s
+      hands before Christmas. It&rsquo;ll smash,&rdquo; he added, thinking that she had not
+      understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he&rsquo;ll have to get another place!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WILL have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get one now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rather than wait, to make sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Decidedly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. &ldquo;Naturally the man who&rsquo;s
+      in a situation when he applies stands a better chance, is in a stronger
+      position, that the man who isn&rsquo;t. It looks as if he&rsquo;s worth something. I
+      know by myself&mdash;(this is letting you into the State secrets)&mdash;it
+      affects an employer greatly. Human nature, I&rsquo;m afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t thought of that,&rdquo; murmured Margaret, while Helen said, &ldquo;Our
+      human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people because
+      they&rsquo;re unemployed. The boot man, for instance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how does he clean the boots?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not well,&rdquo; confessed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then do you really advise us to tell this youth&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise nothing,&rdquo; he interrupted, glancing up and down the Embankment,
+      in case his indiscretion had been overheard. &ldquo;I oughtn&rsquo;t to have spoken&mdash;but
+      I happen to know, being more or less behind the scenes. The Porphyrion&rsquo;s a
+      bad, bad concern&mdash;Now, don&rsquo;t say I said so. It&rsquo;s outside the Tariff
+      Ring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I won&rsquo;t say. In fact, I don&rsquo;t know what that means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought an insurance company never smashed,&rdquo; was Helen&rsquo;s contribution.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t the others always run in and save them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re thinking of reinsurance,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox mildly. &ldquo;It is exactly
+      there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to undercut, has been
+      badly hit by a long series of small fires, and it hasn&rsquo;t been able to
+      reinsure. I&rsquo;m afraid that public companies don&rsquo;t save one another for
+      love.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Human nature,&rsquo; I suppose,&rdquo; quoted Helen, and he laughed and agreed that
+      it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks, like every one
+      else, found it extremely difficult to get situations in these days, he
+      replied, &ldquo;Yes, extremely,&rdquo; and rose to rejoin his friends. He knew by his
+      own office&mdash;seldom a vacant post, and hundreds of applicants for it;
+      at present no vacant post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how&rsquo;s Howards End looking?&rdquo; said Margaret, wishing to change the
+      subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to think one
+      wanted to get something out of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s let.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really. And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea? How strange are
+      the ways of Fate!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; it&rsquo;s let unfurnished. We&rsquo;ve moved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie never told
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn&rsquo;t settled. We only moved a
+      week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place, and we held on for
+      him to have his holiday there; but, really, it is impossibly small.
+      Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you&rsquo;ve been up to it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As far as the house, never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don&rsquo;t really do,
+      spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among the
+      wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and
+      attempted a rockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it didn&rsquo;t
+      do&mdash;no, it didn&rsquo;t do. You remember, your sister will remember, the
+      farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old woman
+      never would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the bottom. And,
+      inside the house, the beams&mdash;and the staircase through a door&mdash;picturesque
+      enough, but not a place to live in.&rdquo; He glanced over the parapet
+      cheerfully. &ldquo;Full tide. And the position wasn&rsquo;t right either. The
+      neighbourhood&rsquo;s getting suburban. Either be in London or out of it, I say;
+      so we&rsquo;ve taken a house in Ducie Street, close to Sloane Street, and a
+      place right down in Shropshire&mdash;Oniton Grange. Ever heard of Oniton?
+      Do come and see us&mdash;right away from everywhere, up towards Wales.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a change!&rdquo; said Margaret. But the change was in her own voice, which
+      had become most sad. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t imagine Howards End or Hilton without you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hilton isn&rsquo;t without us,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Charles is there still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still?&rdquo; said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles&rsquo;s. &ldquo;But I
+      thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that Christmas&mdash;one
+      Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire Mrs. Charles from our
+      windows very often. Wasn&rsquo;t it Epsom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap&rdquo;&mdash;his
+      voice dropped&mdash;&ldquo;thought I should be lonely. I didn&rsquo;t want him to
+      move, but he would, and took a house at the other end of Hilton, down by
+      the Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they all are, a very jolly party&mdash;he
+      and she and the two grandchildren.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I manage other people&rsquo;s affairs so much better than they manage them
+      themselves,&rdquo; said Margaret as they shook hands. &ldquo;When you moved out of
+      Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it. I should have
+      kept so remarkable a place in the family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t sold it, and don&rsquo;t mean to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but none of you are there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we&rsquo;ve got a splendid tenant&mdash;Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If Charles
+      ever wanted it&mdash;but he won&rsquo;t. Dolly is so dependent on modern
+      conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End. We like it in a
+      way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. One must
+      have one thing or the other.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And some people are lucky enough to have both. You&rsquo;re doing yourself
+      proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And mine,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do remind Evie to come and see us&mdash;2 Wickham Place. We shan&rsquo;t be
+      there very long, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, too, on the move?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next September,&rdquo; Margaret sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one moving! Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and watched it
+      sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her lover; she herself was
+      probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is it worth while attempting the
+      past when there is this continual flux even in the hearts of men?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen roused her by saying: &ldquo;What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has
+      grown! I have very little use for him in these days. However, he did tell
+      us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr. Bast as soon as ever we get
+      home, and tell him to clear out of it at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do; yes, that&rsquo;s worth doing. Let us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Leonard accepted the invitation to tea next Saturday. But he was right;
+      the visit proved a conspicuous failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sugar?&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cake?&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;The big cake or the little deadlies? I&rsquo;m afraid you
+      thought my letter rather odd, but we&rsquo;ll explain&mdash;we aren&rsquo;t odd,
+      really&mdash;nor affected, really. We&rsquo;re over-expressive&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a lady&rsquo;s lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian, still
+      less a Frenchman, in whose blood there runs the very spirit of persiflage
+      and of gracious repartee. His wit was the Cockney&rsquo;s; it opened no doors
+      into imagination, and Helen was drawn up short by &ldquo;The more a lady has to
+      say, the better,&rdquo; administered waggishly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ladies brighten&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know. The darlings are regular sunbeams. Let me give you a plate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you like your work?&rdquo; interposed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying into his
+      work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he had at last
+      penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing upon its walls, and
+      so were the very tea-cups, with their delicate borders of wild
+      strawberries. But he would not let romance interfere with his life. There
+      is the devil to pay then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well enough,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your company is the Porphyrion, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s so.&rdquo;&mdash;becoming rather offended. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny how things
+      get round.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why funny?&rdquo; asked Helen, who did not follow the workings of his mind. &ldquo;It
+      was written as large as life on your card, and considering we wrote to you
+      there, and that you replied on the stamped paper&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance Companies?&rdquo;
+       pursued Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends on what you call big.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean by big, a solid, well-established concern, that offers a
+      reasonably good career to its employes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t say&mdash;some would tell you one thing and others another,&rdquo;
+       said the employee uneasily. &ldquo;For my own part&rdquo;&mdash;he shook his head&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      only believe half I hear. Not that even; it&rsquo;s safer. Those clever ones
+      come to the worse grief, I&rsquo;ve often noticed. Ah, you can&rsquo;t be too
+      careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drank, and wiped his moustache, which was going to be one of those
+      moustaches that always droop into tea-cups&mdash;more bother than they&rsquo;re
+      worth, surely, and not fashionable either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I quite agree, and that&rsquo;s why I was curious to know; is it a solid,
+      well-established concern?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard had no idea. He understood his own corner of the machine, but
+      nothing beyond it. He desired to confess neither knowledge nor ignorance,
+      and under these circumstances, another motion of the head seemed safest.
+      To him, as to the British public, the Porphyrion was the Porphyrion of the
+      advertisement&mdash;a giant, in the classical style, but draped
+      sufficiently, who held in one hand a burning torch, and pointed with the
+      other to St. Paul&rsquo;s and Windsor Castle. A large sum of money was inscribed
+      below, and you drew your own conclusions. This giant caused Leonard to do
+      arithmetic and write letters, to explain the regulations to new clients,
+      and re-explain them to old ones. A giant was of an impulsive morality&mdash;one
+      knew that much. He would pay for Mrs. Munt&rsquo;s hearthrug with ostentatious
+      haste, a large claim he would repudiate quietly, and fight court by court.
+      But his true fighting weight, his antecedents, his amours with other
+      members of the commercial Pantheon&mdash;all these were as uncertain to
+      ordinary mortals as were the escapades of Zeus. While the gods are
+      powerful, we learn little about them. It is only in the days of their
+      decadence that a strong light beats into heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were told the Porphyrion&rsquo;s no go,&rdquo; blurted Helen. &ldquo;We wanted to tell
+      you; that&rsquo;s why we wrote.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured,&rdquo; said
+      Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Leonard had his clue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He must praise the Porphyrion. &ldquo;You can tell your friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that
+      he&rsquo;s quite wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was fatal. The
+      Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were genuinely glad that
+      they had been misinformed. To them nothing was fatal but evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wrong, so to speak,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How &lsquo;so to speak&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean I wouldn&rsquo;t say he&rsquo;s right altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was a blunder. &ldquo;Then he is right partly,&rdquo; said the elder woman,
+      quick as lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard replied that every one was right partly, if it came to that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Bast, I don&rsquo;t understand business, and I dare say my questions are
+      stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern &lsquo;right&rsquo; or &lsquo;wrong&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard sat back with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said before
+      Christmas&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And advised you to clear out of it,&rdquo; concluded Helen. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t see
+      why he should know better than you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew nothing about
+      the thing at all. But a commercial training was too strong for him. Nor
+      could he say it was a bad thing, for this would be giving it away; nor yet
+      that it was good, for this would be giving it away equally. He attempted
+      to suggest that it was something between the two, with vast possibilities
+      in either direction, but broke down under the gaze of four sincere eyes.
+      And yet he scarcely distinguished between the two sisters. One was more
+      beautiful and more lively, but &ldquo;the Miss Schlegels&rdquo; still remained a
+      composite Indian god, whose waving arms and contradictory speeches were
+      the product of a single mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can but see,&rdquo; he remarked, adding, &ldquo;as Ibsen says, &lsquo;things happen.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       He was itching to talk about books and make the most of his romantic hour.
+      Minute after minute slipped away, while the ladies, with imperfect skill,
+      discussed the subject of reinsurance or praised their anonymous friend.
+      Leonard grew annoyed&mdash;perhaps rightly. He made vague remarks about
+      not being one of those who minded their affairs being talked over by
+      others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have shown more tact.
+      Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed here. They cannot see
+      why we should shroud our incomes and our prospects in a veil. &ldquo;How much
+      exactly have you, and how much do you expect to have next June?&rdquo; And these
+      were women with a theory, who held that reticence about money matters is
+      absurd, and that life would be truer if each would state the exact size of
+      the golden island upon which he stands, the exact stretch of warp over
+      which he throws the woof that is not money. How can we do justice to the
+      pattern otherwise?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came nearer.
+      At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in, reciting the names of
+      books feverishly. There was a moment of piercing joy when Margaret said,
+      &ldquo;So YOU like Carlyle&rdquo; and then the door opened, and &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox, Miss
+      Wilcox&rdquo; entered, preceded by two prancing puppies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!&rdquo; screamed Helen,
+      falling on her hands and knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We brought the little fellows round,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I bred &rsquo;em myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to be going now,&rdquo; said Leonard sourly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But play with puppies a little first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Ahab, that&rsquo;s Jezebel,&rdquo; said Evie, who was one of those who name
+      animals after the less successful characters of Old Testament history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got to be going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba&mdash;Must you be really? Good-bye!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come again,&rdquo; said Helen from the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Leonard&rsquo;s gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was the good of
+      it? He said roundly: &ldquo;No, I shan&rsquo;t; I knew it would be a failure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Most people would have let him go. &ldquo;A little mistake. We tried knowing
+      another class&mdash;impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted
+      friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted, &ldquo;I call
+      that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me like that for?&rdquo;
+       and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed to a vulgar row.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ask me why I turn on you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want to have me here for?&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To help you, you silly boy!&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;And don&rsquo;t shout.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want your patronage. I don&rsquo;t want your tea. I was quite happy.
+      What do you want to unsettle me for?&rdquo; He turned to Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;I put it
+      to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have my brain picked?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength that he
+      could so well command. &ldquo;Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel? Can we be of any
+      use, or shall we go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Margaret ignored him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive what I
+      take to be an invitation from these&mdash;ladies&rdquo; (he drawled the word).
+      &ldquo;I come, and it&rsquo;s to have my brain picked. I ask you, is it fair?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Highly unfair,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who knew that
+      her father was becoming dangerous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There! Not content
+      with&rdquo;&mdash;pointing at Margaret&mdash;&ldquo;you can&rsquo;t deny it.&rdquo; His voice
+      rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky. &ldquo;But as soon
+      as I&rsquo;m useful it&rsquo;s a very different thing. &lsquo;Oh yes, send for him.
+      Cross-question him. Pick his brains.&rsquo; Oh yes. Now, take me on the whole,
+      I&rsquo;m a quiet fellow: I&rsquo;m law-abiding, I don&rsquo;t wish any unpleasantness; but
+      I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You,&rdquo; said Margaret&mdash;&ldquo;you&mdash;you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      More laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw the sunrise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all&mdash;away
+      past books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a real home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fail to see the connection,&rdquo; said Leonard, hot with stupid anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I.&rdquo; There was a pause. &ldquo;You were that last Sunday&mdash;you are
+      this to-day. Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We wanted to
+      help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did not have you here out
+      of charity&mdash;which bores us&mdash;but because we hoped there would be
+      a connection between last Sunday and other days. What is the good of your
+      stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our
+      daily lives? They have never entered into mine, but into yours, we thought&mdash;Haven&rsquo;t
+      we all to struggle against life&rsquo;s daily greyness, against pettiness,
+      against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion? I struggle by
+      remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering some place&mdash;some
+      beloved place or tree&mdash;we thought you one of these.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, if there&rsquo;s been any misunderstanding,&rdquo; mumbled Leonard, &ldquo;all I
+      can do is to go. But I beg to state&mdash;&rdquo; He paused. Ahab and Jezebel
+      danced at his boots and made him look ridiculous. &ldquo;You were picking my
+      brain for official information&mdash;I can prove it&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; He
+      blew his nose and left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I help you now?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, turning to Margaret. &ldquo;May I have
+      one quiet word with him in the hall?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, go after him&mdash;do anything&mdash;anything&mdash;to make the
+      noodle understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But really&mdash;&rdquo; said their visitor. &ldquo;Ought she to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At once she went.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He resumed. &ldquo;I would have chimed in, but I felt that you could polish him
+      off for yourselves&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t interfere. You were splendid, Miss
+      Schlegel&mdash;absolutely splendid. You can take my word for it, but there
+      are very few women who could have managed him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes,&rdquo; said Margaret distractedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me,&rdquo; cried
+      Evie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; chuckled her father; &ldquo;all that part about &lsquo;mechanical
+      cheerfulness&rsquo;&mdash;oh, fine!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very sorry,&rdquo; said Margaret, collecting herself. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a nice creature
+      really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been most unpleasant for
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I didn&rsquo;t mind.&rdquo; Then he changed his mood. He asked if he might speak
+      as an old friend, and, permission given, said: &ldquo;Oughtn&rsquo;t you really to be
+      more careful?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen. &ldquo;Do you
+      realise that it&rsquo;s all your fault?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the young man whom we were to warn against the Porphyrion. We
+      warn him, and&mdash;look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. &ldquo;I hardly consider that a fair deduction,&rdquo; he
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Obviously unfair,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I was only thinking how tangled things
+      are. It&rsquo;s our fault mostly&mdash;neither yours nor his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not his?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, you are too kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you. I know
+      the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered the room I saw
+      you had not been treating him properly. You must keep that type at a
+      distance. Otherwise they forget themselves. Sad, but true. They aren&rsquo;t our
+      sort, and one must face the fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit it willingly,&rdquo; said Margaret, who was pacing up and down the
+      room. &ldquo;A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he suspect you of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of wanting to make money out of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One touch of
+      thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just the senseless fear
+      that does make men intolerable brutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful, Miss
+      Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such people in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to him frankly. &ldquo;Let me explain exactly why we like this man,
+      and want to see him again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do. Firstly, because he cares for physical adventure, just as you do.
+      Yes, you go motoring and shooting; he would like to go camping out.
+      Secondly, he cares for something special IN adventure. It is quickest to
+      call that special something poetry&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he&rsquo;s one of that writer sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;oh no! I mean he may be, but it would be loathsome stuff. His
+      brain is filled with the husks of books, culture&mdash;horrible; we want
+      him to wash out his brain and go to the real thing. We want to show him
+      how he may get upsides with life. As I said, either friends or the
+      country, some&rdquo;&mdash;she hesitated&mdash;&ldquo;either some very dear person or
+      some very dear place seems necessary to relieve life&rsquo;s daily grey, and to
+      show that it is grey. If possible, one should have both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox. He let them run past. Others he
+      caught and criticised with admirable lucidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This young bounder
+      has a life of his own. What right have you to conclude it is an
+      unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, &lsquo;grey&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own joys and
+      interests&mdash;wife, children, snug little home. That&rsquo;s where we
+      practical fellows&rdquo; he smiled&mdash;&ldquo;are more tolerant than you
+      intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things are jogging on
+      fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain man may be trusted to
+      look after his own affairs. I quite grant&mdash;I look at the faces of the
+      clerks in my own office, and observe them to be dull, but I don&rsquo;t know
+      what&rsquo;s going on beneath. So, by the way, with London. I have heard you
+      rail against London, Miss Schlegel, and it seems a funny thing to say but
+      I was very angry with you. What do you know about London? You only see
+      civilisation from the outside. I don&rsquo;t say in your case, but in too many
+      cases that attitude leads to morbidity, discontent, and Socialism.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She admitted the strength of his position, though it undermined
+      imagination. As he spoke, some outposts of poetry and perhaps of sympathy
+      fell ruining, and she retreated to what she called her &ldquo;second line&rdquo;&mdash;to
+      the special facts of the case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His wife is an old bore,&rdquo; she said simply. &ldquo;He never came home last
+      Saturday night because he wanted to be alone, and she thought he was with
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With YOU?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; Evie tittered. &ldquo;He hasn&rsquo;t got the cosy home that you assumed. He
+      needs outside interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty young man!&rdquo; cried the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty?&rdquo; said Margaret, who hated naughtiness more than sin. &ldquo;When
+      you&rsquo;re married Miss Wilcox, won&rsquo;t you want outside interests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has apparently got them,&rdquo; put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was tramping in Surrey, if you mean that,&rdquo; said Margaret, pacing away
+      rather crossly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I dare say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Wilcox, he was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M&mdash;m&mdash;m&mdash;m!&rdquo; from Mr. Wilcox, who thought the episode
+      amusing, if risque. With most ladies he would not have discussed it, but
+      he was trading on Margaret&rsquo;s reputation as an emancipated woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said so, and about such a thing he wouldn&rsquo;t lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both began to laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where I differ from you. Men lie about their positions and
+      prospects, but not about a thing of that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, excuse me, but I know the type.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said before&mdash;he isn&rsquo;t a type. He cares about adventures rightly.
+      He&rsquo;s certain that our smug existence isn&rsquo;t all. He&rsquo;s vulgar and
+      hysterical and bookish, but don&rsquo;t think that sums him up. There&rsquo;s manhood
+      in him as well. Yes, that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m trying to say. He&rsquo;s a real man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As she spoke their eyes met, and it was as if Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s defences fell.
+      She saw back to the real man in him. Unwittingly she had touched his
+      emotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A woman and two men&mdash;they had formed the magic triangle of sex, and
+      the male was thrilled to jealousy, in case the female was attracted by
+      another male. Love, say the ascetics, reveals our shameful kinship with
+      the beasts. Be it so: one can bear that; jealousy is the real shame. It is
+      jealousy, not love, that connects us with the farmyard intolerably, and
+      calls up visions of two angry cocks and a complacent hen. Margaret crushed
+      complacency down because she was civilised. Mr. Wilcox, uncivilised,
+      continued to feel anger long after he had rebuilt his defences, and was
+      again presenting a bastion to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel, you&rsquo;re a pair of dear creatures, but you really MUST be
+      careful in this uncharitable world. What does your brother say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely he has some opinion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He laughs, if I remember correctly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very clever, isn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo; said Evie, who had met and detested Tibby at
+      Oxford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, pretty well&mdash;but I wonder what Helen&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is very young to undertake this sort of thing,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret went out to the landing. She heard no sound, and Mr. Bast&rsquo;s
+      topper was missing from the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen!&rdquo; she called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; replied a voice from the library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You in there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;he&rsquo;s gone some time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret went to her. &ldquo;Why, you&rsquo;re all alone,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;it&rsquo;s all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come back to the Wilcoxes and tell me later&mdash;Mr. W much concerned,
+      and slightly titillated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ve no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast! he wanted
+      to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a muddle of a man,
+      and yet so worth pulling through. I like him extraordinarily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well done,&rdquo; said Margaret, kissing her, &ldquo;but come into the drawing-room
+      now, and don&rsquo;t talk about him to the Wilcoxes. Make light of the whole
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that reassured their visitor&mdash;this
+      hen at all events was fancy-free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s gone with my blessing,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and now for puppies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As they drove away, Mr. Wilcox said to his daughter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as clever as
+      you make &rsquo;em, but unpractical&mdash;God bless me! One of these days
+      they&rsquo;ll go too far. Girls like that oughtn&rsquo;t to live alone in London.
+      Until they marry, they ought to have some one to look after them. We must
+      look in more often&mdash;we&rsquo;re better than no one. You like them, don&rsquo;t
+      you, Evie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie replied: &ldquo;Helen&rsquo;s right enough, but I can&rsquo;t stand the toothy one. And
+      I shouldn&rsquo;t have called either of them girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth under
+      sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the Wilcoxes could
+      do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present, puppies and her father
+      were the only things she loved, but the net of matrimony was being
+      prepared for her, and a few days later she was attracted to a Mr. Percy
+      Cahill, an uncle of Mrs. Charles&rsquo;s, and he was attracted to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor. When a
+      move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake
+      at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all their belongings
+      would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books,
+      that had rumbled down to them through the generations, must rumble forward
+      again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push,
+      and send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father&rsquo;s books&mdash;they
+      never read them, but they were their father&rsquo;s, and must be kept. There was
+      the marble-topped chiffonier&mdash;their mother had set store by it, they
+      could not remember why. Round every knob and cushion in the house gathered
+      a sentiment that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to
+      the dead, a prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came to think
+      of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The feudal ownership
+      of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables is
+      reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the civilisation
+      of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the middle classes
+      accreted possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in
+      this the secret of their imaginative poverty. The Schlegels were certainly
+      the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It had helped to balance their
+      lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is their ground-landlord
+      spiritually the richer. He has built flats on its site, his motor-cars
+      grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism more trenchant. But he has spilt
+      the precious distillation of the years, and no chemistry of his can give
+      it back to society again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house before they
+      left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She enjoyed this visit,
+      and wanted to have her mind at ease for it. Swanage, though dull, was
+      stable, and this year she longed more than usual for its fresh air and for
+      the magnificent downs that guard it on the north. But London thwarted her;
+      in its atmosphere she could not concentrate. London only stimulates, it
+      cannot sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface for a house
+      without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying for many a
+      thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break loose from
+      culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it would be a sin to
+      miss, and invitations which it would never do to refuse. At last she grew
+      desperate; she resolved that she would go nowhere and be at home to no one
+      until she found a house, and broke the resolution in half an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to Simpson&rsquo;s
+      restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss Wilcox, asking her
+      to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming and the three would have such a jolly
+      chat, and perhaps end up at the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong regard
+      for Evie, and no desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised that
+      Helen, who had been far funnier about Simpson&rsquo;s, had not been asked
+      instead. But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone. She must
+      know Evie Wilcox better than she supposed, and declaring that she &ldquo;simply
+      must,&rdquo; she accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring fiercely
+      at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her heart failed her anew.
+      Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since her engagement. Her voice was
+      gruffer, her manner more downright, and she was inclined to patronise the
+      more foolish virgin. Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this.
+      Depressed at her isolation, she saw not only houses and furniture, but the
+      vessel of life itself slipping past her, with people like Evie and Mr.
+      Cahill on board.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and one of them came to
+      her at Simpson&rsquo;s in the Strand. As she trod the staircase, narrow, but
+      carpeted thickly, as she entered the eating-room, where saddles of mutton
+      were being trundled up to expectant clergymen, she had a strong, if
+      erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come
+      out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature,
+      and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged. Then
+      came a little surprise. &ldquo;Father might be of the party&mdash;yes, father
+      was.&rdquo; With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to greet him, and her
+      feeling of loneliness vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I&rsquo;d get round if I could,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Evie told me of her little
+      plan, so I just slipped in and secured a table. Always secure a table
+      first. Evie, don&rsquo;t pretend you want to sit by your old father, because you
+      don&rsquo;t. Miss Schlegel, come in my side, out of pity. My goodness, but you
+      look tired! Been worrying round after your young clerks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, after houses,&rdquo; said Margaret, edging past him into the box. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
+      hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s good. What&rsquo;ll you have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fish pie,&rdquo; said she, with a glance at the menu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s not a bit the
+      thing to go for here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go for something for me, then,&rdquo; said Margaret, pulling off her gloves.
+      Her spirits were rising, and his reference to Leonard Bast had warmed her
+      curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saddle of mutton,&rdquo; said he after profound reflection; &ldquo;and cider to
+      drink. That&rsquo;s the type of thing. I like this place, for a joke, once in a
+      way. It is so thoroughly Old English. Don&rsquo;t you agree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Margaret, who didn&rsquo;t. The order was given, the joint rolled
+      up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s direction, cut the meat where it
+      was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr. Cahill insisted on
+      sirloin, but admitted that he had made a mistake later on. He and Evie
+      soon fell into a conversation of the &ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t; yes, you did&rdquo; type&mdash;conversation
+      which, though fascinating to those who are engaged in it, neither desires
+      nor deserves the attention of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere&rsquo;s my motto.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it does make life more human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the East, if you tip, they
+      remember you from year&rsquo;s end to year&rsquo;s end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been in the East?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport and business to
+      Cyprus; some military society of a sort there. A few piastres, properly
+      distributed, help to keep one&rsquo;s memory green. But you, of course, think
+      this shockingly cynical. How&rsquo;s your discussion society getting on? Any new
+      Utopias lately?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I&rsquo;m house-hunting, Mr. Wilcox, as I&rsquo;ve already told you once. Do you
+      know of any houses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what&rsquo;s the point of being practical if you can&rsquo;t find two
+      distressed females a house? We merely want a small house with large rooms,
+      and plenty of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn house-agent for her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want a new home in September, and some one must find it. I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Percy, do you know of anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say I do,&rdquo; said Mr. Cahill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How like you! You&rsquo;re never any good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good. Oh, come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you aren&rsquo;t. Miss Schlegel, is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops at Margaret, swept
+      away on its habitual course. She sympathised with it now, for a little
+      comfort had restored her geniality. Speech and silence pleased her
+      equally, and while Mr. Wilcox made some preliminary inquiries about
+      cheese, her eyes surveyed the restaurant, and aired its well-calculated
+      tributes to the solidity of our past. Though no more Old English than the
+      works of Kipling, it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly that her
+      criticism was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing for imperial
+      purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or Tom Jones. Scraps of
+      their talk jarred oddly on the ear. &ldquo;Right you are! I&rsquo;ll cable out to
+      Uganda this evening,&rdquo; came from the table behind. &ldquo;Their Emperor wants
+      war; well, let him have it,&rdquo; was the opinion of a clergyman. She smiled at
+      such incongruities. &ldquo;Next time,&rdquo; she said to Mr. Wilcox, &ldquo;you shall come
+      to lunch with me at Mr. Eustace Miles&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, you&rsquo;d hate it,&rdquo; she said, pushing her glass towards him for some more
+      cider. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all proteids and body buildings, and people come up to you
+      and beg your pardon, but you have such a beautiful aura.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub at mine for hours.
+      Nor of an astral plane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had heard of astral planes, and censured them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so. Luckily it was Helen&rsquo;s aura, not mine, and she had to chaperone
+      it and do the politenesses. I just sat with my handkerchief in my mouth
+      till the man went.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny experiences seem to come to you two girls. No one&rsquo;s ever asked me
+      about my&mdash;what d&rsquo;ye call it? Perhaps I&rsquo;ve not got one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re bound to have one, but it may be such a terrible colour that no
+      one dares mention it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, though, Miss Schlegel, do you really believe in the supernatural
+      and all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too difficult a question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&rsquo;s that? Gruyere or Stilton?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gruyere, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better have Stilton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stilton. Because, though I don&rsquo;t believe in auras, and think Theosophy&rsquo;s
+      only a halfway-house&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;Yet there may be something in it all the same,&rdquo; he concluded, with
+      a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not even that. It may be halfway in the wrong direction. I can&rsquo;t explain.
+      I don&rsquo;t believe in all these fads, and yet I don&rsquo;t like saying that I
+      don&rsquo;t believe in them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed unsatisfied, and said: &ldquo;So you wouldn&rsquo;t give me your word that
+      you DON&rsquo;T hold with astral bodies and all the rest of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could,&rdquo; said Margaret, surprised that the point was of any importance
+      to him. &ldquo;Indeed, I will. When I talked about scrubbing my aura, I was only
+      trying to be funny. But why do you want this settled?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mr. Wilcox, you do know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am,&rdquo; &ldquo;No, you&rsquo;re not,&rdquo; burst from the lovers opposite. Margaret
+      was silent for a moment, and then changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&rsquo;s your house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much the same as when you honoured it last week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mean Ducie Street. Howards End, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why &lsquo;of course&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you turn out your tenant and let it to us? We&rsquo;re nearly demented.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me think. I wish I could help you. But I thought you wanted to be in
+      town. One bit of advice: fix your district, then fix your price, and then
+      don&rsquo;t budge. That&rsquo;s how I got both Ducie Street and Oniton. I said to
+      myself, &lsquo;I mean to be exactly here,&rsquo; and I was, and Oniton&rsquo;s a place in a
+      thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do budge. Gentlemen seem to mesmerise houses&mdash;cow them with an
+      eye, and up they come, trembling. Ladies can&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s the houses that are
+      mesmerising me. I&rsquo;ve no control over the saucy things. Houses are alive.
+      No?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m out of my depth,&rdquo; he said, and added: &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you talk rather like
+      that to your office boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I?&mdash;I mean I did, more or less. I talk the same way to every one&mdash;or
+      try to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know. And how much of it do you suppose he understood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s his lookout. I don&rsquo;t believe in suiting my conversation to my
+      company. One can doubtless hit upon some medium of exchange that seems to
+      do well enough, but it&rsquo;s no more like the real thing than money is like
+      food. There&rsquo;s no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower classes, and
+      they pass it back to you, and this you call &lsquo;social intercourse&rsquo; or
+      &lsquo;mutual endeavour,&rsquo; when it&rsquo;s mutual priggishness if it&rsquo;s anything. Our
+      friends at Chelsea don&rsquo;t see this. They say one ought to be at all costs
+      intelligible, and sacrifice&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lower classes,&rdquo; interrupted Mr. Wilcox, as it were thrusting his hand
+      into her speech. &ldquo;Well, you do admit that there are rich and poor. That&rsquo;s
+      something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not reply. Was he incredibly stupid, or did he understand
+      her better than she understood herself?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in a few years there
+      would be rich and poor again just the same. The hard-working man would
+      come to the top, the wastrel sink to the bottom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Every one admits that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Socialists don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Socialists do. Yours mayn&rsquo;t; but I strongly suspect yours of being not
+      Socialists, but ninepins, which you have constructed for your own
+      amusement. I can&rsquo;t imagine any living creature who would bowl over quite
+      so easily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would have resented this had she not been a woman. But women may say
+      anything&mdash;it was one of his holiest beliefs&mdash;and he only
+      retorted, with a gay smile: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care. You&rsquo;ve made two damaging
+      admissions, and I&rsquo;m heartily with you in both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In time they finished lunch, and Margaret, who had excused herself from
+      the Hippodrome, took her leave. Evie had scarcely addressed her, and she
+      suspected that the entertainment had been planned by the father. He and
+      she were advancing out of their respective families towards a more
+      intimate acquaintance. It had begun long ago. She had been his wife&rsquo;s
+      friend and, as such, he had given her that silver vinaigrette as a
+      memento. It was pretty of him to have given that vinaigrette, and he had
+      always preferred her to Helen&mdash;unlike most men. But the advance had
+      been astonishing lately. They had done more in a week than in two years,
+      and were really beginning to know each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not forget his promise to sample Eustace Miles, and asked him as
+      soon as she could secure Tibby as his chaperon. He came, and partook of
+      body-building dishes with humility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning the Schlegels left for Swanage. They had not succeeded in
+      finding a new home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      As they were seated at Aunt Juley&rsquo;s breakfast-table at The Bays, parrying
+      her excessive hospitality and enjoying the view of the bay, a letter came
+      for Margaret and threw her into perturbation. It was from Mr. Wilcox. It
+      announced an &ldquo;important change&rdquo; in his plans. Owing to Evie&rsquo;s marriage, he
+      had decided to give up his house in Ducie Street, and was willing to let
+      it on a yearly tenancy. It was a businesslike letter, and stated frankly
+      what he would do for them and what he would not do. Also the rent. If they
+      approved, Margaret was to come up AT ONCE&mdash;the words were underlined,
+      as is necessary when dealing with women&mdash;and to go over the house
+      with him. If they disapproved, a wire would oblige, as he should put it
+      into the hands of an agent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter perturbed, because she was not sure what it meant. If he liked
+      her, if he had manoeuvred to get her to Simpson&rsquo;s, might this be a
+      manoeuvre to get her to London, and result in an offer of marriage? She
+      put it to herself as indelicately as possible, in the hope that her brain
+      would cry, &ldquo;Rubbish, you&rsquo;re a self-conscious fool!&rdquo; But her brain only
+      tingled a little and was silent, and for a time she sat gazing at the
+      mincing waves, and wondering whether the news would seem strange to the
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as she began speaking, the sound of her own voice reassured her.
+      There could be nothing in it. The replies also were typical, and in the
+      burr of conversation her fears vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t go though&mdash;&rdquo; began her hostess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I needn&rsquo;t, but hadn&rsquo;t I better? It&rsquo;s really getting rather serious. We
+      let chance after chance slip, and the end of it is we shall be bundled out
+      bag and baggage into the street. We don&rsquo;t know what we WANT, that&rsquo;s the
+      mischief with us&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we have no real ties,&rdquo; said Helen, helping herself to toast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shan&rsquo;t I go up to town to-day, take the house if it&rsquo;s the least possible,
+      and then come down by the afternoon train to-morrow, and start enjoying
+      myself. I shall be no fun to myself or to others until this business is
+      off my mind.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you won&rsquo;t do anything rash, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing rash to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who ARE the Wilcoxes?&rdquo; said Tibby, a question that sounds silly, but was
+      really extremely subtle as his aunt found to her cost when she tried to
+      answer it. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t MANAGE the Wilcoxes; I don&rsquo;t see where they come IN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more do I,&rdquo; agreed Helen. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s funny that we just don&rsquo;t lose sight of
+      them. Out of all our hotel acquaintances, Mr. Wilcox is the only one who
+      has stuck. It is now over three years, and we have drifted away from far
+      more interesting people in that time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Interesting people don&rsquo;t get one houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meg, if you start in your honest-English vein, I shall throw the treacle
+      at you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a better vein than the cosmopolitan,&rdquo; said Margaret, getting up.
+      &ldquo;Now, children, which is it to be? You know the Ducie Street house. Shall
+      I say yes or shall I say no? Tibby love&mdash;which? I&rsquo;m specially anxious
+      to pin you both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all depends on what meaning you attach to the word &lsquo;possible&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It depends on nothing of the sort. Say &lsquo;yes.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say &lsquo;no.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that our race
+      is degenerating. We cannot settle even this little thing; what will it be
+      like when we have to settle a big one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be as easy as eating,&rdquo; returned Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking of father. How could he settle to leave Germany as he did,
+      when he had fought for it as a young man, and all his feelings and friends
+      were Prussian? How could he break loose with Patriotism and begin aiming
+      at something else? It would have killed me. When he was nearly forty he
+      could change countries and ideals&mdash;and we, at our age, can&rsquo;t change
+      houses. It&rsquo;s humiliating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father may have been able to change countries,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt with
+      asperity, &ldquo;and that may or may not be a good thing. But he could change
+      houses no better than you can, in fact, much worse. Never shall I forget
+      what poor Emily suffered in the move from Manchester.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;I told you so. It is the little things one
+      bungles at. The big, real ones are nothing when they come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect&mdash;in fact, you
+      weren&rsquo;t there. But the furniture was actually in the vans and on the move
+      before the lease for Wickham Place was signed, and Emily took train with
+      baby&mdash;who was Margaret then&mdash;and the smaller luggage for London,
+      without so much as knowing where her new home would be. Getting away from
+      that house may be hard, but it is nothing to the misery that we all went
+      through getting you into it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, with her mouth full, cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s the man who beat the Austrians, and the Danes, and the French,
+      and who beat the Germans that were inside himself. And we&rsquo;re like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Speak for yourself,&rdquo; said Tibby. &ldquo;Remember that I am cosmopolitan,
+      please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen may be right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she&rsquo;s right,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen might be right, but she did not go up to London. Margaret did that.
+      An interrupted holiday is the worst of the minor worries, and one may be
+      pardoned for feeling morbid when a business letter snatches one away from
+      the sea and friends. She could not believe that her father had ever felt
+      the same. Her eyes had been troubling her lately, so that she could not
+      read in the train and it bored her to look at the landscape, which she had
+      seen but yesterday. At Southampton she &ldquo;waved&rdquo; to Frieda; Frieda was on
+      her way down to join them at Swanage, and Mrs. Munt had calculated that
+      their trains would cross. But Frieda was looking the other way, and
+      Margaret travelled on to town feeling solitary and old-maidish. How like
+      an old maid to fancy that Mr. Wilcox was courting her! She had once
+      visited a spinster&mdash;poor, silly, and unattractive&mdash;whose mania
+      it was that every man who approached her fell in love. How Margaret&rsquo;s
+      heart had bled for the deluded thing! How she had lectured, reasoned, and
+      in despair acquiesced! &ldquo;I may have been deceived by the curate, my dear,
+      but the young fellow who brings the midday post really is fond of me, and
+      has, as a matter of fact&mdash;&rdquo; It had always seemed to her the most
+      hideous corner of old age, yet she might be driven into it herself by the
+      mere pressure of virginity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox met her at Waterloo himself. She felt certain that he was not
+      the same as usual; for one thing, he took offence at everything she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is awfully kind of you,&rdquo; she began, &ldquo;but I&rsquo;m afraid it&rsquo;s not going
+      to do. The house has not been built that suits the Schlegel family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Have you come up determined not to deal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly? In that case let&rsquo;s be starting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She lingered to admire the motor, which was new, and a fairer creature
+      than the vermilion giant that had borne Aunt Juley to her doom three years
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presumably it&rsquo;s very beautiful,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;How do you like it, Crane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, let&rsquo;s be starting,&rdquo; repeated her host. &ldquo;How on earth did you know
+      that my chauffeur was called Crane?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I know Crane; I&rsquo;ve been for a drive with Evie once. I know that
+      you&rsquo;ve got a parlourmaid called Milton. I know all sorts of things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Evie!&rdquo; he echoed in injured tones. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t see her. She&rsquo;s gone out
+      with Cahill. It&rsquo;s no fun, I can tell you, being left so much alone. I&rsquo;ve
+      got my work all day&mdash;indeed, a great deal too much of it&mdash;but
+      when I come home in the evening, I tell you, I can&rsquo;t stand the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my absurd way, I&rsquo;m lonely too,&rdquo; Margaret replied. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s heart-breaking
+      to leave one&rsquo;s old home. I scarcely remember anything before Wickham
+      Place, and Helen and Tibby were born there. Helen says&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You, too, feel lonely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Horribly. Hullo, Parliament&rsquo;s back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously. The more important ropes
+      of life lay elsewhere. &ldquo;Yes, they are talking again,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;But you
+      were going to say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only some rubbish about furniture. Helen says it alone endures while men
+      and houses perish, and that in the end the world will be a desert of
+      chairs and sofas&mdash;just imagine it!&mdash;rolling through infinity
+      with no one to sit upon them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister always likes her little joke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She says &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; my brother says `No,&rsquo; to Ducie Street. It&rsquo;s no fun
+      helping us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not as unpractical as you pretend. I shall never believe it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed. But she was&mdash;quite as unpractical. She could not
+      concentrate on details. Parliament, the Thames, the irresponsive
+      chauffeur, would flash into the field of house-hunting, and all demand
+      some comment or response. It is impossible to see modern life steadily and
+      see it whole, and she had chosen to see it whole. Mr. Wilcox saw steadily.
+      He never bothered over the mysterious or the private. The Thames might run
+      inland from the sea, the chauffeur might conceal all passion and
+      philosophy beneath his unhealthy skin. They knew their own business, and
+      he knew his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet she liked being with him. He was not a rebuke, but a stimulus, and
+      banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior, he preserved a gift that
+      she supposed herself to have already lost&mdash;not youth&rsquo;s creative
+      power, but its self-confidence and optimism. He was so sure that it was a
+      very pleasant world. His complexion was robust, his hair had receded but
+      not thinned, the thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had compared to
+      brandy-balls had an agreeable menace in them, whether they were turned
+      towards the slums or towards the stars. Some day&mdash;in the millennium&mdash;there
+      may be no need for his type. At present, homage is due to it from those
+      who think themselves superior, and who possibly are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At all events you responded to my telegram promptly,&rdquo; he remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, even I know a good thing when I see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m glad you don&rsquo;t despise the goods of this world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens, no! Only idiots and prigs do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad, very glad,&rdquo; he repeated, suddenly softening and turning to
+      her, as if the remark had pleased him. &ldquo;There is so much cant talked in
+      would-be intellectual circles. I am glad you don&rsquo;t share it. Self-denial
+      is all very well as a means of strengthening the character. But I can&rsquo;t
+      stand those people who run down comforts. They have usually some axe to
+      grind. Can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Comforts are of two kinds,&rdquo; said Margaret, who was keeping herself in
+      hand&mdash;&ldquo;those we can share with others, like fire, weather, or music;
+      and those we can&rsquo;t&mdash;food, food, for instance. It depends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean reasonable comforts, of course. I shouldn&rsquo;t like to think that you&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He bent nearer; the sentence died unfinished. Margaret&rsquo;s head turned very
+      stupid, and the inside of it seemed to revolve like the beacon in a
+      lighthouse. He did not kiss her, for the hour was half-past twelve, and
+      the car was passing by the stables of Buckingham Palace. But the
+      atmosphere was so charged with emotion that people only seemed to exist on
+      her account, and she was surprised that Crane did not realise this, and
+      turn round. Idiot though she might be, surely Mr. Wilcox was more&mdash;how
+      should one put it?&mdash;more psychological than usual. Always a good
+      judge of character for business purposes, he seemed this afternoon to
+      enlarge his field, and to note qualities outside neatness, obedience, and
+      decision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to go over the whole house,&rdquo; she announced when they arrived. &ldquo;As
+      soon as I get back to Swanage, which will be to-morrow afternoon, I&rsquo;ll
+      talk it over once more with Helen and Tibby, and wire you &lsquo;yes&rsquo; or &lsquo;no.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right. The dining-room.&rdquo; And they began their survey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dining-room was big, but over-furnished. Chelsea would have moaned
+      aloud. Mr. Wilcox had eschewed those decorative schemes that wince, and
+      relent, and refrain, and achieve beauty by sacrificing comfort and pluck.
+      After so much self-colour and self-denial, Margaret viewed with relief the
+      sumptuous dado, the frieze, the gilded wall-paper, amid whose foliage
+      parrots sang. It would never do with her own furniture, but those heavy
+      chairs, that immense sideboard loaded with presentation plate, stood up
+      against its pressure like men. The room suggested men, and Margaret, keen
+      to derive the modern capitalist from the warriors and hunters of the past,
+      saw it as an ancient guest-hall, where the lord sat at meat among his
+      thanes. Even the Bible&mdash;the Dutch Bible that Charles had brought back
+      from the Boer War&mdash;fell into position. Such a room admitted loot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now the entrance-hall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrance-hall was paved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we fellows smoke.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather. It was as if a motor-car
+      had spawned. &ldquo;Oh, jolly!&rdquo; said Margaret, sinking into one of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do like it?&rdquo; he said, fixing his eyes on her upturned face, and
+      surely betraying an almost intimate note. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all rubbish not making
+      oneself comfortable. Isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es. Semi-rubbish. Are those Cruikshanks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gillrays. Shall we go on upstairs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does all this furniture come from Howards End?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Howards End furniture has all gone to Oniton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does&mdash;However, I&rsquo;m concerned with the house, not the furniture. How
+      big is this smoking-room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty by fifteen. No, wait a minute. Fifteen and a half.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, well. Mr. Wilcox, aren&rsquo;t you ever amused at the solemnity with which
+      we middle classes approach the subject of houses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They proceeded to the drawing-room. Chelsea managed better here. It was
+      sallow and ineffective. One could visualise the ladies withdrawing to it,
+      while their lords discussed life&rsquo;s realities below, to the accompaniment
+      of cigars. Had Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s drawing-room at Howards End looked thus? Just
+      as this thought entered Margaret&rsquo;s brain, Mr. Wilcox did ask her to be his
+      wife, and the knowledge that she had been right so overcame her that she
+      nearly fainted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the proposal was not to rank among the world&rsquo;s great love scenes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel&rdquo;&mdash;his voice was firm&mdash;&ldquo;I have had you up on false
+      pretences. I want to speak about a much more serious matter than a house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret almost answered: &ldquo;I know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could you be induced to share my&mdash;is it probable&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Wilcox!&rdquo; she interrupted, taking hold of the piano and averting
+      her eyes. &ldquo;I see, I see. I will write to you afterwards if I may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to stammer. &ldquo;Miss Schlegel&mdash;Margaret you don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes! Indeed, yes!&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am asking you to be my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So deep already was her sympathy, that when he said, &ldquo;I am asking you to
+      be my wife,&rdquo; she made herself give a little start. She must show surprise
+      if he expected it. An immense joy came over her. It was indescribable. It
+      had nothing to do with humanity, and most resembled the all-pervading
+      happiness of fine weather. Fine weather is due to the sun, but Margaret
+      could think of no central radiance here. She stood in his drawing-room
+      happy, and longing to give happiness. On leaving him she realised that the
+      central radiance had been love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You aren&rsquo;t offended, Miss Schlegel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I be offended?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s pause. He was anxious to get rid of her, and she knew
+      it. She had too much intuition to look at him as he struggled for
+      possessions that money cannot buy. He desired comradeship and affection,
+      but he feared them, and she, who had taught herself only to desire, and
+      could have clothed the struggle with beauty, held back, and hesitated with
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;You will have a letter from me&mdash;I am
+      going back to Swanage to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, and it&rsquo;s you I thank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may order the motor round, mayn&rsquo;t I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be most kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I had written. Ought I to have written?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just one question&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head. He looked a little bewildered as they parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They parted without shaking hands; she had kept the interview, for his
+      sake, in tints of the quietest grey. She thrilled with happiness ere she
+      reached her house. Others had loved her in the past, if one apply to their
+      brief desires so grave a word, but the others had been &ldquo;ninnies&rdquo;&mdash;young
+      men who had nothing to do, old men who could find nobody better. And she
+      had often &lsquo;loved,&rsquo; too, but only so far as the facts of sex demanded: mere
+      yearnings for the masculine sex to be dismissed for what they were worth,
+      with a sigh. Never before had her personality been touched. She was not
+      young or very rich, and it amazed her that a man of any standing should
+      take her seriously. As she sat, trying to do accounts in her empty house,
+      amidst beautiful pictures and noble books, waves of emotion broke, as if a
+      tide of passion was flowing through the night air. She shook her head,
+      tried to concentrate her attention, and failed. In vain did she repeat:
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve been through this sort of thing before.&rdquo; She had never been
+      through it; the big machinery, as opposed to the little, had been set in
+      motion, and the idea that Mr. Wilcox loved, obsessed her before she came
+      to love him in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She would come to no decision yet. &ldquo;Oh, sir, this is so sudden&rdquo;&mdash;that
+      prudish phrase exactly expressed her when her time came. Premonitions are
+      not preparation. She must examine more closely her own nature and his; she
+      must talk it over judicially with Helen. It had been a strange love-scene&mdash;the
+      central radiance unacknowledged from first to last. She, in his place,
+      would have said Ich liebe dich, but perhaps it was not his habit to open
+      the heart. He might have done it if she had pressed him&mdash;as a matter
+      of duty, perhaps; England expects every man to open his heart once; but
+      the effort would have jarred him, and never, if she could avoid it, should
+      he lose those defences that he had chosen to raise against the world. He
+      must never be bothered with emotional talk, or with a display of sympathy.
+      He was an elderly man now, and it would be futile and impudent to correct
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Wilcox strayed in and out, ever a welcome ghost; surveying the scene,
+      thought Margaret, without one hint of bitterness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      If one wanted to show a foreigner England, perhaps the wisest course would
+      be to take him to the final section of the Purbeck Hills, and stand him on
+      their summit, a few miles to the east of Corfe. Then system after system
+      of our island would roll together under his feet. Beneath him is the
+      valley of the Frome, and all the wild lands that come tossing down from
+      Dorchester, black and gold, to mirror their gorse in the expanses of
+      Poole. The valley of the Stour is beyond, unaccountable stream, dirty at
+      Blandford, pure at Wimborne&mdash;the Stour, sliding out of fat fields, to
+      marry the Avon beneath the tower of Christ church. The valley of the Avon&mdash;invisible,
+      but far to the north the trained eye may see Clearbury Ring that guards
+      it, and the imagination may leap beyond that on to Salisbury Plain itself,
+      and beyond the Plain to all the glorious downs of Central England. Nor is
+      Suburbia absent. Bournemouth&rsquo;s ignoble coast cowers to the right,
+      heralding the pine-trees that mean, for all their beauty, red houses, and
+      the Stock Exchange, and extend to the gates of London itself. So
+      tremendous is the City&rsquo;s trail! But the cliffs of Freshwater it shall
+      never touch, and the island will guard the Island&rsquo;s purity till the end of
+      time. Seen from the west the Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of beauty.
+      It is as if a fragment of England floated forward to greet the foreigner&mdash;chalk
+      of our chalk, turf of our turf, epitome of what will follow. And behind
+      the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the nations, and Portsmouth, a
+      latent fire, and all around it, with double and treble collision of tides,
+      swirls the sea. How many villages appear in this view! How many castles!
+      How many churches, vanished or triumphant! How many ships, railways, and
+      roads! What incredible variety of men working beneath that lucent sky to
+      what final end! The reason fails, like a wave on the Swanage beach; the
+      imagination swells, spreads, and deepens, until it becomes geographic and
+      encircles England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Frieda Mosebach, now Frau Architect Liesecke, and mother to her
+      husband&rsquo;s baby, was brought up to these heights to be impressed, and,
+      after a prolonged gaze, she said that the hills were more swelling here
+      than in Pomerania, which was true, but did not seem to Mrs. Munt apposite.
+      Poole Harbour was dry, which led her to praise the absence of muddy
+      foreshore at Friedrich Wilhelms Bad, Rugen, where beech-trees hang over
+      the tideless Baltic, and cows may contemplate the brine. Rather unhealthy
+      Mrs. Munt thought this would be, water being safer when it moved about.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your English lakes&mdash;Vindermere, Grasmere they, then, unhealthy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and
+      different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a great
+      deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an aquarium.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An aquarium! Oh, MEESIS Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh aquariums
+      stink less than salt? Why, then Victor, my brother-in-law, collected many
+      tadpoles&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;You are not to say &lsquo;stink,&rsquo;&rdquo; interrupted Helen; &ldquo;at
+      least, you may say it, but you must pretend you are being funny while you
+      say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then &lsquo;smell.&rsquo; And the mud of your Pool down there&mdash;does it not
+      smell, or may I say &lsquo;stink,&rsquo; ha, ha?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There always has been mud in Poole Harbour,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, with a
+      slight frown. &ldquo;The rivers bring it down, and a most valuable
+      oyster-fishery depends upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that is so,&rdquo; conceded Frieda; and another international incident was
+      closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Bournemouth is,&rsquo;&rdquo; resumed their hostess, quoting a local rhyme to which
+      she was much attached&mdash;&ldquo;&lsquo;Bournemouth is, Poole was, and Swanage is to
+      be the most important town of all and biggest of the three.&rsquo; Now, Frau
+      Liesecke, I have shown you Bournemouth, and I have shown you Poole, so let
+      us walk backward a little, and look down again at Swanage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Juley, wouldn&rsquo;t that be Meg&rsquo;s train?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour, and now was bearing
+      southwards towards them over the black and the gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, dearest Margaret, I do hope she won&rsquo;t be overtired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I do wonder&mdash;I do wonder whether she&rsquo;s taken the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she hasn&rsquo;t been hasty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I&mdash;oh, SO do I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it be as beautiful as Wickham Place?&rdquo; Frieda asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think it would. Trust Mr. Wilcox for doing himself proud. All
+      those Ducie Street houses are beautiful in their modern way, and I can&rsquo;t
+      think why he doesn&rsquo;t keep on with it. But it&rsquo;s really for Evie that he
+      went there, and now that Evie&rsquo;s going to be married&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve never seen Miss Wilcox, Frieda. How absurdly matrimonial you are!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But sister to that Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to that Charles,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt with feeling. &ldquo;Oh, Helen, Helen,
+      what a time that was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen laughed. &ldquo;Meg and I haven&rsquo;t got such tender hearts. If there&rsquo;s a
+      chance of a cheap house, we go for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now look, Frau Liesecke, at my niece&rsquo;s train. You see, it is coming
+      towards us&mdash;coming, coming; and, when it gets to Corfe, it will
+      actually go THROUGH the downs, on which we are standing, so that, if we
+      walk over, as I suggested, and look down on Swanage, we shall see it
+      coming on the other side. Shall we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frieda assented, and in a few minutes they had crossed the ridge and
+      exchanged the greater view for the lesser. Rather a dull valley lay below,
+      backed by the slope of the coastward downs. They were looking across the
+      Isle of Purbeck and on to Swanage, soon to be the most important town of
+      all, and ugliest of the three. Margaret&rsquo;s train reappeared as promised,
+      and was greeted with approval by her aunt. It came to a standstill in the
+      middle distance, and there it had been planned that Tibby should meet her,
+      and drive her, and a tea-basket, up to join them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; continued Helen to her cousin, &ldquo;the Wilcoxes collect houses as
+      your Victor collects tadpoles. They have, one, Ducie Street; two, Howards
+      End, where my great rumpus was; three, a country seat in Shropshire; four,
+      Charles has a house in Hilton; and five, another near Epsom; and six, Evie
+      will have a house when she marries, and probably a pied-a-terre in the
+      country&mdash;which makes seven. Oh yes, and Paul a hut in Africa makes
+      eight. I wish we could get Howards End. That was something like a dear
+      little house! Didn&rsquo;t you think so, Aunt Juley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had too much to do, dear, to look at it,&rdquo; said Mrs. Munt, with a
+      gracious dignity. &ldquo;I had everything to settle and explain, and Charles
+      Wilcox to keep in his place besides. It isn&rsquo;t likely I should remember
+      much. I just remember having lunch in your bedroom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, so do I. But, oh dear, dear, how dreadful it all seems! And in the
+      autumn there began that anti-Pauline movement&mdash;you, and Frieda, and
+      Meg, and Mrs. Wilcox, all obsessed with the idea that I might yet marry
+      Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You yet may,&rdquo; said Frieda despondently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen shook her head. &ldquo;The Great Wilcox Peril will never return. If I&rsquo;m
+      certain of anything it&rsquo;s of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One is certain of nothing but the truth of one&rsquo;s own emotions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The remark fell damply on the conversation. But Helen slipped her arm
+      round her cousin, somehow liking her the better for making it. It was not
+      an original remark, nor had Frieda appropriated it passionately, for she
+      had a patriotic rather than a philosophic mind. Yet it betrayed that
+      interest in the universal which the average Teuton possesses and the
+      average Englishman does not. It was, however illogically, the good, the
+      beautiful, the true, as opposed to the respectable, the pretty, the
+      adequate. It was a landscape of Bocklin&rsquo;s beside a landscape of Leader&rsquo;s,
+      strident and ill-considered, but quivering into supernatural life. It
+      sharpened idealism, stirred the soul. It may have been a bad preparation
+      for what followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look!&rdquo; cried Aunt Juley, hurrying away from generalities over the narrow
+      summit of the down. &ldquo;Stand where I stand, and you will see the pony-cart
+      coming. I see the pony-cart coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stood and saw the pony-cart coming. Margaret and Tibby were presently
+      seen coming in it. Leaving the outskirts of Swanage, it drove for a little
+      through the budding lanes, and then began the ascent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got the house?&rdquo; they shouted, long before she could possibly
+      hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen ran down to meet her. The highroad passed over a saddle, and a track
+      went thence at right angles alone the ridge of the down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got the house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a nuisance! So we&rsquo;re as we were?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She got out, looking tired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some mystery,&rdquo; said Tibby. &ldquo;We are to be enlightened presently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret came close up to her and whispered that she had had a proposal of
+      marriage from Mr. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was amused. She opened the gate on to the downs so that her brother
+      might lead the pony through. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just like a widower,&rdquo; she remarked.
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve cheek enough for anything, and invariably select one of their
+      first wife&rsquo;s friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret&rsquo;s face flashed despair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That type&mdash;&rdquo; She broke off with a cry. &ldquo;Meg, not anything wrong with
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait one minute,&rdquo; said Margaret, whispering always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ve never conceivably&mdash;you&rsquo;ve never&mdash;&rdquo; She pulled
+      herself together. &ldquo;Tibby, hurry up through; I can&rsquo;t hold this gate
+      indefinitely. Aunt Juley! I say, Aunt Juley, make the tea, will you, and
+      Frieda; we&rsquo;ve got to talk houses, and will come on afterwards.&rdquo; And then,
+      turning her face to her sister&rsquo;s, she burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was stupefied. She heard herself saying, &ldquo;Oh, really&mdash;&rdquo; She
+      felt herself touched with a hand that trembled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; sobbed Helen, &ldquo;don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t, Meg, don&rsquo;t!&rdquo; She seemed incapable of
+      saying any other word. Margaret, trembling herself, led her forward up the
+      road, till they strayed through another gate on to the down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t do such a thing! I tell you not to&mdash;don&rsquo;t! I know&mdash;don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panic and emptiness,&rdquo; sobbed Helen. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret thought, &ldquo;Helen is a little selfish. I have never behaved
+      like this when there has seemed a chance of her marrying.&rdquo; She said: &ldquo;But
+      we would still see each other very&mdash;often, and you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a thing like that,&rdquo; sobbed Helen. And she broke right away and
+      wandered distractedly upwards, stretching her hands towards the view and
+      crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened to you?&rdquo; called Margaret, following through the wind that
+      gathers at sundown on the northern slopes of hills. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s stupid!&rdquo; And
+      suddenly stupidity seized her, and the immense landscape was blurred. But
+      Helen turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s happened to either of us,&rdquo; said Margaret, wiping her
+      eyes. &ldquo;We must both have gone mad.&rdquo; Then Helen wiped hers, and they even
+      laughed a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; I&rsquo;ll sit down if you&rsquo;ll sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There. (One kiss.) Now, whatever, whatever is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean what I said. Don&rsquo;t; it wouldn&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Helen, stop saying &lsquo;don&rsquo;t&rsquo;! It&rsquo;s ignorant. It&rsquo;s as if your head
+      wasn&rsquo;t out of the slime. &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t&rsquo; is probably what Mrs. Bast says all the
+      day to Mr. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about it first, and meanwhile perhaps I&rsquo;ll have got my head out
+      of the slime.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s better. Well, where shall I begin? When I arrived at Waterloo&mdash;no,
+      I&rsquo;ll go back before that, because I&rsquo;m anxious you should know everything
+      from the first. The &lsquo;first&rsquo; was about ten days ago. It was the day Mr.
+      Bast came to tea and lost his temper. I was defending him, and Mr. Wilcox
+      became jealous about me, however slightly. I thought it was the
+      involuntary thing, which men can&rsquo;t help any more than we can. You know&mdash;at
+      least, I know in my own case&mdash;when a man has said to me, &lsquo;So-and-so&rsquo;s
+      a pretty girl,&rsquo; I am seized with a momentary sourness against So-and-so,
+      and long to tweak her ear. It&rsquo;s a tiresome feeling, but not an important
+      one, and one easily manages it. But it wasn&rsquo;t only this in Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      case, I gather now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret considered. &ldquo;It is wonderful knowing that a real man cares for
+      you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The mere fact of that grows more tremendous. Remember,
+      I&rsquo;ve known and liked him steadily for nearly three years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But loved him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret peered into her past. It is pleasant to analyse feelings while
+      they are still only feelings, and unembodied in the social fabric. With
+      her arm round Helen, and her eyes shifting over the view, as if this
+      country or that could reveal the secret of her own heart, she meditated
+      honestly, and said, &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;of that I&rsquo;m pretty sure. Indeed, I began the moment
+      he spoke to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have settled to marry him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had, but am wanting a long talk about it now. What is it against him,
+      Helen? You must try and say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, in her turn, looked outwards. &ldquo;It is ever since Paul,&rdquo; she said
+      finally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what has Mr. Wilcox to do with Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he was there, they were all there that morning when I came down to
+      breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened&mdash;the man who loved me
+      frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I knew it was
+      impossible, because personal relations are the important thing for ever
+      and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She poured the sentence forth in one breath, but her sister understood it,
+      because it touched on thoughts that were familiar between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s foolish. In the first place, I disagree about the outer life.
+      Well, we&rsquo;ve often argued that. The real point is that there is the widest
+      gulf between my love-making and yours. Yours was romance; mine will be
+      prose. I&rsquo;m not running it down&mdash;a very good kind of prose, but well
+      considered, well thought out. For instance, I know all Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s
+      faults. He&rsquo;s afraid of emotion. He cares too much about success, too
+      little about the past. His sympathy lacks poetry, and so isn&rsquo;t sympathy
+      really. I&rsquo;d even say&rdquo;&mdash;she looked at the shining lagoons&mdash;&ldquo;that,
+      spiritually, he&rsquo;s not as honest as I am. Doesn&rsquo;t that satisfy you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it doesn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;It makes me feel worse and worse. You must
+      be mad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret made a movement of irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t intend him, or any man or any woman, to be all my life&mdash;good
+      heavens, no! There are heaps of things in me that he doesn&rsquo;t, and shall
+      never, understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical union, before
+      the astonishing glass shade had fallen that interposes between married
+      couples and the world. She was to keep her independence more than do most
+      women as yet. Marriage was to alter her fortunes rather than her
+      character, and she was not far wrong in boasting that she understood her
+      future husband. Yet he did alter her character&mdash;a little. There was
+      an unforeseen surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours of life, a
+      social pressure that would have her think conjugally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So with him,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;There are heaps of things in him&mdash;more
+      especially things that he does that will always be hidden from me. He has
+      all those public qualities which you so despise and which enable all this&mdash;&rdquo;
+       She waved her hand at the landscape, which confirmed anything. &ldquo;If
+      Wilcoxes hadn&rsquo;t worked and died in England for thousands of years, you and
+      I couldn&rsquo;t sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no
+      trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even.
+      Just savagery. No&mdash;perhaps not even that. Without their spirit life
+      might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to
+      draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it. There are times when
+      it seems to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to me, and to all women. So one kissed Paul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s brutal,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Mine is an absolutely different case.
+      I&rsquo;ve thought things out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It makes no difference thinking things out. They come to the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rubbish!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a long silence, during which the tide returned into Poole
+      Harbour. &ldquo;One would lose something,&rdquo; murmured Helen, apparently to
+      herself. The water crept over the mud-flats towards the gorse and the
+      blackened heather. Branksea Island lost its immense foreshores, and became
+      a sombre episode of trees. Frome was forced inward towards Dorchester,
+      Stour against Wimborne, Avon towards Salisbury, and over the immense
+      displacement the sun presided, leading it to triumph ere he sank to rest.
+      England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy
+      through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with contrary
+      motion, blew stronger against her rising seas. What did it mean? For what
+      end are her fair complexities, her changes of soil, her sinuous coast?
+      Does she belong to those who have moulded her and made her feared by other
+      lands, or to those who have added nothing to her power, but have somehow
+      seen her, seen the whole island at once, lying as a jewel in a silver sea,
+      sailing as a ship of souls, with all the brave world&rsquo;s fleet accompanying
+      her towards eternity?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the
+      world&rsquo;s waters, when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble, slips in. Whom does
+      Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover? Yet his impact deluges a
+      hundred shores. No doubt the disturbance is really the spirit of the
+      generations, welcoming the new generation, and chafing against the
+      ultimate Fate, who holds all the seas in the palm of her hand. But Love
+      cannot understand this. He cannot comprehend another&rsquo;s infinity; he is
+      conscious only of his own&mdash;flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble that
+      asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of space and time.
+      He knows that he will survive at the end of things, and be gathered by
+      Fate as a jewel from the slime, and be handed with admiration round the
+      assembly of the gods. &ldquo;Men did produce this&rdquo; they will say, and, saying,
+      they will give men immortality. But meanwhile&mdash;what agitations
+      meanwhile! The foundations of Property and Propriety are laid bare, twin
+      rocks; Family Pride flounders to the surface, puffing and blowing and
+      refusing to be comforted; Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty
+      ground swell. Then the lawyers are aroused&mdash;cold brood&mdash;and
+      creep out of their holes. They do what they can; they tidy up Property and
+      Propriety, reassure Theology and Family Pride. Half-guineas are poured on
+      the troubled waters, the lawyers creep back, and, if all has gone well,
+      Love joins one man and woman together in Matrimony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had expected the disturbance, and was not irritated by it. For a
+      sensitive woman she had steady nerves, and could bear with the incongruous
+      and the grotesque; and, besides, there was nothing excessive about her
+      love-affair. Good-humour was the dominant note of her relations with Mr.
+      Wilcox, or, as I must now call him, Henry. Henry did not encourage
+      romance, and she was no girl to fidget for it. An acquaintance had become
+      a lover, might become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted
+      in the acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than
+      reveal a new one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this spirit she promised to marry him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in Swanage on the morrow bearing the engagement ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They greeted one another with a hearty cordiality that impressed Aunt
+      Juley. Henry dined at The Bays, but had engaged a bedroom in the principal
+      hotel; he was one of those men who know the principal hotel by instinct.
+      After dinner he asked Margaret if she wouldn&rsquo;t care for a turn on the
+      Parade. She accepted, and could not repress a little tremor; it would be
+      her first real love scene. But as she put on her hat she burst out
+      laughing. Love was so unlike the article served up in books; the joy,
+      though genuine was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery. For one
+      thing, Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time they talked about the ring; then she said: &ldquo;Do you remember the
+      Embankment at Chelsea? It can&rsquo;t be ten days ago.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;And you and your sister were head and ears deep
+      in some Quixotic scheme. Ah well!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I little thought then, certainly. Did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about that; I shouldn&rsquo;t like to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, was it earlier?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Did you think of me this way earlier!
+      How extraordinarily interesting, Henry! Tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Henry had no intention of telling. Perhaps he could not have told, for
+      his mental states became obscure as soon as he had passed through them. He
+      misliked the very word &ldquo;interesting,&rdquo; connoting it with wasted energy and
+      even with morbidity. Hard facts were enough for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t think of it,&rdquo; she pursued. &ldquo;No; when you spoke to me in the
+      drawing-room, that was practically the first. It was all so different from
+      what it&rsquo;s supposed to be. On the stage, or in books, a proposal is&mdash;how
+      shall I put it?&mdash;a full-blown affair, a kind of bouquet; it loses its
+      literal meaning. But in life a proposal really is a proposal&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the way&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+     <p>
+     &ldquo;&mdash;a suggestion, a seed,&rdquo; she concluded; and the thought flew away
+     into darkness.
+     </p>
+     <p>
+     &ldquo;I was thinking, if you didn’t mind, that we ought to spend this evening
+     in a business talk; there will be so much to settle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;I think so too.  Tell me, in the first place, how did you get on with Tibby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;With your brother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;Yes, during cigarettes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+     <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am so glad,&rdquo; she answered, a little surprised. &ldquo;What did you talk
+      about? Me, presumably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Greece too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greece was a very good card, Henry. Tibby&rsquo;s only a boy still, and one has
+      to pick and choose subjects a little. Well done.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was telling him I have shares in a currant-farm near Calamata.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a delightful thing to have shares in! Can&rsquo;t we go there for our
+      honeymoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To eat the currants. And isn&rsquo;t there marvellous scenery?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moderately, but it&rsquo;s not the kind of place one could possibly go to with
+      a lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No hotels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some ladies do without hotels. Are you aware that Helen and I have walked
+      alone over the Apennines, with our luggage on our backs?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t aware, and, if I can manage it, you will never do such a thing
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She said more gravely: &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t found time for a talk with Helen yet,
+      I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do, before you go. I am so anxious you two should be friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister and I have always hit it off,&rdquo; he said negligently. &ldquo;But
+      we&rsquo;re drifting away from our business. Let me begin at the beginning. You
+      know that Evie is going to marry Percy Cahill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly&rsquo;s uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. The girl&rsquo;s madly in love with him. A very good sort of fellow,
+      but he demands&mdash;and rightly&mdash;a suitable provision with her. And
+      in the second place you will naturally understand, there is Charles.
+      Before leaving town, I wrote Charles a very careful letter. You see, he
+      has an increasing family and increasing expenses, and the I. and W. A. is
+      nothing particular just now, though capable of development.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; murmured Margaret, looking out to sea, and not
+      understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles being the elder son, some day Charles will have Howards End; but
+      I am anxious, in my own happiness, not to be unjust to others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not,&rdquo; she began, and then gave a little cry. &ldquo;you mean money.
+      How stupid I am! Of course not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough, he winced a little at the word. &ldquo;Yes, Money, since you put
+      it so frankly. I am determined to be just to all&mdash;just to you, just
+      to them. I am determined that my children shall have me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be generous to them,&rdquo; she said sharply. &ldquo;Bother justice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am determined&mdash;and have already written to Charles to that effect&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how much have you got?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much have you a year? I&rsquo;ve six hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My income?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. We must begin with how much you have, before we can settle how much
+      you can give Charles. Justice, and even generosity, depend on that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must say you&rsquo;re a downright young woman,&rdquo; he observed, patting her arm
+      and laughing a little. &ldquo;What a question to spring on a fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know your income? Or don&rsquo;t you want to tell it me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s all right&rdquo;&mdash;now she patted him&mdash;&ldquo;don&rsquo;t tell me. I don&rsquo;t
+      want to know. I can do the sum just as well by proportion. Divide your
+      income into ten parts. How many parts would you give to Evie, how many to
+      Charles, how many to Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is, my dear, I hadn&rsquo;t any intention of bothering you with
+      details. I only wanted to let you know that&mdash;well, that something
+      must be done for the others, and you&rsquo;ve understood me perfectly, so let&rsquo;s
+      pass on to the next point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we&rsquo;ve settled that,&rdquo; said Margaret, undisturbed by his strategic
+      blunderings. &ldquo;Go ahead; give away all you can, bearing in mind that I&rsquo;ve a
+      clear six hundred. What a mercy it is to have all this money about one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve none too much, I assure you; you&rsquo;re marrying a poor man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen wouldn&rsquo;t agree with me here,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;Helen daren&rsquo;t slang
+      the rich, being rich herself, but she would like to. There&rsquo;s an odd
+      notion, that I haven&rsquo;t yet got hold of, running about at the back of her
+      brain, that poverty is somehow &lsquo;real.&rsquo; She dislikes all organisation, and
+      probably confuses wealth with the technique of wealth. Sovereigns in a
+      stocking wouldn&rsquo;t bother her; cheques do. Helen is too relentless. One
+      can&rsquo;t deal in her high-handed manner with the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s this other point, and then I must go back to my hotel and write
+      some letters. What&rsquo;s to be done now about the house in Ducie Street?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep it on&mdash;at least, it depends. When do you want to marry me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She raised her voice, as too often, and some youths, who were also taking
+      the evening air, overheard her. &ldquo;Getting a bit hot, eh?&rdquo; said one. Mr.
+      Wilcox turned on them, and said sharply, &ldquo;I say!&rdquo; There was silence. &ldquo;Take
+      care I don&rsquo;t report you to the police.&rdquo; They moved away quietly enough,
+      but were only biding their time, and the rest of the conversation was
+      punctuated by peals of ungovernable laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lowering his voice and infusing a hint of reproof into it, he said: &ldquo;Evie
+      will probably be married in September. We could scarcely think of anything
+      before then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The earlier the nicer, Henry. Females are not supposed to say such
+      things, but the earlier the nicer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about September for us too?&rdquo; he asked, rather dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right. Shall we go into Ducie Street ourselves in September? Or shall we
+      try to bounce Helen and Tibby into it? That&rsquo;s rather an idea. They are so
+      unbusinesslike, we could make them do anything by judicious management.
+      Look here&mdash;yes. We&rsquo;ll do that. And we ourselves could live at Howards
+      End or Shropshire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He blew out his cheeks. &ldquo;Heavens! how you women do fly round! My head&rsquo;s in
+      a whirl. Point by point, Margaret. Howards End&rsquo;s impossible. I let it to
+      Hamar Bryce on a three years&rsquo; agreement last March. Don&rsquo;t you remember?
+      Oniton. Well, that is much, much too far away to rely on entirely. You
+      will be able to be down there entertaining a certain amount, but we must
+      have a house within easy reach of Town. Only Ducie Street has huge
+      drawbacks. There&rsquo;s a mews behind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not help laughing. It was the first she had heard of the
+      mews behind Ducie Street. When she was a possible tenant it had suppressed
+      itself, not consciously, but automatically. The breezy Wilcox manner,
+      though genuine, lacked the clearness of vision that is imperative for
+      truth. When Henry lived in Ducie Street he remembered the mews; when he
+      tried to let he forgot it; and if any one had remarked that the mews must
+      be either there or not, he would have felt annoyed, and afterwards have
+      found some opportunity of stigmatising the speaker as academic. So does my
+      grocer stigmatise me when I complain of the quality of his sultanas, and
+      he answers in one breath that they are the best sultanas, and how can I
+      expect the best sultanas at that price? It is a flaw inherent in the
+      business mind, and Margaret may do well to be tender to it, considering
+      all that the business mind has done for England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, in summer especially, the mews is a serious nuisance. The
+      smoking-room, too, is an abominable little den. The house opposite has
+      been taken by operatic people. Ducie Street&rsquo;s going down, it&rsquo;s my private
+      opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How sad! It&rsquo;s only a few years since they built those pretty houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shows things are moving. Good for trade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate this continual flux of London. It is an epitome of us at our worst&mdash;eternal
+      formlessness; all the qualities, good, bad, and indifferent, streaming
+      away&mdash;streaming, streaming for ever. That&rsquo;s why I dread it so. I
+      mistrust rivers, even in scenery. Now, the sea&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;High tide, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hoy toid&rdquo;&mdash;from the promenading youths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And these are the men to whom we give the vote,&rdquo; observed Mr. Wilcox,
+      omitting to add that they were also the men to whom he gave work as clerks&mdash;work
+      that scarcely encouraged them to grow into other men. &ldquo;However, they have
+      their own lives and interests. Let&rsquo;s get on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned as he spoke, and prepared to see her back to The Bays. The
+      business was over. His hotel was in the opposite direction, and if he
+      accompanied her his letters would be late for the post. She implored him
+      not to come, but he was obdurate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A nice beginning, if your aunt saw you slip in alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I always do go about alone. Considering I&rsquo;ve walked over the
+      Apennines, it&rsquo;s common sense. You will make me so angry. I don&rsquo;t the least
+      take it as a compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed, and lit a cigar. &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t meant as a compliment, my dear. I
+      just won&rsquo;t have you going about in the dark. Such people about too! It&rsquo;s
+      dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t I look after myself? I do wish&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, Margaret; no wheedling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret had
+      too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as
+      masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might
+      tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal. Disdaining the heroic
+      outfit, excitable in her methods, garrulous, episodical, shrill, she
+      misled her lover much as she had misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility
+      for Weakness. He supposed her &ldquo;as clever as they make them,&rdquo; but no more,
+      not realising that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and
+      approving of what she found there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole of life,
+      their happiness had been assured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They walked ahead briskly. The parade and the road after it were well
+      lighted, but it was darker in Aunt Juley&rsquo;s garden. As they were going up
+      by the side-paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr. Wilcox, who was in
+      front, said &ldquo;Margaret&rdquo; rather huskily, turned, dropped his cigar, and took
+      her in his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at once, and
+      kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed against her own. It
+      was their first kiss, and when it was over he saw her safely to the door
+      and rang the bell for her but disappeared into the night before the maid
+      answered it. On looking back, the incident displeased her. It was so
+      isolated. Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it, and,
+      worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to passion
+      he can at all events lead down from it, and she had hoped, after her
+      complaisance, for some interchange of gentle words. But he had hurried
+      away as if ashamed, and for an instant she was reminded of Helen and Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Charles had just been scolding his Dolly. She deserved the scolding, and
+      had bent before it, but her head, though bloody was unsubdued and her
+      chirrupings began to mingle with his retreating thunder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve waked the baby. I knew you would. (Rum-ti-foo,
+      Rackety-tackety-Tompkin!) I&rsquo;m not responsible for what Uncle Percy does,
+      nor for anybody else or anything, so there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who asked him while I was away? Who asked my sister down to meet him? Who
+      sent them out in the motor day after day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles, that reminds me of some poem.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does it indeed? We shall all be dancing to a very different music
+      presently. Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could simply scratch that woman&rsquo;s eyes out, and to say it&rsquo;s my fault is
+      most unfair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s your fault, and five months ago you admitted it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tootle, tootle, playing on the pootle!&rdquo; exclaimed Dolly, suddenly
+      devoting herself to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all very well to turn the conversation, but father would never have
+      dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there to make him comfortable. But
+      you must needs start match-making. Besides, Cahill&rsquo;s too old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, if you&rsquo;re going to be rude to Uncle Percy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel always meant to get hold of Howards End, and, thanks to
+      you, she&rsquo;s got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I call the way you twist things round and make them hang together most
+      unfair. You couldn&rsquo;t have been nastier if you&rsquo;d caught me flirting. Could
+      he, diddums?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in a bad hole, and must make the best of it. I shall answer the
+      pater&rsquo;s letter civilly. He&rsquo;s evidently anxious to do the decent thing. But
+      I do not intend to forget these Schlegels in a hurry. As long as they&rsquo;re
+      on their best behaviour&mdash;Dolly, are you listening?&mdash;we&rsquo;ll
+      behave, too. But if I find them giving themselves airs or monopolising my
+      father, or at all ill-treating him, or worrying him with their artistic
+      beastliness, I intend to put my foot down, yes, firmly. Taking my mother&rsquo;s
+      place! Heaven knows what poor old Paul will say when the news reaches
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles&rsquo;s garden at Hilton. He
+      and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding them
+      placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition of
+      Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a
+      third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this
+      peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature
+      as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the
+      rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion.
+      Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts,
+      unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is
+      born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober
+      against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of
+      these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his
+      friends shall find easy-going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s soul. From boyhood he had
+      neglected them. &ldquo;I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside.&rdquo;
+       Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had
+      reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete
+      asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the
+      sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is desirable
+      only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The words that
+      were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the
+      words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St. Francis
+      into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints and
+      love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed
+      of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here that Margaret
+      hoped to help him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her
+      own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own
+      soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of
+      her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be
+      exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no
+      longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation
+      that is life to either, will die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good
+      &ldquo;talking.&rdquo; By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their
+      lives with beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was never
+      prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness. He
+      simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He never
+      noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was not
+      interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and shades
+      that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones,
+      the collisions, the illimitable views. Once&mdash;on another occasion&mdash;she
+      scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: &ldquo;My motto
+      is Concentrate. I&rsquo;ve no intention of frittering away my strength on that
+      sort of thing.&rdquo; &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t frittering away the strength,&rdquo; she protested.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s enlarging the space in which you may be strong.&rdquo; He answered:
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a clever little woman, but my motto&rsquo;s Concentrate.&rdquo; And this
+      morning he concentrated with a vengeance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes
+      were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was
+      with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.
+      &ldquo;Here we all are!&rdquo; she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her
+      sister&rsquo;s in the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are. Good-morning, Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen replied, &ldquo;Good-morning, Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy. Do you
+      remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his head was young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have had a letter too. Not a nice one&mdash;I want to talk it over with
+      you&rdquo;; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had given him her
+      word; the triangle of sex was broken for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks to your hint, he&rsquo;s clearing out of the Porphyrion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bad business that Porphyrion,&rdquo; he said absently, as he took his own
+      letter out of his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a BAD&mdash;&rdquo; she exclaimed, dropping his hand. &ldquo;Surely, on Chelsea
+      Embankment&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons.
+      Good-morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don&rsquo;t
+      we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a BAD business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. My letter&rsquo;s about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered abroad, and
+      wants to sublet it&mdash;I am far from sure that I shall give him
+      permission. There was no clause in the agreement. In my opinion,
+      subletting is a mistake. If he can find me another tenant, whom I consider
+      suitable, I may cancel the agreement. Morning, Schlegel. Don&rsquo;t you think
+      that&rsquo;s better than subletting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the whole
+      party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was the bourgeois
+      little bay, which must have yearned all through the centuries for just
+      such a watering-place as Swanage to be built on its margin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waves were colourless, and the Bournemouth steamer gave a further
+      touch of insipidity, drawn up against the pier and hooting wildly for
+      excursionists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When there is a sublet I find that damage&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do excuse me, but about the Porphyrion. I don&rsquo;t feel easy&mdash;might I
+      just bother you, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner was so serious that he stopped, and asked her a little sharply
+      what she wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said on Chelsea Embankment, surely, that it was a bad concern, so we
+      advised this clerk to clear out. He writes this morning that he&rsquo;s taken
+      our advice, and now you say it&rsquo;s not a bad concern.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A clerk who clears out of any concern, good or bad, without securing a
+      berth somewhere else first, is a fool, and I&rsquo;ve no pity for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has not done that. He&rsquo;s going into a bank in Camden Town, he says. The
+      salary&rsquo;s much lower, but he hopes to manage&mdash;a branch of Dempster&rsquo;s
+      Bank. Is that all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dempster! Why goodness me, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More right than the Porphyrion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, yes; safe as houses&mdash;safer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very many thanks. I&rsquo;m sorry&mdash;if you sublet&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he sublets, I shan&rsquo;t have the same control. In theory there should be
+      no more damage done at Howards End; in practice there will be. Things may
+      be done for which no money can compensate. For instance, I shouldn&rsquo;t want
+      that fine wych-elm spoilt. It hangs&mdash;Margaret, we must go and see the
+      old place some time. It&rsquo;s pretty in its way. We&rsquo;ll motor down and have
+      lunch with Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should enjoy that,&rdquo; said Margaret bravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about next Wednesday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wednesday? No, I couldn&rsquo;t well do that. Aunt Juley expects us to stop
+      here another week at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can give that up now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Er&mdash;no,&rdquo; said Margaret, after a moment&rsquo;s thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that&rsquo;ll be all right. I&rsquo;ll speak to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This visit is a high solemnity. My aunt counts on it year after year. She
+      turns the house upside down for us; she invites our special friends&mdash;she
+      scarcely knows Frieda, and we can&rsquo;t leave her on her hands. I missed one
+      day, and she would be so hurt if I didn&rsquo;t stay the full ten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll say a word to her. Don&rsquo;t you bother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, I won&rsquo;t go. Don&rsquo;t bully me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want to see the house, though?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very much&mdash;I&rsquo;ve heard so much about it, one way or the other. Aren&rsquo;t
+      there pigs&rsquo; teeth in the wych-elm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;PIGS TEETH?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you chew the bark for toothache.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a rum notion! Of course not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I have confused it with some other tree. There are still a great
+      number of sacred trees in England, it seems.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he left her to intercept Mrs. Munt, whose voice could be heard in the
+      distance; to be intercepted himself by Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh. Mr. Wilcox, about the Porphyrion&mdash;&rdquo; she began and went scarlet
+      all over her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; called Margaret, catching them up. &ldquo;Dempster&rsquo;s Bank&rsquo;s
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad, and would smash before
+      Christmas.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did I? It was still outside the Tariff Ring, and had to take rotten
+      policies. Lately it came in&mdash;safe as houses now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, the fellow needn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;and needn&rsquo;t have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced
+      salary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He only says &lsquo;reduced,&rsquo;&rdquo; corrected Margaret, seeing trouble ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it a
+      deplorable misfortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going steadily on,
+      but the last remark made him say: &ldquo;What? What&rsquo;s that? Do you mean that I&rsquo;m
+      responsible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re ridiculous, Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to think&mdash;&rdquo; He looked at his watch. &ldquo;Let me explain the
+      point to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a business concern
+      is conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought to keep the public informed
+      stage by stage. The Porphyrion, according to you, was bound to say, &lsquo;I am
+      trying all I can to get into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that I shall
+      succeed, but it is the only thing that will save me from insolvency, and I
+      am trying.&rsquo; My dear Helen&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that your point? A man who had little money has less&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the day&rsquo;s work. It&rsquo;s part of
+      the battle of life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man who had little money&mdash;&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;has less, owing to us.
+      Under these circumstances I consider &lsquo;the battle of life&rsquo; a happy
+      expression.&rdquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh come, come!&rdquo; he protested pleasantly, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re not to blame. No one&rsquo;s
+      to blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is no one to blame for anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say that, but you&rsquo;re taking it far too seriously. Who is this
+      fellow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have told you about the fellow twice already,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;You have
+      even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an extravagant
+      imbecile. He is capable of better things. We&mdash;we, the upper classes&mdash;thought
+      we would help him from the height of our superior knowledge&mdash;and
+      here&rsquo;s the result!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his finger. &ldquo;Now, a word of advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I require no more advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A word of advice. Don&rsquo;t take up that sentimental attitude over the poor.
+      See that she doesn&rsquo;t, Margaret. The poor are poor, and one&rsquo;s sorry for
+      them, but there it is. As civilisation moves forward, the shoe is bound to
+      pinch in places, and it&rsquo;s absurd to pretend that any one is responsible
+      personally. Neither you, nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed
+      him, nor the directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk&rsquo;s
+      loss of salary. It&rsquo;s just the shoe pinching&mdash;no one can help it; and
+      it might easily have been worse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen quivered with indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By all means subscribe to charities&mdash;subscribe to them largely&mdash;but
+      don&rsquo;t get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good
+      deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no
+      Social Question&mdash;except for a few journalists who try to get a living
+      out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been
+      and always will be. Point me out a time when men have been equal&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them happier. No,
+      no. You can&rsquo;t. There always have been rich and poor. I&rsquo;m no fatalist.
+      Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded by great impersonal forces&rdquo;
+       (his voice grew complacent; it always did when he eliminated the
+      personal), &ldquo;and there always will be rich and poor. You can&rsquo;t deny it&rdquo;
+       (and now it was a respectful voice)&mdash;&ldquo;and you can&rsquo;t deny that, in
+      spite of all, the tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Owing to God, I suppose,&rdquo; flashed Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You grab the dollars. God does the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk about God in
+      that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he left her for the
+      quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, &ldquo;She rather reminds me of
+      Dolly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen looked out at the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ever discuss political economy with Henry,&rdquo; advised her sister.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll only end in a cry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with
+      religion,&rdquo; said Helen slowly. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like those men. They are scientific
+      themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the
+      salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace
+      their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good&mdash;it is always
+      that sloppy &lsquo;somehow&rsquo; will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way
+      the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Brits of today
+      are in pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But oh, Meg, what a theory!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I&rsquo;m an old maid,&rdquo; said Helen, biting her lip. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think why
+      I go on like this myself.&rdquo; She shook off her sister&rsquo;s hand and went into
+      the house. Margaret, distressed at the day&rsquo;s beginning, followed the
+      Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She saw that Helen&rsquo;s nerves were
+      exasperated by the unlucky Bast business beyond the bounds of politeness.
+      There might at any minute be a real explosion, which even Henry would
+      notice. Henry must be removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret!&rdquo; her aunt called. &ldquo;Magsy! It isn&rsquo;t true, surely, what Mr.
+      Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not &lsquo;want,&rsquo;&rdquo; was Margaret&rsquo;s prompt reply; &ldquo;but there is so much to be
+      settled, and I do want to see the Charles&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the Lulworth?&rdquo;
+       said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. &ldquo;Without going once more up Nine Barrows
+      Down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, &ldquo;Good! I did the breaking of the ice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either shoulder, and
+      looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was behind their competent
+      stare? She knew, but was not disquieted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the evening before
+      she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough scolding. She censured
+      her, not for disapproving of the engagement, but for throwing over her
+      disapproval a veil of mystery. Helen was equally frank. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said,
+      with the air of one looking inwards, &ldquo;there is a mystery. I can&rsquo;t help it.
+      It&rsquo;s not my fault. It&rsquo;s the way life has been made.&rdquo; Helen in those days
+      was over-interested in the subconscious self. She exaggerated the Punch
+      and Judy aspect of life, and spoke of mankind as puppets, whom an
+      invisible showman twitches into love and war. Margaret pointed out that if
+      she dwelt on this she, too, would eliminate the personal. Helen was silent
+      for a minute, and then burst into a queer speech, which cleared the air.
+      &ldquo;Go on and marry him. I think you&rsquo;re splendid; and if any one can pull it
+      off, you will.&rdquo; Margaret denied that there was anything to &ldquo;pull off,&rdquo; but
+      she continued: &ldquo;Yes, there is, and I wasn&rsquo;t up to it with Paul. I can do
+      only what&rsquo;s easy. I can only entice and be enticed. I can&rsquo;t, and won&rsquo;t,
+      attempt difficult relations. If I marry, it will either be a man who&rsquo;s
+      strong enough to boss me or whom I&rsquo;m strong enough to boss. So I shan&rsquo;t
+      ever marry, for there aren&rsquo;t such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do
+      marry, for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say &lsquo;Jack
+      Robinson.&rsquo; There! Because I&rsquo;m uneducated. But you, you&rsquo;re different;
+      you&rsquo;re a heroine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean to keep proportion, and that&rsquo;s heroic, it&rsquo;s Greek, and I don&rsquo;t
+      see why it shouldn&rsquo;t succeed with you. Go on and fight with him and help
+      him. Don&rsquo;t ask me for help, or even for sympathy. Henceforward I&rsquo;m going
+      my own way. I mean to be thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I mean to
+      dislike your husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no concessions to
+      Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me. I mean to love you
+      more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up something real, because
+      it is purely spiritual. There&rsquo;s no veil of mystery over us. Unreality and
+      mystery begin as soon as one touches the body. The popular view is, as
+      usual, exactly the wrong one. Our bothers are over tangible things&mdash;money,
+      husbands, house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and answered,
+      &ldquo;Perhaps.&rdquo; All vistas close in the unseen&mdash;no one doubts it&mdash;but
+      Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of
+      speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret
+      grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but
+      she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so
+      readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is
+      everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this
+      side and on that, to hit the truth. &ldquo;Yes, I see, dear; it&rsquo;s about half-way
+      between,&rdquo; Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being
+      alive, was not half-way between anything. It was only to be found by
+      continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the
+      final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till midnight,
+      but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the conversation on Henry.
+      She might abuse Henry behind his back, but please would she always be
+      civil to him in company? &ldquo;I definitely dislike him, but I&rsquo;ll do what I
+      can,&rdquo; promised Helen. &ldquo;Do what you can with my friends in return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so safe that
+      they could bargain over externals in a way that would have been incredible
+      to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or Charles. There are moments when
+      the inner life actually &ldquo;pays,&rdquo; when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for
+      no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still
+      rare in the West; that they come at all promises a fairer future.
+      Margaret, though unable to understand her sister, was assured against
+      estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following morning, at eleven o&rsquo;clock, she presented herself at the
+      offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company. She was glad to
+      go there, for Henry had implied his business rather than described it, and
+      the formlessness and vagueness that one associates with Africa itself had
+      hitherto brooded over the main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to
+      the office cleared things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of
+      ledgers and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for no
+      possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in triplets, of
+      little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or wire, of little rabbits. And
+      even when she penetrated to the inner depths, she found only the ordinary
+      table and Turkey carpet, and though the map over the fireplace did depict
+      a helping of West Africa, it was a very ordinary map. Another map hung
+      opposite, on which the whole continent appeared, looking like a whale
+      marked out for a blubber, and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry&rsquo;s
+      voice came through it, dictating a &ldquo;strong&rdquo; letter. She might have been at
+      the Porphyrion, or Dempster&rsquo;s Bank, or her own wine-merchant&rsquo;s. Everything
+      seems just alike in these days. But perhaps she was seeing the Imperial
+      side of the company rather than its West African, and Imperialism always
+      had been one of her difficulties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One minute!&rdquo; called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched a bell,
+      the effect of which was to produce Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles had written his father an adequate letter&mdash;more adequate than
+      Evie&rsquo;s, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he greeted his
+      future stepmother with propriety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that my wife&mdash;how do you do?&mdash;will give you a decent
+      lunch,&rdquo; was his opening. &ldquo;I left instructions, but we live in a
+      rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had
+      a look at Howards End. I wonder what you&rsquo;ll think of the place. I wouldn&rsquo;t
+      touch it with tongs myself. Do sit down! It&rsquo;s a measly little place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall enjoy seeing it,&rdquo; said Margaret, feeling, for the first time,
+      shy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad last Monday without
+      even arranging for a charwoman to clear up after him. I never saw such a
+      disgraceful mess. It&rsquo;s unbelievable. He wasn&rsquo;t in the house a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve more than a little bone to pick with Bryce,&rdquo; called Henry from the
+      inner chamber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did he go so suddenly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Invalid type; couldn&rsquo;t sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fiddlesticks!&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. &ldquo;He had the impudence
+      to put up notice-boards without as much as saying with your leave or by
+      your leave. Charles flung them down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I flung them down,&rdquo; said Charles modestly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one, too. He, and he
+      in person, is responsible for the upkeep of that house for the next three
+      years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The keys are at the farm; we wouldn&rsquo;t have the keys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Mr. Bryce like?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no right to sublet; to
+      have defined him further was a waste of time. On his misdeeds they
+      descanted profusely, until the girl who had been typing the strong letter
+      came out with it. Mr. Wilcox added his signature. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;ll be off,&rdquo; said
+      he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret, awaited her.
+      Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in a moment the offices of the
+      Imperial and West African Rubber Company faded away. But it was not an
+      impressive drive. Perhaps the weather was to blame, being grey and banked
+      high with weary clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely intended for
+      motorists. Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly through Westmoreland
+      that he missed it? and if Westmoreland can be missed, it will fare ill
+      with a county whose delicate structure particularly needs the attentive
+      eye. Hertfordshire is England at its quietest, with little emphasis of
+      river and hill; it is England meditative. If Drayton were with us again to
+      write a new edition of his incomparable poem, he would sing the nymphs of
+      Hertfordshire as indeterminate of feature, with hair obfuscated by the
+      London smoke. Their eyes would be sad, and averted from their fate towards
+      the Northern flats, their leader not Isis or Sabrina, but the slowly
+      flowing Lea. No glory of raiment would be theirs, no urgency of dance; but
+      they would be real nymphs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had hoped, for the Great
+      North Road was full of Easter traffic. But he went quite quick enough for
+      Margaret, a poor-spirited creature, who had chickens and children on the
+      brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re all right,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll learn&mdash;like the
+      swallows and the telegraph-wires.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but, while they&rsquo;re learning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The motor&rsquo;s come to stay,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;One must get about. There&rsquo;s a
+      pretty church&mdash;oh, you aren&rsquo;t sharp enough. Well, look out, if the
+      road worries you&mdash;right outward at the scenery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at the scenery. It heaved and merged like porridge. Presently
+      it congealed. They had arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles&rsquo;s house on the left; on the right the swelling forms of the Six
+      Hills. Their appearance in such a neighbourhood surprised her. They
+      interrupted the stream of residences that was thickening up towards
+      Hilton. Beyond them she saw meadows and a wood, and beneath them she
+      settled that soldiers of the best kind lay buried. She hated war and liked
+      soldiers&mdash;it was one of her amiable inconsistencies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But here was Dolly, dressed up to the nines, standing at the door to greet
+      them, and here were the first drops of the rain. They ran in gaily, and
+      after a long wait in the drawing-room, sat down to the rough-and-ready
+      lunch, every dish of which concealed or exuded cream. Mr. Bryce was the
+      chief topic of conversation. Dolly described his visit with the key, while
+      her father-in-law gave satisfaction by chaffing her and contradicting all
+      she said. It was evidently the custom to laugh at Dolly. He chaffed
+      Margaret too, and Margaret roused from a grave meditation was pleased and
+      chaffed him back. Dolly seemed surprised and eyed her curiously. After
+      lunch the two children came down. Margaret disliked babies, but hit it off
+      better with the two-year-old, and sent Dolly into fits of laughter by
+      talking sense to him. &ldquo;Kiss them now, and come away,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox. She
+      came, but refused to kiss them; it was such hard luck on the little
+      things, she said, and though Dolly proffered Chorly-worly and
+      Porgly-woggles in turn, she was obdurate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time it was raining steadily. The car came round with the hood up,
+      and again she lost all sense of space. In a few minutes they stopped, and
+      Crane opened the door of the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you suppose?&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little porch was close up against her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we there already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and her impetus
+      carried her to the front-door. She was about to open it, when Henry said:
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s no good; it&rsquo;s locked. Who&rsquo;s got the key?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the farm, no one
+      replied. He also wanted to know who had left the front gate open, since a
+      cow had strayed in from the road, and was spoiling the croquet lawn. Then
+      he said rather crossly: &ldquo;Margaret, you wait in the dry. I&rsquo;ll go down for
+      the key. It isn&rsquo;t a hundred yards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mayn&rsquo;t I come too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I shall be back before I&rsquo;m gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had risen. For the
+      second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described, there the
+      tennis lawn, there the hedge that would be glorious with dog-roses in
+      June, but the vision now was of black and palest green. Down by the
+      dell-hole more vivid colours were awakening, and Lent lilies stood
+      sentinel on its margin, or advanced in battalions over the grass. Tulips
+      were a tray of jewels. She could not see the wych-elm tree, but a branch
+      of the celebrated vine, studded with velvet knobs had covered the perch.
+      She was struck by the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been in a
+      garden where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds she was idly
+      plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why had poor Mr. Bryce
+      fled from all this beauty? For she had already decided that the place was
+      beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty cow! Go away!&rdquo; cried Margaret to the cow, but without
+      indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harder came the rain, pouring out of a windless sky, and spattering up
+      from the notice-boards of the house-agents, which lay in a row on the lawn
+      where Charles had hurled them. She must have interviewed Charles in
+      another world&mdash;where one did have interviews. How Helen would revel
+      in such a notion! Charles dead, all people dead, nothing alive but houses
+      and gardens. The obvious dead, the intangible alive, and no connection at
+      all between them! Margaret smiled. Would that her own fancies were as
+      clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly with the world!
+      Smiling and sighing, she laid her hand upon the door. It opened. The house
+      was not locked up at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. Ought she to wait for Henry? He felt strongly about
+      property, and might prefer to show her over himself. On the other hand, he
+      had told her to keep in the dry, and the porch was beginning to drip. So
+      she went in, and the draught from inside slammed the door behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desolation greeted her. Dirty finger-prints were on the hall-windows, flue
+      and rubbish on its unwashed boards. The civilisation of luggage had been
+      here for a month, and then decamped. Dining-room and drawing-room&mdash;right
+      and left&mdash;were guessed only by their wallpapers. They were just rooms
+      where one could shelter from the rain. Across the ceiling of each ran a
+      great beam. The dining-room and hall revealed theirs openly, but the
+      drawing-room&rsquo;s was match-boarded&mdash;because the facts of life must be
+      concealed from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room, and hall&mdash;how petty
+      the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms where children could play
+      and friends shelter from the rain. Yes, and they were beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she opened one of the doors opposite&mdash;there were two&mdash;and
+      exchanged wall-papers for whitewash. It was the servants&rsquo; part, though she
+      scarcely realised that: just rooms again, where friends might shelter. The
+      garden at the back was full of flowering cherries and plums. Farther on
+      were hints of the meadow and a black cliff of pines. Yes, the meadow was
+      beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the sense of space which
+      the motor had tried to rob from her. She remembered again that ten square
+      miles are not ten times as wonderful as one square mile, that a thousand
+      square miles are not practically the same as heaven. The phantom of
+      bigness, which London encourages, was laid for ever when she paced from
+      the hall at Howards End to its kitchen and heard the rain run this way and
+      that where the watershed of the roof divided it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising half Wessex from the ridge of the
+      Purbeck Downs, and saying: &ldquo;You will have to lose something.&rdquo; She was not
+      so sure. For instance she would double her kingdom by opening the door
+      that concealed the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her father; of the
+      two supreme nations, streams of whose life warmed her blood, but,
+      mingling, had cooled her brain. She paced back into the hall, and as she
+      did so the house reverberated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Henry?&rdquo; she called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no answer, but the house reverberated again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, have you got in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at first, then loudly,
+      martially. It dominated the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is afraid.
+      Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of drums seemed to
+      deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was descending, with figure erect, with
+      face impassive, with lips that parted and said dryly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret stammered: &ldquo;I&mdash;Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In fancy, of course&mdash;in fancy. You had her way of walking.
+      Good-day.&rdquo; And the old woman passed out into the rain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It gave her quite a turn,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the incident
+      to Dolly at tea-time. &ldquo;None of you girls have any nerves, really. Of
+      course, a word from me put it all right, but silly old Miss Avery&mdash;she
+      frightened you, didn&rsquo;t she, Margaret? There you stood clutching a bunch of
+      weeds. She might have said something, instead of coming down the stairs
+      with that alarming bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make
+      the car shy. I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old
+      maids do.&rdquo; He lit a cigarette. &ldquo;It is their last resource. Heaven knows
+      what she was doing in the place; but that&rsquo;s Bryce&rsquo;s business, not mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t as foolish as you suggest,&rdquo; said Margaret &ldquo;She only startled me,
+      for the house had been silent so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you take her for a spook?&rdquo; asked Dolly, for whom &ldquo;spooks&rdquo;&rsquo; and &ldquo;going
+      to church&rdquo; summarised the unseen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She really did frighten you,&rdquo; said Henry, who was far from discouraging
+      timidity in females. &ldquo;Poor Margaret! And very naturally. Uneducated
+      classes are so stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?&rdquo; Margaret asked, and found herself
+      looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly&rsquo;s drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always assume
+      things. She assumed you&rsquo;d know who she was. She left all the Howards End
+      keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you&rsquo;d seen them as you came in,
+      that you&rsquo;d lock up the house when you&rsquo;d done, and would bring them on down
+      to her. And there was her niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of
+      education makes people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss
+      Avery once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have disliked it, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present,&rdquo; said Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was destined
+      to learn a good deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known his
+      grandmother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As usual, you&rsquo;ve got the story wrong, my good Dorothea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I meant great-grandmother&mdash;the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the house.
+      Weren&rsquo;t both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards End, too, was a
+      farm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his dead wife
+      was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her discussed, but never
+      mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested in the dim, bucolic past.
+      Dolly was&mdash;for the following reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then hadn&rsquo;t Mrs. Wilcox a brother&mdash;or was it an uncle? Anyhow, he
+      popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said &lsquo;No.&rsquo; Just imagine, if she&rsquo;d
+      said &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; she would have been Charles&rsquo;s aunt. (Oh, I say, that&rsquo;s rather
+      good! &lsquo;Charlie&rsquo;s Aunt&rsquo;! I must chaff him about that this evening.) And the
+      man went out and was killed. Yes, I&rsquo;m certain I&rsquo;ve got it right now. Tom
+      Howard&mdash;he was the last of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe so,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox negligently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say! Howards End&mdash;Howards Ended!&rdquo; cried Dolly.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m rather on the spot this evening, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you&rsquo;d ask whether Crane&rsquo;s ended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go&mdash;Dolly&rsquo;s a good
+      little woman,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;but a little of her goes a long way. I
+      couldn&rsquo;t live near her if you paid me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no Wilcox
+      could live near, or near the possessions of, any other Wilcox. They had
+      the colonial spirit, and were always making for some spot where the white
+      man might carry his burden unobserved. Of course, Howards End was
+      impossible, so long as the younger couple were established in Hilton. His
+      objections to the house were plain as daylight now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their car had
+      been trickling muddy water over Charles&rsquo;s. The downpour had surely
+      penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our restless
+      civilisation. &ldquo;Curious mounds,&rdquo; said Henry, &ldquo;but in with you now; another
+      time.&rdquo; He had to be up in London by seven&mdash;if possible, by
+      six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space; once more trees,
+      houses, people, animals, hills, merged and heaved into one dirtiness, and
+      she was at Wickham Place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her all the
+      year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars,
+      and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She
+      recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty,
+      and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realise England. She
+      failed&mdash;visions do not come when we try, though they may come through
+      trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on
+      this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable.
+      Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was groping
+      after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon. It had
+      certainly come through the house and old Miss Avery. Through them: the
+      notion of &ldquo;through&rdquo; persisted; her mind trembled towards a conclusion
+      which only the unwise have put into words. Then, veering back into warmth,
+      it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys
+      of spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his property, and
+      had explained to her the use and dimensions of the various rooms. He had
+      sketched the history of the little estate. &ldquo;It is so unlucky,&rdquo; ran the
+      monologue, &ldquo;that money wasn&rsquo;t put into it about fifty years ago. Then it
+      had four&mdash;five&mdash;times the land&mdash;thirty acres at least. One
+      could have made something out of it then&mdash;a small park, or at all
+      events shrubberies, and rebuilt the house farther away from the road.
+      What&rsquo;s the good of taking it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and
+      even that was heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things&mdash;yes,
+      and the house too. Oh, it was no joke.&rdquo; She saw two women as he spoke, one
+      old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt away. She saw them
+      greet him as a deliverer. &ldquo;Mismanagement did it&mdash;besides, the days
+      for small farms are over. It doesn&rsquo;t pay&mdash;except with intensive
+      cultivation. Small holdings, back to the land&mdash;ah! philanthropic
+      bunkum. Take it as a rule that nothing pays on a small scale. Most of the
+      land you see (they were standing at an upper window, the only one which
+      faced west) belongs to the people at the Park&mdash;they made their pile
+      over copper&mdash;good chaps. Avery&rsquo;s Farm, Sishe&rsquo;s&mdash;what they call
+      the Common, where you see that ruined oak&mdash;one after the other fell
+      in, and so did this, as near as is no matter.&rdquo; But Henry had saved it as near as is no matter,
+      without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved it, and she loved
+      him for the deed. &ldquo;When I had more control I did what I could&mdash;sold
+      off the two and a half animals, and the mangy pony, and the superannuated
+      tools; pulled down the outhouses; drained; thinned out I don&rsquo;t know how
+      many guelder-roses and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the old
+      kitchen into a hall, and made a kitchen behind where the dairy was. Garage
+      and so on came later. But one could still tell it&rsquo;s been an old farm. And
+      yet it isn&rsquo;t the place that would fetch one of your artistic crew.&rdquo; No, it
+      wasn&rsquo;t; and if he did not quite understand it, the artistic crew would
+      still less; it was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window
+      was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory. It
+      was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these roles do the
+      English excel. It was a comrade bending over the house, strength and
+      adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers tenderness, and the
+      girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned, became in the end
+      evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float in the air. It was a
+      comrade. House and tree transcended any similes of sex. Margaret thought
+      of them now, and was to think of them through many a windy night and
+      London day, but to compare either to man, to woman, always dwarfed the
+      vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human. Their message was not of
+      eternity, but of hope on this side of the grave. As she stood in the one,
+      gazing at the other, truer relationship had gleamed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They entered the
+      garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s surprise she was right. Teeth,
+      pigs&rsquo; teeth, could be seen in the bark of the wych-elm tree&mdash;just the
+      white tips of them showing. &ldquo;Extraordinary!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Who told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard of it one winter in London,&rdquo; was her answer, for she, too,
+      avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Evie heard of her father&rsquo;s engagement when she was in for a tennis
+      tournament, and her play went simply to pot. That she should marry and
+      leave him had seemed natural enough; that he, left alone, should do the
+      same was deceitful; and now Charles and Dolly said that it was all her
+      fault. &ldquo;But I never dreamt of such a thing,&rdquo; she grumbled. &ldquo;Dad took me to
+      call now and then, and made me ask her to Simpson&rsquo;s. Well, I&rsquo;m altogether
+      off dad.&rdquo; It was also an insult to their mother&rsquo;s memory; there they were
+      agreed, and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s lace and
+      jewellery &ldquo;as a protest.&rdquo; Against what it would protest she was not clear;
+      but being only eighteen, the idea of renunciation appealed to her, the
+      more as she did not care for jewellery or lace. Dolly then suggested that
+      she and Uncle Percy should pretend to break off their engagement, and then
+      perhaps Mr. Wilcox would quarrel with Miss Schlegel, and break off his; or
+      Paul might be cabled for. But at this point Charles told them not to talk
+      nonsense. So Evie settled to marry as soon as possible; it was no good
+      hanging about with these Schlegels eyeing her. The date of her wedding was
+      consequently put forward from September to August, and in the intoxication
+      of presents she recovered much of her good-humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret found that she was expected to figure at this function, and to
+      figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said Henry, for her to
+      get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be there, and all the Cahills
+      and the Fussells, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox, had
+      fortunately got back from her tour round the world. Henry she loved, but
+      his set promised to be another matter. He had not the knack of surrounding
+      himself with nice people&mdash;indeed, for a man of ability and virtue his
+      choice had been singularly unfortunate; he had no guiding principle beyond
+      a certain preference for mediocrity; he was content to settle one of the
+      greatest things in life haphazard, and so, while his investments went
+      right, his friends generally went wrong. She would be told, &ldquo;Oh,
+      So-and-so&rsquo;s a good sort&mdash;a thundering good sort,&rdquo; and find, on
+      meeting him, that he was a brute or a bore. If Henry had shown real
+      affection, she would have understood, for affection explains everything.
+      But he seemed without sentiment. The &ldquo;thundering good sort&rdquo; might at any
+      moment become &ldquo;a fellow for whom I never did have much use, and have less
+      now,&rdquo; and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion. Margaret had done the same
+      as a schoolgirl. Now she never forgot any one for whom she had once cared;
+      she connected, though the connection might be bitter, and she hoped that
+      some day Henry would do the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie was not to be married from Ducie Street. She had a fancy for
+      something rural, and, besides, no one would be in London then, so she left
+      her boxes for a few weeks at Oniton Grange, and her banns were duly
+      published in the parish church, and for a couple of days the little town,
+      dreaming between the ruddy hills, was roused by the clang of our
+      civilisation, and drew up by the roadside to let the motors pass. Oniton
+      had been a discovery of Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s&mdash;a discovery of which he was not
+      altogether proud. It was up towards the Welsh border, and so difficult of
+      access that he had concluded it must be something special. A ruined castle
+      stood in the grounds. But having got there, what was one to do? The
+      shooting was bad, the fishing indifferent, and womenfolk reported the
+      scenery as nothing much. The place turned out to be in the wrong part of
+      Shropshire, and though he never ran down his own property to others, he
+      was only waiting to get it off his hands, and then to let fly. Evie&rsquo;s
+      marriage was its last appearance in public. As soon as a tenant was found,
+      it became a house for which he never had had much use, and had less now,
+      and, like Howards End, faded into Limbo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on Margaret Oniton was destined to make a lasting impression. She
+      regarded it as her future home, and was anxious to start straight with the
+      clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see something of the local life. It was
+      a market-town&mdash;as tiny a one as England possesses&mdash;and had for
+      ages served that lonely valley, and guarded our marches against the Celt.
+      In spite of the occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted
+      her as soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington, her senses
+      were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove one of her
+      innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, or the things that happened
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The London party only numbered eight&mdash;the Fussells, father and son,
+      two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady Edser, Mrs.
+      Warrington Wilcox and her daughter, and, lastly, the little girl, very
+      smart and quiet, who figures at so many weddings, and who kept a watchful
+      eye on Margaret, the bride-elect. Dolly was absent&mdash;a domestic event
+      detained her at Hilton; Paul had cabled a humorous message; Charles was to
+      meet them with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury; Helen had refused her
+      invitation; Tibby had never answered his. The management was excellent, as
+      was to be expected with anything that Henry undertook; one was conscious
+      of his sensible and generous brain in the background. They were his guests
+      as soon as they reached the train; a special label for their luggage; a
+      courier; a special lunch; they had only to look pleasant and, where
+      possible, pretty. Margaret thought with dismay of her own nuptials&mdash;presumably
+      under the management of Tibby. &ldquo;Mr. Theobald Schlegel and Miss Helen
+      Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs. Plynlimmon&rsquo;s company on the occasion
+      of the marriage of their sister Margaret.&rdquo; The formula was incredible, but
+      it must soon be printed and sent, and though Wickham Place need not
+      compete with Oniton, it must feed its guests properly, and provide them
+      with sufficient chairs. Her wedding would either be ramshackly or
+      bourgeois&mdash;she hoped the latter. Such an affair as the present,
+      staged with a deftness that was almost beautiful, lay beyond her powers
+      and those of her friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst background
+      for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly enough. Nothing could
+      have exceeded the kindness of the two men. They raised windows for some
+      ladies, and lowered them for others, they rang the bell for the servant,
+      they identified the colleges as the train slipped past Oxford, they caught
+      books or bag-purses in the act of tumbling on to the floor. Yet there was
+      nothing finicking about their politeness&mdash;it had the public-school
+      touch, and, though sedulous, was virile. More battles than Waterloo have
+      been won on our playing-fields, and Margaret bowed to a charm of which she
+      did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the Oxford colleges were
+      identified wrongly. &ldquo;Male and female created He them&rdquo;; the journey to
+      Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable statement, and the long glass
+      saloon, that moved so easily and felt so comfortable, became a
+      forcing-house for the idea of sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Shrewsbury came fresh air. Margaret was all for sight-seeing, and while
+      the others were finishing their tea at the Raven, she annexed a motor and
+      hurried over the astonishing city. Her chauffeur was not the faithful
+      Crane, but an Italian, who dearly loved making her late. Charles, watch in
+      hand, though with a level brow, was standing in front of the hotel when
+      they returned. It was perfectly all right, he told her; she was by no
+      means the last. And then he dived into the coffee-room, and she heard him
+      say, &ldquo;For God&rsquo;s sake, hurry the women up; we shall never be off,&rdquo; and
+      Albert Fussell reply, &ldquo;Not I; I&rsquo;ve done my share,&rdquo; and Colonel Fussell
+      opine that the ladies were getting themselves up to kill. Presently Myra
+      (Mrs. Warrington&rsquo;s daughter) appeared, and as she was his cousin, Charles
+      blew her up a little; she had been changing her smart travelling hat for a
+      smart motor hat. Then Mrs. Warrington herself, leading the quiet child;
+      the two Anglo-Indian ladies were always last. Maids, courier, heavy
+      luggage, had already gone on by a branch-line to a station nearer Oniton,
+      but there were five hat-boxes and four dressing-bags to be packed, and
+      five dust-cloaks to be put on, and to be put off at the last moment,
+      because Charles declared them not necessary. The men presided over
+      everything with unfailing good-humour. By half-past five the party was
+      ready, and went out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire. Though robbed of half
+      its magic by swift movement, it still conveyed the sense of hills. They
+      were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn eastward and make it an
+      English stream, and the sun, sinking over the Sentinels of Wales, was
+      straight in their eyes. Having picked up another guest, they turned
+      southward, avoiding the greater mountains, but conscious of an occasional
+      summit, rounded and mild, whose colouring differed in quality from that of
+      the lower earth, and whose contours altered more slowly. Quiet mysteries
+      were in progress behind those tossing horizons: the West, as ever, was
+      retreating with some secret which may not be worth the discovery, but
+      which no practical man will ever discover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spoke of Tariff Reform.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies. Like many other critics
+      of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only
+      exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn the
+      Mother Country against trifling with young Titans. &ldquo;They threaten to cut
+      the painter,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and where shall we be then? Miss Schlegel,
+      you&rsquo;ll undertake to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform? It is our last
+      hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side, and they began to
+      quote from their respective handbooks while the motor carried them deep
+      into the hills. Curious these were rather than impressive, for their
+      outlines lacked beauty, and the pink fields on their summits suggested the
+      handkerchiefs of a giant spread out to dry. An occasional outcrop of rock,
+      an occasional wood, an occasional &ldquo;forest,&rdquo; treeless and brown, all hinted
+      at wildness to follow, but the main colour was an agricultural green. The
+      air grew cooler; they had surmounted the last gradient, and Oniton lay
+      below them with its church, its radiating houses, its castle, its
+      river-girt peninsula. Close to the castle was a grey mansion
+      unintellectual but kindly, stretching with its grounds across the
+      peninsula&rsquo;s neck&mdash;the sort of mansion that was built all over England
+      in the beginning of the last century, while architecture was still an
+      expression of the national character. That was the Grange, remarked
+      Albert, over his shoulder, and then he jammed the brake on, and the motor
+      slowed down and stopped. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry,&rdquo; said he, turning round. &ldquo;Do you mind
+      getting out&mdash;by the door on the right. Steady on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Warrington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the car behind them drew up, and the voice of Charles was heard
+      saying: &ldquo;Get the women out at once.&rdquo; There was a concourse of males, and
+      Margaret and her companions were hustled out and received into the second
+      car. What had happened? As it started off again, the door of a cottage
+      opened, and a girl screamed wildly at them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; the ladies cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking. Then he said: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      all right. Your car just touched a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But stop!&rdquo; cried Margaret, horrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t hurt him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t really hurt him?&rdquo; asked Myra.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do PLEASE stop!&rdquo; said Margaret, leaning forward. She was standing up in
+      the car, the other occupants holding her knees to steady her. &ldquo;I want to
+      go back, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles took no notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve left Mr. Fussell behind,&rdquo; said another; &ldquo;and Angelo, and Crane.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but no woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect a little of&rdquo;&mdash;Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm&mdash;&ldquo;will
+      be more to the point than one of us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The insurance company see to that,&rdquo; remarked Charles, &ldquo;and Albert will do
+      the talking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to go back, though, I say!&rdquo; repeated Margaret, getting angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles took no notice. The motor, loaded with refugees, continued to
+      travel very slowly down the hill. &ldquo;The men are there,&rdquo; chorused the
+      others. &ldquo;They will see to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The men CAN&rsquo;T see to it. Oh, this is ridiculous! Charles, I ask you to
+      stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stopping&rsquo;s no good,&rdquo; drawled Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo; said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car. She fell on
+      her knees, cut her gloves, shook her hat over her ear. Cries of alarm
+      followed her. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve hurt yourself,&rdquo; exclaimed Charles, jumping after
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I&rsquo;ve hurt myself!&rdquo; she retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I ask what&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to ask,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your hand&rsquo;s bleeding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in for a frightful row from the pater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should have thought of that sooner, Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman in revolt
+      who was hobbling away from him&mdash;and the sight was too strange to
+      leave any room for anger. He recovered himself when the others caught them
+      up: their sort he understood. He commanded them to go back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right!&rdquo; he called. &ldquo;It was a cat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; exclaimed Charles triumphantly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only a rotten cat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Got room in your car for a little un? I cut as soon as I saw it wasn&rsquo;t a
+      dog; the chauffeurs are tackling the girl.&rdquo; But Margaret walked forward
+      steadily. Why should the chauffeurs tackle the girl? Ladies sheltering
+      behind men, men sheltering behind servants&mdash;the whole system&rsquo;s wrong,
+      and she must challenge it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Schlegel! &rsquo;Pon my word, you&rsquo;ve hurt your hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going to see,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you wait, Mr. Fussell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The second motor came round the corner. &ldquo;It is all right, madam,&rdquo; said
+      Crane in his turn. He had taken to calling her madam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s all right? The cat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, madam. The girl will receive compensation for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was a very ruda girla,&rdquo; said Angelo from the third motor
+      thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wouldn&rsquo;t you have been rude?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Italian spread out his hands, implying that he had not thought of
+      rudeness, but would produce it if it pleased her. The situation became
+      absurd. The gentlemen were again buzzing round Miss Schlegel with offers
+      of assistance, and Lady Edser began to bind up her hand. She yielded,
+      apologising slightly, and was led back to the car, and soon the landscape
+      resumed its motion, the lonely cottage disappeared, the castle swelled on
+      its cushion of turf, and they had arrived. No doubt she had disgraced
+      herself. But she felt their whole journey from London had been unreal.
+      They had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were dust, and a
+      stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had been killed
+      had lived more deeply than they.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Henry,&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I have been so naughty,&rdquo; for she had decided
+      to take up this line. &ldquo;We ran over a cat. Charles told me not to jump out,
+      but I would, and look!&rdquo; She held out her bandaged hand. &ldquo;Your poor Meg
+      went such a flop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered. In evening dress, he was standing to welcome
+      his guests in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thinking it was a dog,&rdquo; added Mrs. Warrington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, a dog&rsquo;s a companion!&rdquo; said Colonel Fussell. &ldquo;
+      A dog&rsquo;ll remember you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you hurt yourself, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to speak about; and it&rsquo;s my left hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, hurry up and change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She obeyed, as did the others. Mr. Wilcox then turned to his son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Charles, what&rsquo;s happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles was absolutely honest. He described what he believed to have
+      happened. Albert had flattened out a cat, and Miss Schlegel had lost her
+      nerve, as any woman might. She had been got safely into the other car, but
+      when it was in motion had leapt out again, in spite of all that they could
+      say. After walking a little on the road, she had calmed down and had said
+      that she was sorry. His father accepted this explanation, and neither knew
+      that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it. It fitted in too well
+      with their view of feminine nature. In the smoking-room, after dinner, the
+      Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel had jumped it out of
+      devilry. Well he remembered as a young man, in the harbour of Gibraltar
+      once, how a girl&mdash;a handsome girl, too&mdash;had jumped overboard for
+      a bet. He could see her now, and all the lads overboard after her. But
+      Charles and Mr. Wilcox agreed it was much more probably nerves in Miss
+      Schlegel&rsquo;s case. Charles was depressed. That woman had a tongue. She would
+      bring worse disgrace on his father before she had done with them. He
+      strolled out on to the castle mound to think the matter over. The evening
+      was exquisite. On three sides of him a little river whispered, full of
+      messages from the West; above his head the ruins made patterns against the
+      sky. He carefully reviewed their dealings with this family, until he
+      fitted Helen, and Margaret, and Aunt Juley into an orderly conspiracy.
+      Paternity had made him suspicious. He had two children to look after, and
+      more coming, and day by day they seemed less likely to grow up rich men.
+      &ldquo;It is all very well,&rdquo; he reflected, &ldquo;the pater&rsquo;s saying that he will be
+      just to all, but one can&rsquo;t be just indefinitely. Money isn&rsquo;t elastic.
+      What&rsquo;s to happen if Evie has a family? And, come to that, so may the
+      pater. There&rsquo;ll not be enough to go round, for there&rsquo;s none coming in,
+      either through Dolly or Percy. It&rsquo;s damnable!&rdquo; He looked enviously at the
+      Grange, whose windows poured light and laughter. First and last, this
+      wedding would cost a pretty penny. Two ladies were strolling up and down
+      the garden terrace, and as the syllables &ldquo;Imperialism&rdquo; were wafted to his
+      ears, he guessed that one of them was his aunt. She might have helped him,
+      if she too had not had a family to provide for. &ldquo;Every one for himself,&rdquo;
+       he repeated&mdash;a maxim which had cheered him in the past, but which
+      rang grimly enough among the ruins of Oniton. He lacked his father&rsquo;s
+      ability in business, and so had an ever higher regard for money; unless he
+      could inherit plenty, he feared to leave his children poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked into the
+      meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white bandage that gleamed on
+      her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the gleam should betray him. She
+      climbed up the mound in zigzags, and at times stooped down, as if she was
+      stroking the turf. It sounds absolutely incredible, but for a moment
+      Charles thought that she was in love with him, and had come out to tempt
+      him. Charles believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong man&rsquo;s
+      necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not purge
+      himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was engaged to his
+      father, and his sister&rsquo;s wedding-guest, kept on her way without noticing
+      him, and he admitted that he had wronged her on this point. But what was
+      she doing? Why was she stumbling about amongst the rubble and catching her
+      dress in brambles and burrs? As she edged round the keep, she must have
+      got to windward and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she exclaimed, &ldquo;Hullo!
+      Who&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saxon or Celt?&rdquo; she continued, laughing in the darkness. &ldquo;But it doesn&rsquo;t
+      matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me. I love this
+      place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad that this will be my
+      home. Ah, dear&rdquo;&mdash;she was now moving back towards the house&mdash;&ldquo;what
+      a comfort to have arrived!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That woman means mischief,&rdquo; thought Charles, and compressed his lips. In
+      a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was getting damp.
+      Mists were rising from the river, and presently it became invisible,
+      though it whispered more loudly. There had been a heavy downpour in the
+      Welsh hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather promised well,
+      and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that Margaret
+      watched it. Presently she saw the keep, and the sun painted the rubble
+      gold, and charged the white sky with blue. The shadow of the house
+      gathered itself together, and fell over the garden. A cat looked up at her
+      window and mewed. Lastly the river appeared, still holding the mists
+      between its banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as far as a
+      hill, which cut off its upper reaches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved it, but it
+      was rather its romantic tension that held her. The rounded Druids of whom
+      she had caught glimpses in her drive, the rivers hurrying down from them
+      to England, the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills, thrilled
+      her with poetry. The house was insignificant, but the prospect from it
+      would be an eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she would have
+      to stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a rural life.
+      Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish had dined with
+      them last night, and she found that he was a friend of her father&rsquo;s, and
+      so knew what to find in her. She liked him. He would introduce her to the
+      town. While, on her other side, Sir James Bidder sat, repeating that she
+      only had to give the word, and he would whip up the county families for
+      twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was Garden Seeds, had promised
+      what he could perform, she doubted, but so long as Henry mistook them for
+      the county families when they did call, she was content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were going
+      for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their bathing-suits.
+      She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that the
+      day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their
+      contretemps. In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be
+      found. Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while
+      the servant shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the
+      garden. Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three people
+      were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders and
+      counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret wanted to
+      jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought paddling would benefit
+      his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired adventure, he took a walk in
+      the dark. But these athletes seemed paralysed. They could not bathe
+      without their appliances, though the morning sun was calling and the last
+      mists were rising from the dimpling stream. Had they found the life of the
+      body after all? Could not the men whom they despised as milksops beat
+      them, even on their own ground?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day&mdash;no
+      worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense. Her reflections
+      were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come out to speak to the cat,
+      but was now watching her watch the men. She called, &ldquo;Good-morning, dear,&rdquo;
+       a little sharply. Her voice spread consternation. Charles looked round,
+      and though completely attired in indigo blue, vanished into the shed, and
+      was seen no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Wilcox is up&mdash;&rdquo; the child whispered, and then became
+      unintelligible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; it sounded like, &ldquo;&mdash;cut-yoke&mdash;sack-back&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;On the bed&mdash;tissue-paper&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit would be
+      seemly, she went to Evie&rsquo;s room. All was hilarity here. Evie, in a
+      petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies, while the
+      other was adoring yards of white satin. They screamed, they laughed, they
+      sang, and the dog barked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could not feel
+      that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was missing in her
+      equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evie gasped: &ldquo;Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag just
+      then!&rdquo; Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and was, in
+      Margaret&rsquo;s eyes, the only member of their party who dodged emotion
+      successfully. She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss of
+      his daughter or to the presence of his future wife. Yet he dwelt intact,
+      only issuing orders occasionally&mdash;orders that promoted the comfort of
+      his guests. He inquired after her hand; he set her to pour out the coffee
+      and Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came down there was a
+      moment&rsquo;s awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate their places.
+      &ldquo;Burton,&rdquo; called Henry, &ldquo;serve tea and coffee from the sideboard!&rdquo; It
+      wasn&rsquo;t genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort&mdash;the sort that is as
+      useful as the genuine, and saves even more situations at Board meetings.
+      Henry treated a marriage like a funeral, item by item, never raising his
+      eyes to the whole, and &ldquo;Death, where is thy sting? Love, where is thy
+      victory?&rdquo; one would exclaim at the close.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was always best
+      to approach him formally. She asked for the interview, because he was
+      going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and she was returning to Helen in
+      town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, dear,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Of course, I have the time. What do you
+      want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was afraid something had gone wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate. She
+      heard him with interest. Her surface could always respond to his without
+      contempt, though all her deeper being might be yearning to help him. She
+      had abandoned any plan of action. Love is the best, and the more she let
+      herself love him, the more chance was there that he would set his soul in
+      order. Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair weather by the
+      walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that its sweetness would
+      surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each parting of the thatched
+      lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude the tenderness that kills the Monk
+      and the Beast at a single blow. Disappointed a hundred times, she still
+      hoped. She loved him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness.
+      Whether he droned trivialities, as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the
+      twilight, she could pardon him, she could respond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there is this nasty curve,&rdquo; she suggested, &ldquo;couldn&rsquo;t we walk to the
+      church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us might very well
+      go on first, and that would mean fewer carriages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can&rsquo;t have ladies walking through the Market Square. The Fussells
+      wouldn&rsquo;t like it; they were awfully particular at Charles&rsquo;s wedding. My&mdash;she&mdash;our
+      party was anxious to walk, and certainly the church was just round the
+      corner, and I shouldn&rsquo;t have minded; but the Colonel made a great point of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You men shouldn&rsquo;t be so chivalrous,&rdquo; said Margaret thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then announced that,
+      unless she had anything special to say, he must visit the wine-cellar, and
+      they went off together in search of Burton. Though clumsy and a little
+      inconvenient, Oniton was a genuine country-house. They clattered down
+      flagged passages, looking into room after room, and scaring unknown maids
+      from the performance of obscure duties. The wedding-breakfast must be in
+      readiness when they come back from church, and tea would be served in the
+      garden. The sight of so many agitated and serious people made Margaret
+      smile, but she reflected that they were paid to be serious, and enjoyed
+      being agitated. Here were the lower wheels of the machine that was tossing
+      Evie up into nuptial glory. A little boy blocked their way with pig-pails.
+      His mind could not grasp their greatness, and he said: &ldquo;By your leave; let
+      me pass, please.&rdquo; Henry asked him where Burton was. But the servants were
+      so new that they did not know one another&rsquo;s names. In the still-room sat
+      the band, who had stipulated for champagne as part of their fee, and who
+      were already drinking beer. Scents of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled
+      with cries. Margaret knew what had happened there, for it happened at
+      Wickham Place. One of the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was
+      throwing cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon the
+      butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the
+      cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her wine at the
+      bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the sight. &ldquo;We shall never
+      get through it!&rdquo; she cried, and the two men were suddenly drawn into
+      brotherhood, and exchanged smiles. She felt as if she had again jumped out
+      of the car while it was moving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small business
+      to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an establishment. She must
+      remain herself, for his sake as well as her own, since a shadowy wife
+      degrades the husband whom she accompanies; and she must assimilate for
+      reasons of common honesty, since she had no right to marry a man and make
+      him uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of Home. The loss of
+      Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession. Howards End had
+      repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new sanctities among
+      these hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the wedding,
+      which seemed a small affair when compared with the preparations for it.
+      Everything went like one o&rsquo;clock. Mr. Cahill materialised out of space,
+      and was waiting for his bride at the church door. No one dropped the ring
+      or mispronounced the responses, or trod on Evie&rsquo;s train, or cried. In a
+      few minutes the clergymen performed their duty, the register was signed,
+      and they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous curve by
+      the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not been married at
+      all, and that the Norman church had been intent all the time on other
+      business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were more documents to sign at the house, and the breakfast to eat,
+      and then a few more people dropped in for the garden party. There had been
+      a great many refusals, and after all it was not a very big affair&mdash;not
+      as big as Margaret&rsquo;s would be. She noted the dishes and the strips of red
+      carpet, that outwardly she might give Henry what was proper. But inwardly
+      she hoped for something better than this blend of Sunday church and
+      fox-hunting. If only some one had been upset! But this wedding had gone
+      off so particularly well&mdash;&ldquo;quite like a durbar&rdquo; in the opinion of
+      Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So the wasted day lumbered forward, the bride and bridegroom drove off,
+      yelling with laughter, and for the second time the sun retreated towards
+      the hills of Wales. Henry, who was more tired than he owned, came up to
+      her in the castle meadow, and, in tones of unusual softness, said that he
+      was pleased. Everything had gone off so well. She felt that he was
+      praising her, too, and blushed; certainly she had done all she could with
+      his intractable friends, and had made a special point of kotowing to the
+      men. They were breaking camp this evening; only the Warringtons and quiet
+      child would stay the night, and the others were already moving towards the
+      house to finish their packing. &ldquo;I think it did go off well,&rdquo; she agreed.
+      &ldquo;Since I had to jump out of the motor, I&rsquo;m thankful I lighted on my left
+      hand. I am so very glad about it, Henry dear; I only hope that the guests
+      at ours may be half as comfortable. You must all remember that we have no
+      practical person among us, except my aunt, and she is not used to
+      entertainments on a large scale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; he said gravely. &ldquo;Under the circumstances, it would be better to
+      put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley&rsquo;s, or even to go to
+      some hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You desire a hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, because&mdash;well, I mustn&rsquo;t interfere with you. No doubt you want
+      to be married from your old home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My old home&rsquo;s falling into pieces, Henry. I only want my new. Isn&rsquo;t it a
+      perfect evening&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Alexandrina isn&rsquo;t bad&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Alexandrina,&rdquo; she echoed, more occupied with the threads of smoke
+      that were issuing from their chimneys, and ruling the sunlit slopes with
+      parallels of grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s off Curzon Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it? Let&rsquo;s be married from off Curzon Street.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just where the
+      river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland must lie above the
+      bend, and its precious liquid was pouring towards them past Charles&rsquo;s
+      bathing-shed. She gazed so long that her eyes were dazzled, and when they
+      moved back to the house, she could not recognise the faces of people who
+      were coming out of it. A parlour-maid was preceding them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are those people?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re callers!&rdquo; exclaimed Henry. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too late for callers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps they&rsquo;re town people who want to see the wedding presents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not at home yet to townees.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, hide among the ruins, and if I can stop them, I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret went forward, smiling socially. She supposed that these were
+      unpunctual guests, who would have to be content with vicarious civility,
+      since Evie and Charles were gone, Henry tired, and the others in their
+      rooms. She assumed the airs of a hostess; not for long. For one of the
+      group was Helen&mdash;Helen in her oldest clothes, and dominated by that
+      tense, wounding excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery
+      days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she called. &ldquo;Oh, what&rsquo;s wrong? Is Tibby ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen spoke to her two companions, who fell back. Then she bore forward
+      furiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;re starving!&rdquo; she shouted. &ldquo;I found them starving!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? Why have you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Basts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Helen!&rdquo; moaned Margaret. &ldquo;Whatever have you done now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has lost his place. He has been turned out of his bank. Yes, he&rsquo;s done
+      for. We upper classes have ruined him, and I suppose you&rsquo;ll tell me it&rsquo;s
+      the battle of life. Starving. His wife is ill. Starving. She fainted in
+      the train.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, are you mad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps. Yes. If you like, I&rsquo;m mad. But I&rsquo;ve brought them. I&rsquo;ll stand
+      injustice no longer. I&rsquo;ll show up the wretchedness that lies under this
+      luxury, this talk of impersonal forces, this cant about God doing what
+      we&rsquo;re too slack to do ourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you actually brought two starving people from London to Shropshire,
+      Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen was checked. She had not thought of this, and her hysteria abated.
+      &ldquo;There was a restaurant car on the train,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be absurd. They aren&rsquo;t starving, and you know it. Now, begin from
+      the beginning. I won&rsquo;t have such theatrical nonsense. How dare you! Yes,
+      how dare you!&rdquo; she repeated, as anger filled her, &ldquo;bursting in to Evie&rsquo;s
+      wedding in this heartless way. My goodness! but you&rsquo;ve a perverted notion
+      of philanthropy. Look&rdquo;&mdash;she indicated the house&mdash;&ldquo;servants,
+      people out of the windows. They think it&rsquo;s some vulgar scandal, and I must
+      explain, &lsquo;Oh no, it&rsquo;s only my sister screaming, and only two hangers-on of
+      ours, whom she has brought here for no conceivable reason.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kindly take back that word &lsquo;hangers-on,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Helen, ominously calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; conceded Margaret, who for all her wrath was determined to
+      avoid a real quarrel. &ldquo;I, too, am sorry about them, but it beats me why
+      you&rsquo;ve brought them here, or why you&rsquo;re here yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret moved towards the house at this. She was determined not to worry
+      Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it was our last chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you do, Mr. Bast?&rdquo; said Margaret, trying to control her voice.
+      &ldquo;This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is Mrs. Bast, too,&rdquo; prompted Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and, furthermore,
+      ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she could not grasp what
+      was happening. She only knew that the lady had swept down like a whirlwind
+      last night, had paid the rent, redeemed the furniture, provided them with
+      a dinner and a breakfast, and ordered them to meet her at Paddington next
+      morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when the morning came, had
+      suggested that they shouldn&rsquo;t go. But she, half mesmerised, had obeyed.
+      The lady had told them to, and they must, and their bed-sitting-room had
+      accordingly changed into Paddington, and Paddington into a railway
+      carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and grew cold, and vanished entirely,
+      and reappeared amid torrents of expensive scent. &ldquo;You have fainted,&rdquo; said
+      the lady in an awe-struck voice. &ldquo;Perhaps the air will do you good.&rdquo; And
+      perhaps it had, for here she was, feeling rather better among a lot of
+      flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t want to intrude,&rdquo; began Leonard, in answer to Margaret&rsquo;s
+      question. &ldquo;But you have been so kind to me in the past in warning me about
+      the Porphyrion that I wondered&mdash;why, I wondered whether&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,&rdquo; supplied Helen.
+      &ldquo;Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A bright evening&rsquo;s work that was
+      on Chelsea Embankment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested it was a
+      bad concern, didn&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And went into a bank instead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you all that,&rdquo; said Helen; &ldquo;and they reduced their staff after he
+      had been in a month, and now he&rsquo;s penniless, and I consider that we and
+      our informant are directly to blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate all this,&rdquo; Leonard muttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you do, Mr. Bast. But it&rsquo;s no good mincing matters. You have done
+      yourself no good by coming here. If you intend to confront Mr. Wilcox, and
+      to call him to account for a chance remark, you will make a very great
+      mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I brought them. I did it all,&rdquo; cried Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can only advise you to go at once. My sister has put you in a false
+      position, and it is kindest to tell you so. It&rsquo;s too late to get to town,
+      but you&rsquo;ll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton, where Mrs. Bast can rest,
+      and I hope you&rsquo;ll be my guests there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That isn&rsquo;t what I want, Miss Schlegel,&rdquo; said Leonard. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very kind,
+      and no doubt it&rsquo;s a false position, but you make me miserable. I seem no
+      good at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s work he wants,&rdquo; interpreted Helen. &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he said: &ldquo;Jacky, let&rsquo;s go. We&rsquo;re more bother than we&rsquo;re worth. We&rsquo;re
+      costing these ladies pounds and pounds already to get work for us, and
+      they never will. There&rsquo;s nothing we&rsquo;re good enough to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We would like to find you work,&rdquo; said Margaret rather conventionally. &ldquo;We
+      want to&mdash;I, like my sister. You&rsquo;re only down in your luck. Go to the
+      hotel, have a good night&rsquo;s rest, and some day you shall pay me back the
+      bill, if you prefer it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Leonard was near the abyss, and at such moments men see clearly. &ldquo;You
+      don&rsquo;t know what you&rsquo;re talking about,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I shall never get work
+      now. If rich people fail at one profession, they can try another. Not I. I
+      had my groove, and I&rsquo;ve got out of it. I could do one particular branch of
+      insurance in one particular office well enough to command a salary, but
+      that&rsquo;s all. Poetry&rsquo;s nothing, Miss Schlegel. One&rsquo;s thoughts about this and
+      that are nothing. Your money, too, is nothing, if you&rsquo;ll understand me. I
+      mean if a man over twenty once loses his own particular job, it&rsquo;s all over
+      with him. I have seen it happen to others. Their friends gave them money
+      for a little, but in the end they fall over the edge. It&rsquo;s no good. It&rsquo;s
+      the whole world pulling. There always will be rich and poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ceased. &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you have something to eat?&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know
+      what to do. It isn&rsquo;t my house, and though Mr. Wilcox would have been glad
+      to see you at any other time&mdash;as I say, I don&rsquo;t know what to do, but
+      I undertake to do what I can for you. Helen, offer them something. Do try
+      a sandwich, Mrs. Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They moved to a long table behind which a servant was still standing. Iced
+      cakes, sandwiches innumerable, coffee, claret-cup, champagne, remained
+      almost intact; their overfed guests could do no more. Leonard refused.
+      Jacky thought she could manage a little. Margaret left them whispering
+      together, and had a few more words with Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She said: &ldquo;Helen, I like Mr. Bast. I agree that he&rsquo;s worth helping. I
+      agree that we are directly responsible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, indirectly. Via Mr. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me tell you once for all that if you take up that attitude, I&rsquo;ll do
+      nothing. No doubt you&rsquo;re right logically, and are entitled to say a great
+      many scathing things about Henry. Only, I won&rsquo;t have it. So choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen looked at the sunset.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you promise to take them quietly to the George I will speak to Henry
+      about them&mdash;in my own way, mind; there is to be none of this absurd
+      screaming about justice. I have no use for justice. If it was only a
+      question of money, we could do it ourselves. But he wants work, and that
+      we can&rsquo;t give him, but possibly Henry can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s his duty to,&rdquo; grumbled Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor am I concerned with duty. I&rsquo;m concerned with the characters of
+      various people whom we know, and how, things being as they are, things may
+      be made a little better. Mr. Wilcox hates being asked favours; all
+      business men do. But I am going to ask him, at the risk of a rebuff,
+      because I want to make things a little better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I promise. You take it very calmly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them off to the George, then, and I&rsquo;ll try. Poor creatures! but they
+      look tired.&rdquo; As they parted, she added: &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t nearly done with you,
+      though, Helen. You have been most self-indulgent. I can&rsquo;t get over it. You
+      have less restraint rather than more as you grow older. Think it over and
+      alter yourself, or we shan&rsquo;t have happy lives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rejoined Henry. Fortunately he had been sitting down: these physical
+      matters were important. &ldquo;Was it townees?&rdquo; he asked, greeting her with a
+      pleasant smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll never believe me,&rdquo; said Margaret, sitting down beside him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      all right now, but it was my sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen here?&rdquo; he cried, preparing to rise. &ldquo;But she refused the
+      invitation. I thought hated weddings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t get up. She has not come to the wedding. I&rsquo;ve bundled her off to
+      the George.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Inherently hospitable, he protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; she has two of her proteges with her and must keep with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let &rsquo;em all come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Henry, did you see them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The brown bunch was Helen, but did you catch sight of a sea-green and
+      salmon bunch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! are they out bean-feasting?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; business. They wanted to see me, and later on I want to talk to you
+      about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox, how
+      tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him the kind of
+      woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once, and said: &ldquo;Why later
+      on? Tell me now. No time like the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t a long story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not five minutes; but there&rsquo;s a sting at the end of it, for I want
+      you to find the man some work in your office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are his qualifications?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. He&rsquo;s a clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How old?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-five, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bast,&rdquo; said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had met at
+      Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a successful meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was he before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dempster&rsquo;s Bank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did he leave?&rdquo; he asked, still remembering nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They reduced their staff.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right; I&rsquo;ll see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now she
+      understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs. Plynlimmon,
+      when condemning suffragettes, had said: &ldquo;The woman who can&rsquo;t influence her
+      husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.&rdquo;
+       Margaret had winced, but she was influencing Henry now, and though pleased
+      at her little victory, she knew that she had won it by the methods of the
+      harem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should be glad if you took him,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but I don&rsquo;t know whether
+      he&rsquo;s qualified.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn&rsquo;t be taken as a precedent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course&mdash;of course&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can promise you he&rsquo;s the last. He&mdash;he&rsquo;s rather a special case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Proteges always are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of
+      complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the gulf
+      between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought to be! And she
+      herself&mdash;hovering as usual between the two, now accepting men as they
+      are, now yearning with her sister for Truth. Love and Truth&mdash;their
+      warfare seems eternal. Perhaps the whole visible world rests on it, and if
+      they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled
+      to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your protege has made us late,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;The Fussells&mdash;will just be
+      starting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the Basts as
+      he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends were discussing the
+      ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash method, but the world has been
+      built slap-dash, and the beauty of mountain and river and sunset may be
+      but the varnish with which the unskilled artificer hides his joins.
+      Oniton, like herself, was imperfect. Its apple-trees were stunted, its
+      castle ruinous. It, too, had suffered in the border warfare between the
+      Anglo-Saxon and the Celt, between things as they are and as they ought to
+      be. Once more the west was retreating, once again the orderly stars were
+      dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no rest for us on the earth.
+      But there is happiness, and as Margaret descended the mound on her lover&rsquo;s
+      arm, she felt that she was having her share.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To her annoyance, Mrs. Bast was still in the garden; the husband and Helen
+      had left her there to finish her meal while they went to engage rooms.
+      Margaret found this woman repellent. She had felt, when shaking her hand,
+      an overpowering shame. She remembered the motive of her call at Wickham
+      Place, and smelt again odours from the abyss&mdash;odours the more
+      disturbing because they were involuntary. For there was no malice in
+      Jacky. There she sat, a piece of cake in one hand, an empty champagne
+      glass in the other, doing no harm to anybody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s overtired,&rdquo; Margaret whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s something else,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;This won&rsquo;t do. I can&rsquo;t have her in my
+      garden in this state.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she&mdash;&rdquo; Margaret hesitated to add &ldquo;drunk.&rdquo; Now that she was going
+      to marry him, he had grown particular. He discountenanced risque
+      conversations now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry went up to the woman. She raised her face, which gleamed in the
+      twilight like a puff-ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you will be more comfortable at the hotel,&rdquo; he said sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky replied: &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t Hen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble,&rdquo; apologised Margaret. &ldquo;Il est
+      tout à fait différent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry!&rdquo; she repeated, quite distinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed. &ldquo;I congratulate you on your proteges,&rdquo; he
+      remarked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hen, don&rsquo;t go. You do love me, dear, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless us, what a person!&rdquo; sighed Margaret, gathering up her skirts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jacky pointed with her cake. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a nice boy, you are.&rdquo; She yawned.
+      &ldquo;There now, I love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, I am awfully sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And pray why?&rdquo; he asked, and looked at her so sternly that she feared he
+      was ill. He seemed more scandalised than the facts demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To have brought this down on you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray don&rsquo;t apologise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does she call you &lsquo;Hen&rsquo;?&rdquo; said Margaret innocently. &ldquo;Has she ever
+      seen you before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seen Hen before!&rdquo; said Jacky. &ldquo;Who hasn&rsquo;t seen Hen? He&rsquo;s serving you like
+      me, my boys! You wait&mdash;Still we love &rsquo;em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you now satisfied?&rdquo; Henry asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret began to grow frightened. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what it is all about,&rdquo;
+       she said. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw his whole
+      life crumbling. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you indeed?&rdquo; he said bitingly. &ldquo;I do. Allow me to
+      congratulate you on the success of your plan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Helen&rsquo;s plan, not mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought out. I am
+      amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right&mdash;it was
+      necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man&rsquo;s past. I have the honour to
+      release you from your engagement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still she could not understand. She knew of life&rsquo;s seamy side as a theory;
+      she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky were necessary&mdash;words
+      unequivocal, undenied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that&mdash;&rdquo; burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped herself
+      from saying more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So what?&rdquo; asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start in the
+      hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were saying&mdash;Henry and I were just having the fiercest argument,
+      my point being&mdash;&rdquo; Seizing his fur coat from a footman, she offered to
+      help him on. He protested, and there was a playful little scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, let me do that,&rdquo; said Henry, following.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks so much! You see&mdash;he has forgiven me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Colonel said gallantly: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t expect there&rsquo;s much to forgive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He got into the car. The ladies followed him after an interval. Maids,
+      courier, and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by the branch-line.
+      Still chattering, still thanking their host and patronising their future
+      hostess, the guests were borne away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret continued: &ldquo;So that woman has been your mistress?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You put it with your usual delicacy,&rdquo; he replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left him without a word. For it was not her tragedy; it was Mrs.
+      Wilcox&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Helen began to wonder why she had spent a matter of eight pounds in making
+      some people ill and others angry. Now that the wave of excitement was
+      ebbing, and had left her, Mr. Bast, and Mrs. Bast stranded for the night
+      in a Shropshire hotel, she asked herself what forces had made the wave
+      flow. At all events, no harm was done. Margaret would play the game
+      properly now, and though Helen disapproved of her sister&rsquo;s methods, she
+      knew that the Basts would benefit by them in the long-run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox is so illogical,&rdquo; she explained to Leonard, who had put his
+      wife to bed, and was sitting with her in the empty coffee-room. &ldquo;If we
+      told him it was his duty to take you on, he might refuse to do it. The
+      fact is, he isn&rsquo;t properly educated. I don&rsquo;t want to set you against him,
+      but you&rsquo;ll find him a trial.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can never thank you sufficiently, Miss Schlegel,&rdquo; was all that Leonard
+      felt equal to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe in personal responsibility. Don&rsquo;t you? And in personal
+      everything. I hate&mdash;I suppose I oughtn&rsquo;t to say that&mdash;but the
+      Wilcoxes are on the wrong tack surely. Or perhaps it isn&rsquo;t their fault.
+      Perhaps the little thing that says &lsquo;I&rsquo; is missing out of the middle of
+      their heads, and then it&rsquo;s a waste of time to blame them. There&rsquo;s a
+      nightmare of a theory that says a special race is being born which will
+      rule the rest of us in the future just because it lacks the little thing
+      that says &lsquo;I.&rsquo; Had you heard that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I get no time for reading.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had you thought it, then? That there are two kinds of people&mdash;our
+      kind, who live straight from the middle of their heads, and the other kind
+      who can&rsquo;t, because their heads have no middle? They can&rsquo;t say &lsquo;I.&rsquo; They
+      AREN&rsquo;T in fact, and so they&rsquo;re supermen. Pierpont Morgan has never said
+      &lsquo;I&rsquo; in his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard roused himself. If his benefactress wanted intellectual
+      conversation, she must have it. She was more important than his ruined
+      past. &ldquo;I never got on to Nietzsche,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But I always understood
+      that those supermen were rather what you may call egoists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, that&rsquo;s wrong,&rdquo; replied Helen. &ldquo;No superman ever said &lsquo;I want,&rsquo;
+      because &lsquo;I want&rsquo; must lead to the question, &lsquo;Who am I?&rsquo; and so to Pity and
+      to Justice. He only says &lsquo;want.&rsquo; &lsquo;Want Europe,&rsquo; if he&rsquo;s Napoleon; &lsquo;want
+      wives,&rsquo; if he&rsquo;s Bluebeard; &lsquo;want Botticelli,&rsquo; if he&rsquo;s Pierpont Morgan.
+      Never the &lsquo;I&rsquo;; and if you could pierce through the superman, you&rsquo;d find
+      panic and emptiness in the middle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard was silent for a moment. Then he said: &ldquo;May I take it, Miss
+      Schlegel, that you and I are both the sort that say &lsquo;I&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your sister, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; repeated Helen, a little sharply. She was annoyed with
+      Margaret, but did not want her discussed. &ldquo;All presentable people say
+      &lsquo;I.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Wilcox&mdash;he is not perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that it&rsquo;s any good discussing Mr. Wilcox either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so, quite so,&rdquo; he agreed. Helen asked herself why she had snubbed
+      him. Once or twice during the day she had encouraged him to criticise, and
+      then had pulled him up short. Was she afraid of him presuming? If so, it
+      was disgusting of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was thinking the snub quite natural. Everything she did was
+      natural, and incapable of causing offence. While the Miss Schlegels were
+      together he had felt them scarcely human&mdash;a sort of admonitory
+      whirligig. But a Miss Schlegel alone was different. She was in Helen&rsquo;s
+      case unmarried, in Margaret&rsquo;s about to be married, in neither case an echo
+      of her sister. A light had fallen at last into this rich upper world, and
+      he saw that it was full of men and women, some of whom were more friendly
+      to him than others. Helen had become &ldquo;his&rdquo; Miss Schlegel, who scolded him
+      and corresponded with him, and had swept down yesterday with grateful
+      vehemence. Margaret, though not unkind, was severe and remote. He would
+      not presume to help her, for instance. He had never liked her, and began
+      to think that his original impression was true, and that her sister did
+      not like her either. Helen was certainly lonely. She, who gave away so
+      much, was receiving too little. Leonard was pleased to think that he could
+      spare her vexation by holding his tongue and concealing what he knew about
+      Mr. Wilcox. Jacky had announced her discovery when he fetched her from the
+      lawn. After the first shock, he did not mind for himself. By now he had no
+      illusions about his wife, and this was only one new stain on the face of a
+      love that had never been pure. To keep perfection perfect, that should be
+      his ideal, if the future gave him time to have ideals. Helen, and Margaret
+      for Helen&rsquo;s sake, must not know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen disconcerted him by turning the conversation to his wife. &ldquo;Mrs. Bast&mdash;does
+      she ever say &lsquo;I&rsquo;?&rdquo; she asked, half mischievously, and then, &ldquo;Is she very
+      tired?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s better she stops in her room,&rdquo; said Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I sit up with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you; she does not need company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Bast, what kind of woman is your wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard blushed up to his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to know my ways by now. Does that question offend you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, oh no, Miss Schlegel, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I love honesty. Don&rsquo;t pretend your marriage has been a happy one.
+      You and she can have nothing in common.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not deny it, but said shyly: &ldquo;I suppose that&rsquo;s pretty obvious; but
+      Jacky never meant to do anybody any harm. When things went wrong, or I
+      heard things, I used to think it was her fault, but, looking back, it&rsquo;s
+      more mine. I needn&rsquo;t have married her, but as I have I must stick to her
+      and keep her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long have you been married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nearly three years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did your people say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will not have anything to do with us. They had a sort of family
+      council when they heard I was married, and cut us off altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen began to pace up and down the room. &ldquo;My good boy, what a mess!&rdquo; she
+      said gently. &ldquo;Who are your people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could answer this. His parents, who were dead, had been in trade; his
+      sisters had married commercial travellers; his brother was a lay-reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And your grandparents?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard told her a secret that he had held shameful up to now. &ldquo;They were
+      just nothing at all,&rdquo; he said &ldquo;agricultural labourers and that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So! From which part?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lincolnshire mostly, but my mother&rsquo;s father&mdash;he, oddly enough, came
+      from these parts round here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From this very Shropshire. Yes, that is odd. My mother&rsquo;s people were
+      Lancashire. But why do your brother and your sisters object to Mrs. Bast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, you do know. I am not a baby. I can bear anything you tell me,
+      and the more you tell the more I shall be able to help. Have they heard
+      anything against her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I have guessed now,&rdquo; said Helen very gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think so, Miss Schlegel; I hope not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must be honest, even over these things. I have guessed. I am
+      frightfully, dreadfully sorry, but it does not make the least difference
+      to me. I shall feel just the same to both of you. I blame, not your wife
+      for these things, but men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard left it at that&mdash;so long as she did not guess the man. She
+      stood at the window and slowly pulled up the blinds. The hotel looked over
+      a dark square. The mists had begun. When she turned back to him her eyes
+      were shining. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you worry,&rdquo; he pleaded. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t bear that. We shall
+      be all right if I get work. If I could only get work&mdash;something
+      regular to do. Then it wouldn&rsquo;t be so bad again. I don&rsquo;t trouble after
+      books as I used. I can imagine that with regular work we should settle
+      down again. It stops one thinking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Settle down to what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just settle down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s to be life!&rdquo; said Helen, with a catch in her throat. &ldquo;How can
+      you, with all the beautiful things to see and do&mdash;with music&mdash;with
+      walking at night&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Walking is well enough when a man&rsquo;s in work,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Oh, I did
+      talk a lot of nonsense once, but there&rsquo;s nothing like a bailiff in the
+      house to drive it out of you. When I saw him fingering my Ruskins and
+      Stevensons, I seemed to see life straight and real, and it isn&rsquo;t a pretty
+      sight. My books are back again, thanks to you, but they&rsquo;ll never be the
+      same to me again, and I shan&rsquo;t ever again think night in the woods is
+      wonderful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Helen, throwing up the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+    &ldquo;Because I see one must
+      have money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;re wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I was wrong, but&mdash;the clergyman&mdash;he has money of his
+      own, or else he&rsquo;s paid; the poet or the musician&mdash;just the same; the
+      tramp&mdash;he&rsquo;s no different. The tramp goes to the workhouse in the end,
+      and is paid for with other people&rsquo;s money. Miss Schlegel, the real thing&rsquo;s
+      money, and all the rest is a dream.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re still wrong. You&rsquo;ve forgotten Death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we lived forever, what you say would be true. But we have to die, we
+      have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would be the real thing
+      if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to other things, because
+      Death is coming. I love Death&mdash;not morbidly, but because He explains.
+      He shows me the emptiness of Money. Death and Money are the eternal foes.
+      Not Death and Life. Never mind what lies behind Death, Mr. Bast, but be
+      sure that the poet and the musician and the tramp will be happier in it
+      than the man who has never learnt to say, &lsquo;I am I.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are all in a mist&mdash;I know, but I can help you this far&mdash;men
+      like the Wilcoxes are deeper in the mist than any. Sane, sound Englishmen!
+      building up empires, levelling all the world into what they call common
+      sense. But mention Death to them and they&rsquo;re offended, because Death&rsquo;s
+      really Imperial, and He cries out against them for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am as afraid of Death as any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not of the idea of Death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what is the difference?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Infinite difference,&rdquo; said Helen, more gravely than before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great things
+      sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not receive them, because
+      his heart was still full of little things. As the lost umbrella had spoilt
+      the concert at Queen&rsquo;s Hall, so the lost situation was obscuring the
+      diviner harmonies now. Death, Life, and Materialism were fine words, but
+      would Mr. Wilcox take him on as a clerk? Talk as one would, Mr. Wilcox was
+      king of this world, the superman, with his own morality, whose head
+      remained in the clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must be stupid,&rdquo; he said apologetically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While to Helen the paradox became clearer and clearer. &ldquo;Death destroys a
+      man: the idea of Death saves him.&rdquo; Behind the coffins and the skeletons
+      that stay the vulgar mind lies something so immense that all that is great
+      in us responds to it. Men of the world may recoil from the charnel-house
+      that they will one day enter, but Love knows better. Death is his foe, but
+      his peer, and in their age-long struggle the thews of Love have been
+      strengthened, and his vision cleared, until there is no one who can stand
+      against him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So never give in,&rdquo; continued the girl, and restated again and again the
+      vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges against the Visible.
+      Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the rope that fastened Leonard to
+      the earth. Woven of bitter experience, it resisted her. Presently the
+      waitress entered and gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note,
+      addressed to Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the
+      murmurings of the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlled herself, and
+      wrote some letters. She was too bruised to speak to Henry; she could pity
+      him, and even determine to marry him, but as yet all lay too deep in her
+      heart for speech. On the surface the sense of his degradation was too
+      strong. She could not command voice or look, and the gentle words that she
+      forced out through her pen seemed to proceed from some other person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dearest boy,&rdquo; she began, &ldquo;this is not to part us. It is everything or
+      nothing, and I mean it to be nothing. It happened long before we ever met,
+      and even if it had happened since, I should be writing the same, I hope. I
+      do understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she crossed out &ldquo;I do understand&rdquo;; it struck a false note. Henry could
+      not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, &ldquo;It is everything or
+      nothing.&rdquo; Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must
+      not comment; comment is unfeminine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;ll about do,&rdquo; she thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the sense of his degradation choked her. Was he worth all this
+      bother? To have yielded to a woman of that sort was everything, yes, it
+      was, and she could not be his wife. She tried to translate his temptation
+      into her own language, and her brain reeled. Men must be different even to
+      want to yield to such a temptation. Her belief in comradeship was stifled,
+      and she saw life as from that glass saloon on the Great Western which
+      sheltered male and female alike from the fresh air. Are the sexes really
+      races, each with its own code of morality, and their mutual love a mere
+      device of Nature to keep things going? Strip human intercourse of the
+      proprieties, and is it reduced to this? Her judgment told her no. She knew
+      that out of Nature&rsquo;s device we have built a magic that will win us
+      immortality. Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the
+      tenderness that we throw into that call; far wider is the gulf between us
+      and the farmyard than between the farmyard and the garbage that nourishes
+      it. We are evolving, in ways that Science cannot measure, to ends that
+      Theology dares not contemplate. &ldquo;Men did produce one jewel,&rdquo; the gods will
+      say, and, saying, will give us immortality. Margaret knew all this, but
+      for the moment she could not feel it, and transformed the marriage of Evie
+      and Mr. Cahill into a carnival of fools, and her own marriage&mdash;too
+      miserable to think of that, she tore up the letter, and then wrote
+      another:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MR. BAST,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have spoken to Mr. Wilcox about you, as I promised, and am sorry to say
+      that he has no vacancy for you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours truly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M. J. SCHLEGEL.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She enclosed this in a note to Helen, over which she took less trouble
+      than she might have done; but her head was aching, and she could not stop
+      to pick her words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR HELEN,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give him this. The Basts are no good. Henry found the woman drunk on the
+      lawn. I am having a room got ready for you here, and will you please come
+      round at once on getting this? The Basts are not at all the type we should
+      trouble about. I may go round to them myself in the morning, and do
+      anything that is fair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In writing this, Margaret felt that she was being practical. Something
+      might be arranged for the Basts later on, but they must be silenced for
+      the moment. She hoped to avoid a conversation between the woman and Helen.
+      She rang the bell for a servant, but no one answered it; Mr. Wilcox and
+      the Warringtons were gone to bed, and the kitchen was abandoned to
+      Saturnalia. Consequently she went over to the George herself. She did not
+      enter the hotel, for discussion would have been perilous, and, saying that
+      the letter was important, she gave it to the waitress. As she recrossed
+      the square she saw Helen and Mr. Bast looking out of the window of the
+      coffee-room, and feared she was already too late. Her task was not yet
+      over; she ought to tell Henry what she had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This came easily, for she saw him in the hall. The night wind had been
+      rattling the pictures against the wall, and the noise had disturbed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s there?&rdquo; he called, quite the householder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret walked in and past him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have asked Helen to sleep,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is best here; so don&rsquo;t lock
+      the front-door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought some one had got in,&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the same time I told the man that we could do nothing for him. I don&rsquo;t
+      know about later, but now the Basts must clearly go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you say that your sister is sleeping here, after all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she to be shown up to your room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have naturally nothing to say to her; I am going to bed. Will you tell
+      the servants about Helen? Could some one go to carry her bag?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He tapped a little gong, which had been bought to summon the servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must make more noise than that if you want them to hear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry opened a door, and down the corridor came shouts of laughter. &ldquo;Far
+      too much screaming there,&rdquo; he said, and strode towards it. Margaret went
+      upstairs, uncertain whether to be glad that they had met, or sorry. They
+      had behaved as if nothing had happened, and her deepest instincts told her
+      that this was wrong. For his own sake, some explanation was due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet&mdash;what could an explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few
+      details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first shock
+      was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast.
+      Henry&rsquo;s inner life had long laid open to her&mdash;his intellectual
+      confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive
+      passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded?
+      Perhaps. Perhaps, if the dishonour had been done to her, but it was done
+      long before her day. She struggled against the feeling. She told herself
+      that Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s wrong was her own. But she was not a barren theorist.
+      As she undressed, her anger, her regard for the dead, her desire for a
+      scene, all grew weak. Henry must have it as he liked, for she loved him,
+      and some day she would use her love to make him a better man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through this crisis. Pity, if
+      one may generalise, is at the bottom of woman. When men like us, it is for
+      our better qualities, and however tender their liking, we dare not be
+      unworthy of it, or they will quietly let us go. But unworthiness
+      stimulates woman. It brings out her deeper nature, for good or for evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was the core of the question. Henry must be forgiven, and made better
+      by love; nothing else mattered. Mrs. Wilcox, that unquiet yet kindly
+      ghost, must be left to her own wrong. To her everything was in proportion
+      now, and she, too, would pity the man who was blundering up and down their
+      lives. Had Mrs. Wilcox known of his trespass? An interesting question, but
+      Margaret fell asleep, tethered by affection, and lulled by the murmurs of
+      the river that descended all the night from Wales. She felt herself at one
+      with her future home, colouring it and coloured by it, and awoke to see,
+      for the second time, Oniton Castle conquering the morning mists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry dear&mdash;&rdquo; was her greeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had finished his breakfast, and was beginning the Times. His
+      sister-in-law was packing. Margaret knelt by him and took the paper from
+      him, feeling that it was unusually heavy and thick. Then, putting her face
+      where it had been, she looked up in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry dear, look at me. No, I won&rsquo;t have you shirking. Look at me. There.
+      That&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re referring to last evening,&rdquo; he said huskily. &ldquo;I have released you
+      from your engagement. I could find excuses, but I won&rsquo;t. No, I won&rsquo;t. A
+      thousand times no. I&rsquo;m a bad lot, and must be left at that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Expelled from his old fortress, Mr. Wilcox was building a new one. He
+      could no longer appear respectable to her, so he defended himself instead
+      in a lurid past. It was not true repentance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it where you will, boy. It&rsquo;s not going to trouble us; I know what
+      I&rsquo;m talking about, and it will make no difference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No difference?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;No difference, when you find that I am not
+      the fellow you thought?&rdquo; He was annoyed with Miss Schlegel here. He would
+      have preferred her to be prostrated by the blow, or even to rage. Against
+      the tide of his sin flowed the feeling that she was not altogether
+      womanly. Her eyes gazed too straight; they had read books that are
+      suitable for men only. And though he had dreaded a scene, and though she
+      had determined against one, there was a scene, all the same. It was
+      somehow imperative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am unworthy of you,&rdquo; he began. &ldquo;Had I been worthy, I should not have
+      released you from your engagement. I know what I am talking about. I can&rsquo;t
+      bear to talk of such things. We had better leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed his hand. He jerked it from her, and, rising to his feet, went
+      on: &ldquo;You, with your sheltered life, and refined pursuits, and friends, and
+      books, you and your sister, and women like you&mdash;I say, how can you
+      guess the temptations that lie round a man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is difficult for us,&rdquo; said Margaret; &ldquo;but if we are worth marrying, we
+      do guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut off from decent society and family ties, what do you suppose happens
+      to thousands of young fellows overseas? Isolated. No one near. I know by
+      bitter experience, and yet you say it makes &lsquo;no difference.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed bitterly. Margaret went to the sideboard and helped herself to
+      one of the breakfast dishes. Being the last down, she turned out the
+      spirit-lamp that kept them warm. She was tender, but grave. She knew that
+      Henry was not so much confessing his soul as pointing out the gulf between
+      the male soul and the female, and she did not desire to hear him on this
+      point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Helen come?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that won&rsquo;t do at all, at all! We don&rsquo;t want her gossiping with Mrs.
+      Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God! no!&rdquo; he exclaimed, suddenly natural. Then he caught himself up.
+      &ldquo;Let them gossip, my game&rsquo;s up, though I thank you for your unselfishness&mdash;little
+      as my thanks are worth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t she send me a message or anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard of none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you ring the bell, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, to inquire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swaggered up to it tragically, and sounded a peal. Margaret poured
+      herself out some coffee. The butler came, and said that Miss Schlegel had
+      slept at the George, so far as he had heard. Should he go round to the
+      George?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go, thank you,&rdquo; said Margaret, and dismissed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no good,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Those things leak out; you cannot stop a
+      story once it has started. I have known cases of other men&mdash;I
+      despised them once, I thought that I&rsquo;m different, I shall never be
+      tempted. Oh, Margaret&mdash;&rdquo; He came and sat down near her, improvising
+      emotion. She could not bear to listen to him. &ldquo;We fellows all come to
+      grief once in our time. Will you believe that? There are moments when the
+      strongest man&mdash;&lsquo;Let him who standeth, take heed lest he fall.&rsquo; That&rsquo;s
+      true, isn&rsquo;t it? If you knew all, you would excuse me. I was far from good
+      influences&mdash;far even from England. I was very, very lonely, and
+      longed for a woman&rsquo;s voice. That&rsquo;s enough. I have told you too much
+      already for you to forgive me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s enough, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have&rdquo;&mdash;he lowered his voice&mdash;&ldquo;I have been through hell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Gravely she considered this claim. Had he? Had he suffered tortures of
+      remorse, or had it been, &ldquo;There! that&rsquo;s over. Now for respectable life
+      again&rdquo;? The latter, if she read him rightly. A man who has been through
+      hell does not boast of his virility. He is humble and hides it, if,
+      indeed, it still exists. Only in legend does the sinner come forth
+      penitent, but terrible, to conquer pure woman by his resistless power.
+      Henry was anxious to be terrible, but had not got it in him. He was a good
+      average Englishman, who had slipped. The really culpable point&mdash;his
+      faithlessness to Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;never seemed to strike him. She longed
+      to mention Mrs. Wilcox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And bit by bit the story was told her. It was a very simple story. Ten
+      years ago was the time, a garrison town in Cyprus the place. Now and then
+      he asked her whether she could possibly forgive him, and she answered, &ldquo;I
+      have already forgiven you, Henry.&rdquo; She chose her words carefully, and so
+      saved him from panic. She played the girl, until he could rebuild his
+      fortress and hide his soul from the world. When the butler came to clear
+      away, Henry was in a very different mood&mdash;asked the fellow what he
+      was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last night in the
+      servants&rsquo; hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He, as a handsome
+      young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman&mdash;an attraction so
+      faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would have fallen if
+      she had mentioned it to Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On her return from the George the building operations were complete, and
+      the old Henry fronted her, competent, cynical, and kind. He had made a
+      clean breast, had been forgiven, and the great thing now was to forget his
+      failure, and to send it the way of other unsuccessful investments. Jacky
+      rejoined Howards End and Dude Street, and the vermilion motor-car, and the
+      Argentine Hard Dollars, and all the things and people for whom he had
+      never had much use and had less now. Their memory hampered him. He could
+      scarcely attend to Margaret, who brought back disquieting news from the
+      George. Helen and her clients had gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let them go&mdash;the man and his wife, I mean, for the more we see
+      of your sister the better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But they have gone separately&mdash;Helen very early, the Basts just
+      before I arrived. They have left no message. They have answered neither of
+      my notes. I don&rsquo;t like to think what it all means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say in the notes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you last night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;ah&mdash;yes! Dear, would you like one turn in the garden?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret took his arm. The beautiful weather soothed her. But the wheels
+      of Evie&rsquo;s wedding were still at work, tossing the guests outwards as
+      deftly as they had drawn them in, and she could not be with him long. It
+      had been arranged that they should motor to Shrewsbury, whence he would go
+      north, and she back to London with the Warringtons. For a fraction of time
+      she was happy. Then her brain recommenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid there has been gossiping of some kind at the George. Helen
+      would not have left unless she had heard something. I mismanaged that. It
+      is wretched. I ought to have parted her from that woman at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret!&rdquo; he exclaimed, loosing her arm impressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am far from a saint&mdash;in fact, the reverse&mdash;but you have taken
+      me, for better or worse. Bygones must be bygones. You have promised to
+      forgive me. Margaret, a promise is a promise. Never mention that woman
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except for some practical reason&mdash;never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Practical! You practical!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m practical,&rdquo; she murmured, stooping over the mowing-machine and
+      playing with the grass which trickled through her fingers like sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had silenced her, but her fears made him uneasy. Not for the first
+      time, he was threatened with blackmail. He was rich and supposed to be
+      moral; the Basts knew that he was not, and might find it profitable to
+      hint as much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At all events, you mustn&rsquo;t worry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This is a man&rsquo;s business.&rdquo;
+       He thought intently. &ldquo;On no account mention it to anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret flushed at advice so elementary, but he was really paving the way
+      for a lie. If necessary he would deny that he had ever known Mrs. Bast,
+      and prosecute her for libel. Perhaps he never had known her. Here was
+      Margaret, who behaved as if he had not. There the house. Round them were
+      half a dozen gardeners, clearing up after his daughter&rsquo;s wedding. All was
+      so solid and spruce, that the past flew up out of sight like a
+      spring-blind, leaving only the last five minutes unrolled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Glancing at these, he saw that the car would be round during the next
+      five, and plunged into action. Gongs were tapped, orders issued, Margaret
+      was sent to dress, and the housemaid to sweep up the long trickle of grass
+      that she had left across the hall. As is Man to the Universe, so was the
+      mind of Mr. Wilcox to the minds of some men&mdash;a concentrated light
+      upon a tiny spot, a little Ten Minutes moving self-contained through its
+      appointed years. No Pagan he, who lives for the Now, and may be wiser than
+      all philosophers. He lived for the five minutes that have past, and the
+      five to come; he had the business mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and breasted the
+      great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain rumour, but was all right.
+      She had forgiven him, God bless her, and he felt the manlier for it.
+      Charles and Evie had not heard it, and never must hear. No more must Paul.
+      Over his children he felt great tenderness, which he did not try to track
+      to a cause; Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did not connect
+      her with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor little Evie!
+      he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Margaret? How did she stand?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard something. She
+      dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious about Leonard, for whom
+      they certainly were responsible. Nor ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But the
+      main situation had not altered. She still loved Henry. His actions, not
+      his disposition, had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And she
+      loved her future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had leapt
+      from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon Oniton.
+      Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now pick out the church
+      and the black-and-white gables of the George. There was the bridge, and
+      the river nibbling its green peninsula. She could even see the
+      bathing-shed, but while she was looking for Charles&rsquo;s new spring-board,
+      the forehead of the hill rose and hid the whole scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into England,
+      day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains, and the tower
+      chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes have no part in the
+      place, nor in any place. It is not their names that recur in the parish
+      register. It is not their ghosts that sigh among the alders at evening.
+      They have swept into the valley and swept out of it, leaving a little dust
+      and a little money behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford. He had moved out of
+      college, and was contemplating the Universe, or such portions of it as
+      concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings in Long Wall. He was not
+      concerned with much. When a young man is untroubled by passions and
+      sincerely indifferent to public opinion his outlook is necessarily
+      limited. Tibby wished neither to strengthen the position of the rich nor
+      to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms
+      nodding behind the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen. There are worse
+      lives. Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected in manner, he
+      never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained the heroic equipment, and it was
+      only after many visits that men discovered Schlegel to possess a character
+      and a brain. He had done well in Mods, much to the surprise of those who
+      attended lectures and took proper exercise, and was now glancing
+      disdainfully at Chinese in case he should some day consent to qualify as a
+      Student Interpreter. To him thus employed Helen entered. A telegram had
+      preceded her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He noticed, in a distant way, that his sister had altered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a rule he found her too pronounced, and had never come across this look
+      of appeal, pathetic yet dignified&mdash;the look of a sailor who has lost
+      everything at sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come from Oniton,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;There has been a great deal of
+      trouble there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s for lunch?&rdquo; said Tibby, picking up the claret, which was warming in
+      the hearth. Helen sat down submissively at the table. &ldquo;Why such an early
+      start?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sunrise or something&mdash;when I could get away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I surmise. Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s to be done, Tibby. I am very much upset at a piece of
+      news that concerns Meg, and do not want to face her, and I am not going
+      back to Wickham Place. I stopped here to tell you this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The landlady came in with the cutlets. Tibby put a marker in the leaves of
+      his Chinese Grammar and helped them. Oxford&mdash;the Oxford of the
+      vacation&mdash;dreamed and rustled outside, and indoors the little fire
+      was coated with grey where the sunshine touched it. Helen continued her
+      odd story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give Meg my love and say that I want to be alone. I mean to go to Munich
+      or else Bonn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such a message is easily given,&rdquo; said her brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As regards Wickham Place and my share of the furniture, you and she are
+      to do exactly as you like. My own feeling is that everything may just as
+      well be sold. What does one want with dusty economic books, which have
+      made the world no better, or with mother&rsquo;s hideous chiffoniers? I have
+      also another commission for you. I want you to deliver a letter.&rdquo; She got
+      up. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t written it yet. Why shouldn&rsquo;t I post it, though?&rdquo; She sat
+      down again. &ldquo;My head is rather wretched. I hope that none of your friends
+      are likely to come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby locked the door. His friends often found it in this condition. Then
+      he asked whether anything had gone wrong at Evie&rsquo;s wedding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not there,&rdquo; said Helen, and burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had known her hysterical&mdash;it was one of her aspects with which he
+      had no concern&mdash;and yet these tears touched him as something unusual.
+      They were nearer the things that did concern him, such as music. He laid
+      down his knife and looked at her curiously. Then, as she continued to sob,
+      he went on with his lunch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The time came for the second course, and she was still crying. Apple
+      Charlotte was to follow, which spoils by waiting. &ldquo;Do you mind Mrs.
+      Martlett coming in?&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;or shall I take it from her at the door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her to his bedroom, and introduced the pudding in her absence.
+      Having helped himself, he put it down to warm in the hearth. His hand
+      stretched towards the Grammar, and soon he was turning over the pages,
+      raising his eyebrows scornfully, perhaps at human nature, perhaps at
+      Chinese. To him thus employed Helen returned. She had pulled herself
+      together, but the grave appeal had not vanished from her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now for the explanation,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t I begin with it? I have
+      found out something about Mr. Wilcox. He has behaved very wrongly indeed,
+      and ruined two people&rsquo;s lives. It all came on me very suddenly last night;
+      I am very much upset, and I do not know what to do. Mrs. Bast&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, those people!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen seemed silenced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I lock the door again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No thanks, Tibbikins. You&rsquo;re being very good to me. I want to tell you
+      the story before I go abroad, you must do exactly what you like&mdash;treat
+      it as part of the furniture. Meg cannot have heard it yet, I think. But I
+      cannot face her and tell her that the man she is going to marry has
+      misconducted himself. I don&rsquo;t even know whether she ought to be told.
+      Knowing as she does that I dislike him, she will suspect me, and think
+      that I want to ruin her match. I simply don&rsquo;t know what to make of such a
+      thing. I trust your judgment. What would you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gather he has had a mistress,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen flushed with shame and anger. &ldquo;And ruined two people&rsquo;s lives. And
+      goes about saying that personal actions count for nothing, and there
+      always will be rich and poor. He met her when he was trying to get rich
+      out in Cyprus&mdash;I don&rsquo;t wish to make him worse than he is, and no
+      doubt she was ready enough to meet him. But there it is. They met. He goes
+      his way and she goes hers. What do you suppose is the end of such women?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He conceded that it was a bad business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They end in two ways: Either they sink till the lunatic asylums and the
+      workhouses are full of them, and cause Mr. Wilcox to write letters to the
+      papers complaining of our national degeneracy, or else they entrap a boy
+      into marriage before it is too late. She&mdash;I can&rsquo;t blame her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this isn&rsquo;t all,&rdquo; she continued after a long pause, during which the
+      landlady served them with coffee. &ldquo;I come now to the business that took us
+      to Oniton. We went all three. Acting on Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s advice, the man
+      throws up a secure situation and takes an insecure one, from which he is
+      dismissed. There are certain excuses, but in the main Mr. Wilcox is to
+      blame, as Meg herself admitted. It is only common justice that he should
+      employ the man himself. But he meets the woman, and, like the cur that he
+      is, he refuses, and tries to get rid of them. He makes Meg write. Two
+      notes came from her late that evening&mdash;one for me, one for Leonard,
+      dismissing him with barely a reason. I couldn&rsquo;t understand. Then it comes
+      out that Mrs. Bast had spoken to Mr. Wilcox on the lawn while we left her
+      to get rooms, and was still speaking about him when Leonard came back to
+      her. This Leonard knew all along. He thought it natural he should be
+      ruined twice. Natural! Could you have contained yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is certainly a very bad business,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His reply seemed to calm his sister. &ldquo;I was afraid that I saw it out of
+      proportion. But you are right outside it, and you must know. In a day or
+      two&mdash;or perhaps a week&mdash;take whatever steps you think fit. I
+      leave it in your hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She concluded her charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The facts as they touch Meg are all before you,&rdquo; she added; and Tibby
+      sighed and felt it rather hard that, because of his open mind, he should
+      be empanelled to serve as a juror. He had never been interested in human
+      beings, for which one must blame him, but he had had rather too much of
+      them at Wickham Place. Just as some people cease to attend when books are
+      mentioned, so Tibby&rsquo;s attention wandered when &ldquo;personal relations&rdquo; came
+      under discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts to
+      know? Similar questions had vexed him from infancy, and at Oxford he had
+      learned to say that the importance of human beings has been vastly
+      overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint whiff of the
+      eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it off now if his sister
+      had not been ceaselessly beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Helen&mdash;have a cigarette&mdash;I don&rsquo;t see what I&rsquo;m to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s nothing to be done. I dare say you are right. Let them
+      marry. There remains the question of compensation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want me to adjudicate that too? Had you not better consult an
+      expert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This part is in confidence,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;It has nothing to do with Meg,
+      and do not mention it to her. The compensation&mdash;I do not see who is
+      to pay it if I don&rsquo;t, and I have already decided on the minimum sum. As
+      soon as possible I am placing it to your account, and when I am in Germany
+      you will pay it over for me. I shall never forget your kindness,
+      Tibbikins, if you do this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the sum?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God alive!&rdquo; said Tibby, and went crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, what is the good of driblets? To go through life having done one
+      thing&mdash;to have raised one person from the abyss; not these puny gifts
+      of shillings and blankets&mdash;making the grey more grey. No doubt people
+      will think me extraordinary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care an iota what people think!&rdquo; cried he, heated to unusual
+      manliness of diction. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s half what you have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not nearly half.&rdquo; She spread out her hands over her soiled skirt. &ldquo;I have
+      far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last spring that three hundred a
+      year is necessary to set a man on his feet. What I give will bring in a
+      hundred and fifty between two. It isn&rsquo;t enough.&rdquo; He could not recover. He
+      was not angry or even shocked, and he saw that Helen would still have
+      plenty to live on. But it amazed him to think what haycocks people can
+      make of their lives. His delicate intonations would not work, and he could
+      only blurt out that the five thousand pounds would mean a great deal of
+      bother for him personally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t expect you to understand me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? I understand nobody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you&rsquo;ll do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Apparently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave you two commissions, then. The first concerns Mr. Wilcox, and you
+      are to use your discretion. The second concerns the money, and is to be
+      mentioned to no one, and carried out literally. You will send a hundred
+      pounds on account to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets whose
+      serried beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued. The lovely
+      creature raised domes and spires into the cloudless blue, and only the
+      ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how evanescent was the phantom,
+      how faint its claim to represent England. Helen, rehearsing her
+      commission, noticed nothing; the Basts were in her brain, and she retold
+      the crisis in a meditative way, which might have made other men curious.
+      She was seeing whether it would hold. He asked her once why she had taken
+      the Basts right into the heart of Evie&rsquo;s wedding. She stopped like a
+      frightened animal and said, &ldquo;Does that seem to you so odd?&rdquo; Her eyes, the
+      hand laid on the mouth, quite haunted him, until they were absorbed into
+      the figure of St. Mary the Virgin, before whom he paused for a moment on
+      the walk home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is convenient to follow him in the discharge of his duties. Margaret
+      summoned him the next day. She was terrified at Helen&rsquo;s flight, and he had
+      to say that she had called in at Oxford. Then she said: &ldquo;Did she seem
+      worried at any rumour about Henry?&rdquo; He answered, &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; &ldquo;I knew it was
+      that!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll write to her.&rdquo; Tibby was relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then sent the cheque to the address that Helen gave him, and stated
+      that he was instructed to forward later on five thousand pounds. An answer
+      came back very civil and quiet in tone&mdash;such an answer as Tibby
+      himself would have given. The cheque was returned, the legacy refused, the
+      writer being in no need of money. Tibby forwarded this to Helen, adding in
+      the fulness of his heart that Leonard Bast seemed somewhat a monumental
+      person after all. Helen&rsquo;s reply was frantic. He was to take no notice. He
+      was to go down at once and say that she commanded acceptance. He went. A
+      scurf of books and china ornaments awaited him. The Basts had just been
+      evicted for not paying their rent, and had wandered no one knew whither.
+      Helen had begun bungling with her money by this time, and had even sold
+      out her shares in the Nottingham and Derby Railway. For some weeks she did
+      nothing. Then she reinvested, and, owing to the good advice of her
+      stockbrokers, became rather richer than she had been before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the
+      generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to an
+      after-life in the city of ghosts, while from others&mdash;and thus was the
+      death of Wickham Place&mdash;the spirit slips before the body perishes. It
+      had decayed in the spring, disintegrating the girls more than they knew,
+      and causing either to accost unfamiliar regions. By September it was a
+      corpse, void of emotion, and scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty
+      years of happiness. Through its round-topped doorway passed furniture, and
+      pictures, and books, until the last room was gutted and the last van had
+      rumbled away. It stood for a week or two longer, open-eyed, as if
+      astonished at its own emptiness. Then it fell. Navvies came, and spilt it
+      back into the grey. With their muscles and their beery good temper, they
+      were not the worst of undertakers for a house which had always been human,
+      and had not mistaken culture for an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The furniture, with a few exceptions, went down into Hertfordshire, Mr.
+      Wilcox having most kindly offered Howards End as a warehouse. Mr. Bryce
+      had died abroad&mdash;an unsatisfactory affair&mdash;and as there seemed
+      little guarantee that the rent would be paid regularly, he cancelled the
+      agreement, and resumed possession himself. Until he relet the house, the
+      Schlegels were welcome to stack their furniture in the garage and lower
+      rooms. Margaret demurred, but Tibby accepted the offer gladly; it saved
+      him from coming to any decision about the future. The plate and the more
+      valuable pictures found a safer home in London, but the bulk of the things
+      went country-ways, and were entrusted to the guardianship of Miss Avery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shortly before the move, our hero and heroine were married. They have
+      weathered the storm, and may reasonably expect peace. To have no illusions
+      and yet to love&mdash;what stronger surety can a woman find? She had seen
+      her husband&rsquo;s past as well as his heart. She knew her own heart with a
+      thoroughness that commonplace people believe impossible. The heart of Mrs.
+      Wilcox was alone hidden, and perhaps it is superstitious to speculate on
+      the feelings of the dead. They were married quietly&mdash;really quietly,
+      for as the day approached she refused to go through another Oniton. Her
+      brother gave her away, her aunt, who was out of health, presided over a
+      few colourless refreshments. The Wilcoxes were represented by Charles, who
+      witnessed the marriage settlement, and by Mr. Cahill. Paul did send a
+      cablegram. In a few minutes, and without the aid of music, the clergyman
+      made them man and wife, and soon the glass shade had fallen that cuts off
+      married couples from the world. She, a monogamist, regretted the cessation
+      of some of life&rsquo;s innocent odours; he, whose instincts were polygamous,
+      felt morally braced by the change and less liable to the temptations that
+      had assailed him in the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spent their honeymoon near Innsbruck. Henry knew of a reliable hotel
+      there, and Margaret hoped for a meeting with her sister. In this she was
+      disappointed. As they came south, Helen retreated over the Brenner, and
+      wrote an unsatisfactory post-card from the shores of the Lake of Garda,
+      saying that her plans were uncertain and had better be ignored. Evidently
+      she disliked meeting Henry. Two months are surely enough to accustom an
+      outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted in two days, and
+      Margaret had again to regret her sister&rsquo;s lack of self-control. In a long
+      letter she pointed out the need of charity in sexual matters; so little is
+      known about them; it is hard enough for those who are personally touched
+      to judge; then how futile must be the verdict of Society. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t say
+      there is no standard, for that would destroy morality; only that there can
+      be no standard until our impulses are classified and better understood.&rdquo;
+       Helen thanked her for her kind letter&mdash;rather a curious reply. She
+      moved south again, and spoke of wintering in Naples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed. Helen left him time to
+      grow skin over his wound. There were still moments when it pained him. Had
+      he only known that Margaret was awaiting him&mdash;Margaret, so lively and
+      intelligent, and yet so submissive&mdash;he would have kept himself
+      worthier of her. Incapable of grouping the past, he confused the episode
+      of Jacky with another episode that had taken place in the days of his
+      bachelorhood. The two made one crop of wild oats, for which he was
+      heartily sorry, and he could not see that those oats are of a darker stock
+      which are rooted in another&rsquo;s dishonour. Unchastity and infidelity were as
+      confused to him as to the Middle Ages, his only moral teacher. Ruth (poor
+      old Ruth!) did not enter into his calculations at all, for poor old Ruth
+      had never found him out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His affection for his present wife grew steadily. Her cleverness gave him
+      no trouble, and, indeed, he liked to see her reading poetry or something
+      about social questions; it distinguished her from the wives of other men.
+      He had only to call, and she clapped the book up and was ready to do what
+      he wished. Then they would argue so jollily, and once or twice she had him
+      in quite a tight corner, but as soon as he grew really serious, she gave
+      in. Man is for war, woman for the recreation of the warrior, but he does
+      not dislike it if she makes a show of fight. She cannot win in a real
+      battle, having no muscles, only nerves. Nerves make her jump out of a
+      moving motor-car, or refuse to be married fashionably. The warrior may
+      well allow her to triumph on such occasions; they move not the
+      imperishable plinth of things that touch his peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had a bad attack of these nerves during the honeymoon. He told
+      her&mdash;casually, as was his habit&mdash;that Oniton Grange was let. She
+      showed her annoyance, and asked rather crossly why she had not been
+      consulted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to bother you,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Besides, I have only heard for
+      certain this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are we to live?&rdquo; said Margaret, trying to laugh. &ldquo;I loved the place
+      extraordinarily. Don&rsquo;t you believe in having a permanent home, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured her that she misunderstood him. It is home life that
+      distinguishes us from the foreigner. But he did not believe in a damp
+      home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is news. I never heard till this minute that Oniton was damp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear girl!&rdquo;&mdash;he flung out his hand&mdash;&ldquo;have you eyes? have you
+      a skin? How could it be anything but damp in such a situation? In the
+      first place, the Grange is on clay, and built where the castle moat must
+      have been; then there&rsquo;s that detestable little river, steaming all night
+      like a kettle. Feel the cellar walls; look up under the eaves. Ask Sir
+      James or any one. Those Shropshire valleys are notorious. The only
+      possible place for a house in Shropshire is on a hill; but, for my part, I
+      think the country is too far from London, and the scenery nothing
+      special.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not resist saying, &ldquo;Why did you go there, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;because&mdash;&rdquo; He drew his head back and grew rather angry. &ldquo;Why
+      have we come to the Tyrol, if it comes to that? One might go on asking
+      such questions indefinitely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One might; but he was only gaining time for a plausible answer. Out it
+      came, and he believed it as soon as it was spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth is, I took Oniton on account of Evie. Don&rsquo;t let this go any
+      further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t like her to know that she nearly let me in for a very bad
+      bargain. No sooner did I sign the agreement than she got engaged. Poor
+      little girl! She was so keen on it all, and wouldn&rsquo;t even wait to make
+      proper inquiries about the shooting. Afraid it would get snapped up&mdash;just
+      like all of your sex. Well, no harm&rsquo;s done. She has had her country
+      wedding, and I&rsquo;ve got rid of my goose to some fellows who are starting a
+      preparatory school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall we live, then, Henry? I should enjoy living somewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not yet decided. What about Norfolk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. Marriage had not saved her from the sense of flux.
+      London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilisation which is altering
+      human nature so profoundly, and throws upon personal relations a stress
+      greater than they have ever borne before. Under cosmopolitanism, if it
+      comes, we shall receive no help from the earth. Trees and meadows and
+      mountains will only be a spectacle, and the binding force that they once
+      exercised on character must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal
+      to the task!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is now what?&rdquo; continued Henry. &ldquo;Nearly October. Let us camp for the
+      winter at Ducie Street, and look out for something in the spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If possible, something permanent. I can&rsquo;t be as young as I was, for these
+      alterations don&rsquo;t suit me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear, which would you rather have&mdash;alterations or
+      rheumatism?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see your point,&rdquo; said Margaret, getting up. &ldquo;If Oniton is really damp,
+      it is impossible, and must be inhabited by little boys. Only, in the
+      spring, let us look before we leap. I will take warning by Evie, and not
+      hurry you. Remember that you have a free hand this time. These endless
+      moves must be bad for the furniture, and are certainly expensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a practical little woman it is! What&rsquo;s it been reading? Theo&mdash;theo&mdash;how
+      much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Theosophy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Ducie Street was her first fate&mdash;a pleasant enough fate. The
+      house, being only a little larger than Wickham Place, trained her for the
+      immense establishment that was promised in the spring. They were
+      frequently away, but at home life ran fairly regularly. In the morning
+      Henry went to business, and his sandwich&mdash;a relic this of some
+      prehistoric craving&mdash;was always cut by her own hand. He did not rely
+      upon the sandwich for lunch, but liked to have it by him in case he grew
+      hungry at eleven. When he had gone, there was the house to look after, and
+      the servants to humanise, and several kettles of Helen&rsquo;s to keep on the
+      boil. Her conscience pricked her a little about the Basts; she was not
+      sorry to have lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth helping, but
+      being Henry&rsquo;s wife, she preferred to help some one else. As for theatres
+      and discussion societies, they attracted her less and less. She began to
+      &ldquo;miss&rdquo; new movements, and to spend her spare time re-reading or thinking,
+      rather to the concern of her Chelsea friends. They attributed the change
+      to her marriage, and perhaps some deep instinct did warn her not to travel
+      further from her husband than was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay
+      deeper still; she had outgrown stimulants, and was passing from words to
+      things. It was doubtless a pity not to keep up with Wedekind or John, but
+      some closing of the gates is inevitable after thirty, if the mind itself
+      is to become a creative power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      She was looking at plans one day in the following spring&mdash;they had
+      finally decided to go down into Sussex and build&mdash;when Mrs. Charles
+      Wilcox was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you heard the news?&rdquo; Dolly cried, as soon as she entered the room.
+      &ldquo;Charles is so ang&mdash;I mean he is sure you know about it, or, rather,
+      that you don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Dolly!&rdquo; said Margaret, placidly kissing her. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a surprise! How
+      are the boys and the baby?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that there had
+      been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news. The wrong people
+      had tried to get in. The rector, as representing the older inhabitants,
+      had said&mdash;Charles had said&mdash;the tax-collector had said&mdash;Charles
+      had regretted not saying&mdash;and she closed the description with, &ldquo;But
+      lucky you, with four courts of your own at Midhurst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be very jolly,&rdquo; replied Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles has never seen the plans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor&mdash;no, that&rsquo;s
+      rather difficult. Try the elevation. We are to have a good many gables and
+      a picturesque sky-line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes it smell so funny?&rdquo; said Dolly, after a moment&rsquo;s inspection.
+      She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And WHICH way up is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the ordinary way up. That&rsquo;s the sky-line and the part that smells
+      strongest is the sky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, ask me another. Margaret&mdash;oh&mdash;what was I going to say?
+      How&rsquo;s Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it&rsquo;s awfully odd
+      she doesn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is,&rdquo; said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She was getting
+      rather sore on this point. &ldquo;Helen is odd, awfully. She has now been away
+      eight months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But hasn&rsquo;t she any address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write her a
+      line. I will look it up for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, don&rsquo;t bother. That&rsquo;s eight months she has been away, surely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. She left just after Evie&rsquo;s wedding. It would be eight months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just when baby was born, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She was
+      beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The Charles&rsquo;s were not
+      well off, for Mr. Wilcox, having brought up his children with expensive
+      tastes, believed in letting them shift for themselves. After all, he had
+      not treated them generously. Yet another baby was expected, she told
+      Margaret, and they would have to give up the motor. Margaret sympathised,
+      but in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the stepmother was
+      urging Mr. Wilcox to make them a more liberal allowance. She sighed again,
+      and at last the particular grievance was remembered. &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; she cried,
+      &ldquo;that is it: Miss Avery has been unpacking your packing-cases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why has she done that? How unnecessary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask another. I suppose you ordered her to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave no such orders. Perhaps she was airing the things. She did
+      undertake to light an occasional fire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was far more than an air,&rdquo; said Dolly solemnly. &ldquo;The floor sounds
+      covered with books. Charles sent me to know what is to be done, for he
+      feels certain you don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Books!&rdquo; cried Margaret, moved by the holy word. &ldquo;Dolly, are you serious?
+      Has she been touching our books?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hasn&rsquo;t she, though! What used to be the hall&rsquo;s full of them. Charles
+      thought for certain you knew of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you, Dolly. What can have come over Miss Avery?
+      I must go down about it at once. Some of the books are my brother&rsquo;s, and
+      are quite valuable. She had no right to open any of the cases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say she&rsquo;s dotty. She was the one that never got married, you know. Oh,
+      I say, perhaps, she thinks your books are wedding-presents to herself. Old
+      maids are taken that way sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all like poison
+      ever since her frightful dust-up with Evie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t heard of that,&rdquo; said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had its
+      compensations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you know she gave Evie a present last August, and Evie returned
+      it, and then&mdash;oh, goloshes! You never read such a letter as Miss
+      Avery wrote.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn&rsquo;t like her to do such a
+      heartless thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the present was so expensive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does that make any difference, Dolly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, when it costs over five pounds&mdash;I didn&rsquo;t see it, but it was a
+      lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop. You can&rsquo;t very well accept
+      that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You accepted a present from Miss Avery when you were married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, mine was old earthenware stuff&mdash;not worth a halfpenny. Evie&rsquo;s
+      was quite different. You&rsquo;d have to ask any one to the wedding who gave you
+      a pendant like that. Uncle Percy and Albert and father and Charles all
+      said it was quite impossible, and when four men agree, what is a girl to
+      do? Evie didn&rsquo;t want to upset the old thing, so thought a sort of joking
+      letter best, and returned the pendant straight to the shop to save Miss
+      Avery trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Miss Avery said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly&rsquo;s eyes grew round. &ldquo;It was a perfectly awful letter. Charles said it
+      was the letter of a madman. In the end she had the pendant back again from
+      the shop and threw it into the duck-pond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she give any reasons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We think she meant to be invited to Oniton, and so climb into society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s rather old for that,&rdquo; said Margaret pensively.
+      &ldquo;May she not have given the present to Evie in remembrance of her mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I ought to
+      be toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff&mdash;you want a new coat, but I don&rsquo;t
+      know who&rsquo;ll give it you, I&rsquo;m sure;&rdquo; and addressing her apparel with
+      mournful humour, Dolly moved from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret followed her to ask whether Henry knew about Miss Avery&rsquo;s
+      rudeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she&rsquo;s only a farm woman,&rdquo; said Dolly, and her explanation proved
+      correct. Henry only censured the lower classes when it suited him. He bore
+      with Miss Avery as with Crane&mdash;because he could get good value out of
+      them. &ldquo;I have patience with a man who knows his job,&rdquo; he would say, really
+      having patience with the job, and not the man. Paradoxical as it may
+      sound, he had something of the artist about him; he would pass over an
+      insult to his daughter sooner than lose a good charwoman for his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret judged it better to settle the little trouble herself. Parties
+      were evidently ruffled. With Henry&rsquo;s permission, she wrote a pleasant note
+      to Miss Avery, asking her to leave the cases untouched. Then, at the first
+      convenient opportunity, she went down herself, intending to repack her
+      belongings and store them properly in the local warehouse; the plan had
+      been amateurish and a failure. Tibby promised to accompany her, but at the
+      last moment begged to be excused. So, for the second time in her life, she
+      entered the house alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The day of her visit was exquisite, and the last of unclouded happiness
+      that she was to have for many months. Her anxiety about Helen&rsquo;s
+      extraordinary absence was still dormant, and as for a possible brush with
+      Miss Avery&mdash;that only gave zest to the expedition. She had also eluded
+      Dolly&rsquo;s invitation to luncheon. Walking straight up from the station, she
+      crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut avenue that
+      connects it with the church. The church itself stood in the village once.
+      But it there attracted so many worshippers that the devil, in a pet,
+      snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on an inconvenient knoll,
+      three quarters of a mile away. If this story is true, the chestnut avenue
+      must have been planted by the angels. No more tempting approach could be
+      imagined for the lukewarm Christian, and if he still finds the walk too
+      long, the devil is defeated all the same, Science having built Holy
+      Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles&rsquo;s and roofed it with tin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that
+      gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the
+      little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great
+      mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the
+      greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the pipes
+      of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it seems to
+      have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the fairies. It
+      cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names to half a
+      dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature&mdash;for
+      the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for the thousand
+      little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened into a road,
+      smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched country. She followed it
+      for over a mile. Its little hesitations pleased her. Having no urgent
+      destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking no trouble about
+      the gradients, or about the view, which nevertheless expanded. The great
+      estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire were less obtrusive here,
+      and the appearance of the land was neither aristocratic nor suburban. To
+      define it was difficult, but Margaret knew what it was not: it was not
+      snobbish. Though its contours were slight, there was a touch of freedom in
+      their sweep to which Surrey will never attain, and the distant brow of the
+      Chilterns towered like a mountain. &ldquo;Left to itself,&rdquo; was Margaret&rsquo;s
+      opinion, &ldquo;this county would vote Liberal.&rdquo; The comradeship, not
+      passionate, that is our highest gift as a nation, was promised by it, as
+      by the low brick farm where she called for the key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished young person
+      received her. &ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh yes, Mrs. Wilcox,
+      auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie has gone up to your little
+      place at the present moment. Shall I send the servant to direct you?&rdquo;
+       Followed by: &ldquo;Of course, auntie does not generally look after your place;
+      she only does it to oblige a neighbour as something exceptional. It gives
+      her something to do. She spends quite a lot of her time there. My husband
+      says to me sometimes, &lsquo;Where&rsquo;s auntie?&rsquo; I say, &lsquo;Need you ask? She&rsquo;s at
+      Howards End.&rsquo; Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox, could I prevail upon you to
+      accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret refused the cake, but unfortunately this gave her gentility in
+      the eyes of Miss Avery&rsquo;s niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot let you go on alone. Now don&rsquo;t. You really mustn&rsquo;t. I will
+      direct you myself if it comes to that. I must get my hat. Now&rdquo;&mdash;roguishly&mdash;&ldquo;Mrs.
+      Wilcox, don&rsquo;t you move while I&rsquo;m gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Stunned, Margaret did not move from the best parlour, over which the touch
+      of art nouveau had fallen. But the other rooms looked in keeping, though
+      they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural interior. Here had lived an
+      elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country which we
+      visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver sides of life,
+      the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love, have their deepest
+      expression in the heart of the fields. All was not sadness. The sun was
+      shining without. The thrush sang his two syllables on the budding
+      guelder-rose. Some children were playing uproariously in heaps of golden
+      straw. It was the presence of sadness at all that surprised Margaret, and
+      ended by giving her a feeling of completeness. In these English farms, if
+      anywhere, one might see life steadily and see it whole, group in one
+      vision its transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect&mdash;connect
+      without bitterness until all men are brothers. But her thoughts were
+      interrupted by the return of Miss Avery&rsquo;s niece, and were so
+      tranquillising that she suffered the interruption gladly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quicker to go out by the back door, and, after due explanations,
+      they went out by it. The niece was now mortified by innumerable chickens,
+      who rushed up to her feet for food, and by a shameless and maternal sow.
+      She did not know what animals were coming to. But her gentility withered
+      at the touch of the sweet air. The wind was rising, scattering the straw
+      and ruffling the tails of the ducks as they floated in families over
+      Evie&rsquo;s pendant. One of those delicious gales of spring, in which leaves
+      still in bud seem to rustle, swept over the land and then fell silent.
+      &ldquo;Georgie,&rdquo; sang the thrush. &ldquo;Cuckoo,&rdquo; came furtively from the cliff of
+      pine-trees. &ldquo;Georgie, pretty Georgie,&rdquo; and the other birds joined in with
+      nonsense. The hedge was a half-painted picture which would be finished in
+      a few days. Celandines grew on its banks, lords and ladies and primroses
+      in the defended hollows; the wild rose-bushes, still bearing their
+      withered hips, showed also the promise of blossom. Spring had come, clad
+      in no classical garb, yet fairer than all springs; fairer even than she
+      who walks through the myrtles of Tuscany with the graces before her and
+      the zephyr behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two women walked up the lane full of outward civility. But Margaret
+      was thinking how difficult it was to be earnest about furniture on such a
+      day, and the niece was thinking about hats. Thus engaged, they reached
+      Howards End. Petulant cries of &ldquo;Auntie!&rdquo; severed the air. There was no
+      reply, and the front door was locked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure that Miss Avery is up here?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilcox, quite sure. She is here daily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret tried to look in through the dining-room window, but the curtain
+      inside was drawn tightly. So with the drawing-room and the hall. The
+      appearance of these curtains was familiar, yet she did not remember their
+      being there on her other visit; her impression was that Mr. Bryce had
+      taken everything away. They tried the back. Here again they received no
+      answer, and could see nothing; the kitchen-window was fitted with a blind,
+      while the pantry and scullery had pieces of wood propped up against them,
+      which looked ominously like the lids of packing-cases. Margaret thought of
+      her books, and she lifted up her voice also. At the first cry she
+      succeeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; replied some one inside the house. &ldquo;If it isn&rsquo;t Mrs. Wilcox
+      come at last!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you got the key, auntie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madge, go away,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, still invisible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Auntie, it&rsquo;s Mrs. Wilcox&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret supported her. &ldquo;Your niece and I have come together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor woman went red. &ldquo;Auntie gets more eccentric lately,&rdquo; she said
+      nervously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Avery!&rdquo; called Margaret. &ldquo;I have come about the furniture. Could you
+      kindly let me in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said the voice, &ldquo;of course.&rdquo; But after that came
+      silence. They called again without response. They walked round the house
+      disconsolately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope Miss Avery is not ill,&rdquo; hazarded Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you&rsquo;ll excuse me,&rdquo; said Madge, &ldquo;perhaps I ought to be leaving
+      you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie is so odd at
+      times.&rdquo; Gathering up her elegancies, she retired defeated, and, as if her
+      departure had loosed a spring, the front door opened at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery said, &ldquo;Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!&rdquo; quite pleasantly and
+      calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; began Margaret, but broke off at the sight of an
+      umbrella-stand. It was her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come right into the hall first,&rdquo; said Miss Avery. She drew the curtain,
+      and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling thing had
+      happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of the library from
+      Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big work-table drawn up near
+      the window; the bookcases filled the wall opposite the fireplace, and her
+      father&rsquo;s sword&mdash;this is what bewildered her particularly&mdash;had
+      been drawn from its scabbard and hung naked amongst the sober volumes.
+      Miss Avery must have worked for days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid this isn&rsquo;t what we meant,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;Mr. Wilcox and I never
+      intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these books are my
+      brother&rsquo;s. We are storing them for him and for my sister, who is abroad.
+      When you kindly undertook to look after things, we never expected you to
+      do so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house has been empty long enough,&rdquo; said the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret refused to argue. &ldquo;I dare say we didn&rsquo;t explain,&rdquo; she said
+      civilly. &ldquo;It has been a mistake, and very likely our mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years. The house
+      is Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s, and she would not desire it to stand empty any longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s house, the mother of Mr. Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistake upon mistake,&rdquo; said Miss Avery. &ldquo;Mistake upon mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Margaret, sitting down in one of her own
+      chairs. &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s to be done.&rdquo; She could not help
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other said: &ldquo;Yes, it should be a merry house enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery.
+      Yes, that&rsquo;s all right. Delightful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is still the parlour.&rdquo; She went through the door opposite and drew
+      a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from Wickham Place.
+      &ldquo;And the dining-room.&rdquo; More curtains were drawn, more windows were flung
+      open to the spring. &ldquo;Then through here&mdash;&rdquo; Miss Avery continued
+      passing and reprising through the hall. Her voice was lost, but Margaret
+      heard her pulling up the kitchen blind. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not finished here yet,&rdquo; she
+      announced, returning. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s still a deal to do. The farm lads will
+      carry your great wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into
+      expense at Hilton.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all a mistake,&rdquo; repeated Margaret, feeling that she must put her
+      foot down. &ldquo;A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not going to live at
+      Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and part of
+      this furniture&mdash;my part&mdash;will go down there presently.&rdquo; She
+      looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink in her brain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and humorous.
+      She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but unostentatious
+      nobility. &ldquo;You think that you won&rsquo;t come back to live here, Mrs. Wilcox,
+      but you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That remains to be seen,&rdquo; said Margaret, smiling. &ldquo;We have no intention
+      of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much larger house.
+      Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of course, some day&mdash;one
+      never knows, does one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery retorted: &ldquo;Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don&rsquo;t talk about some day. You
+      are living here now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if you ask
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty Margaret
+      rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been obscurely censured. They
+      went into the dining-room, where the sunlight poured in upon her mother&rsquo;s
+      chiffonier, and upstairs, where many an old god peeped from a new niche.
+      The furniture fitted extraordinarily well. In the central room&mdash;over
+      the hall, the room that Helen had slept in four years ago&mdash;Miss Avery
+      had placed Tibby&rsquo;s old bassinette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nursery,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret turned away without speaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last everything was seen. The kitchen and lobby were still stacked with
+      furniture and straw, but, as far as she could make out, nothing had been
+      broken or scratched. A pathetic display of ingenuity! Then they took a
+      friendly stroll in the garden. It had gone wild since her last visit. The
+      gravel sweep was weedy, and grass had sprung up at the very jaws of the
+      garage. And Evie&rsquo;s rockery was only bumps. Perhaps Evie was responsible
+      for Miss Avery&rsquo;s oddness. But Margaret suspected that the cause lay
+      deeper, and that the girl&rsquo;s silly letter had but loosed the irritation of
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautiful meadow,&rdquo; she remarked. It was one of those open-air
+      drawing-rooms that have been formed, hundreds of years ago, out of the
+      smaller fields. So the boundary hedge zigzagged down the hill at right
+      angles, and at the bottom there was a little green annex&mdash;a sort of
+      powder-closet for the cows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the maidy&rsquo;s well enough,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, &ldquo;for those, that is, who
+      don&rsquo;t suffer from sneezing.&rdquo; And she cackled maliciously. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen
+      Charlie Wilcox go out to my lads in hay time&mdash;oh, they ought to do
+      this&mdash;they mustn&rsquo;t do that&mdash;he&rsquo;d learn them to be lads. And just
+      then the tickling took him. He has it from his father, with other things.
+      There&rsquo;s not one Wilcox that can stand up against a field in June&mdash;I
+      laughed fit to burst while he was courting Ruth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My brother gets hay fever too,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This house lies too much on the land for them. Naturally, they were glad
+      enough to slip in at first. But Wilcoxes are better than nothing, as I see
+      you&rsquo;ve found.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They keep a place going, don&rsquo;t they? Yes, it is just that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They keep England going, it is my opinion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Miss Avery upset her by replying: &ldquo;Ay, they breed like rabbits. Well,
+      well, it&rsquo;s a funny world. But He who made it knows what He wants in it, I
+      suppose. If Mrs. Charlie is expecting her fourth, it isn&rsquo;t for us to
+      repine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They breed and they also work,&rdquo; said Margaret, conscious of some
+      invitation to disloyalty, which was echoed by the very breeze and by the
+      songs of the birds. &ldquo;It certainly is a funny world, but so long as men
+      like my husband and his sons govern it, I think it&rsquo;ll never be a bad one&mdash;never
+      really bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, better&rsquo;n nothing,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, and turned to the wych-elm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On their way back to the farm she spoke of her old friend much more
+      clearly than before. In the house Margaret had wondered whether she quite
+      distinguished the first wife from the second. Now she said: &ldquo;I never saw
+      much of Ruth after her grandmother died, but we stayed civil. It was a
+      very civil family. Old Mrs. Howard never spoke against anybody, nor let
+      any one be turned away without food. Then it was never &lsquo;Trespassers will
+      be prosecuted&rsquo; in their land, but would people please not come in? Mrs.
+      Howard was never created to run a farm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had they no men to help them?&rdquo; Margaret asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery replied: &ldquo;Things went on until there were no men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Until Mr. Wilcox came along,&rdquo; corrected Margaret, anxious that her
+      husband should receive his dues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so; but Ruth should have married a&mdash;no disrespect to you
+      to say this, for I take it you were intended to get Wilcox any way,
+      whether she got him first or no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom should she have married?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A soldier!&rdquo; exclaimed the old woman. &ldquo;Some real soldier.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. It was a criticism of Henry&rsquo;s character far more
+      trenchant than any of her own. She felt dissatisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s all over,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;A better time is coming now, though
+      you&rsquo;ve kept me long enough waiting. In a couple of weeks I&rsquo;ll see your
+      light shining through the hedge of an evening. Have you ordered in coals?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are not coming,&rdquo; said Margaret firmly. She respected Miss Avery too
+      much to humour her. &ldquo;No. Not coming. Never coming. It has all been a
+      mistake. The furniture must be repacked at once, and I am very sorry, but
+      I am making other arrangements, and must ask you to give me the keys.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, and resigned her duties with a
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Relieved at this conclusion, and having sent her compliments to Madge,
+      Margaret walked back to the station. She had intended to go to the
+      furniture warehouse and give directions for removal, but the muddle had
+      turned out more extensive than she expected, so she decided to consult
+      Henry. It was as well that she did this. He was strongly against employing
+      the local man whom he had previously recommended, and advised her to store
+      in London after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before this could be done an unexpected trouble fell upon her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It was not unexpected entirely. Aunt Juley&rsquo;s health had been bad all
+      winter. She had had a long series of colds and coughs, and had been too
+      busy to get rid of them. She had scarcely promised her niece &ldquo;to really
+      take my tiresome chest in hand,&rdquo; when she caught a chill and developed
+      acute pneumonia. Margaret and Tibby went down to Swanage. Helen was
+      telegraphed for, and that spring party that after all gathered in that
+      hospitable house had all the pathos of fair memories. On a perfect day,
+      when the sky seemed blue porcelain, and the waves of the discreet little
+      bay beat gentlest of tattoos upon the sand, Margaret hurried up through
+      the rhododendrons, confronted again by the senselessness of Death. One
+      death may explain itself, but it throws no light upon another; the groping
+      inquiry must begin anew. Preachers or scientists may generalise, but we
+      know that no generality is possible about those whom we love; not one
+      heaven awaits them, not even one oblivion. Aunt Juley, incapable of
+      tragedy, slipped out of life with odd little laughs and apologies for
+      having stopped in it so long. She was very weak; she could not rise to the
+      occasion, or realise the great mystery which all agree must await her; it
+      only seemed to her that she was quite done up&mdash;more done up than ever
+      before; that she saw and heard and felt less every moment; and that,
+      unless something changed, she would soon feel nothing. Her spare strength
+      she devoted to plans: could not Margaret take some steamer expeditions?
+      were mackerel cooked as Tibby liked them? She worried herself about
+      Helen&rsquo;s absence, and also that she should be the cause of Helen&rsquo;s return.
+      The nurses seemed to think such interests quite natural, and perhaps hers
+      was an average approach to the Great Gate. But Margaret saw Death stripped
+      of any false romance; whatever the idea of Death may contain, the process
+      can be trivial and hideous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Important&mdash;Margaret dear, take the Lulworth when Helen comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen won&rsquo;t be able to stop, Aunt Juley. She has telegraphed that she can
+      only get away just to see you. She must go back to Germany as soon as you
+      are well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very odd of Helen! Mr. Wilcox&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can he spare you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry wished her to come, and had been very kind. Yet again Margaret said
+      so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Munt did not die. Quite outside her will, a more dignified power took
+      hold of her and checked her on the downward slope. She returned, without
+      emotion, as fidgety as ever. On the fourth day she was out of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&mdash;important,&rdquo; it went on: &ldquo;I should like you to have some
+      companion to take walks with. Do try Miss Conder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been for a little walk with Miss Conder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she is not really interesting. If only you had Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have Tibby, Aunt Juley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but he has to do his Chinese. Some real companion is what you need.
+      Really, Helen is odd.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen is odd, very,&rdquo; agreed Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not content with going abroad, why does she want to go back there at
+      once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt she will change her mind when she sees us. She has not the least
+      balance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the stock criticism about Helen, but Margaret&rsquo;s voice trembled as
+      she made it. By now she was deeply pained at her sister&rsquo;s behaviour. It
+      may be unbalanced to fly out of England, but to stay away eight months
+      argues that the heart is awry as well as the head. A sick-bed could recall
+      Helen, but she was deaf to more human calls; after a glimpse at her aunt,
+      she would retire into her nebulous life behind some poste restante. She
+      scarcely existed; her letters had become dull and infrequent; she had no
+      wants and no curiosity. And it was all put down to poor Henry&rsquo;s account!
+      Henry, long pardoned by his wife, was still too infamous to be greeted by
+      his sister-in-law. It was morbid, and, to her alarm, Margaret fancied that
+      she could trace the growth of morbidity back in Helen&rsquo;s life for nearly
+      four years. The flight from Oniton; the unbalanced patronage of the Basts;
+      the explosion of grief up on the Downs&mdash;all connected with Paul, an
+      insignificant boy whose lips had kissed hers for a fraction of time.
+      Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox had feared that they might kiss again. Foolishly&mdash;the
+      real danger was reaction. Reaction against the Wilcoxes had eaten into her
+      life until she was scarcely sane. At twenty-five she had an idee fixe.
+      What hope was there for her as an old woman?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more Margaret thought about it the more alarmed she became. For many
+      months she had put the subject away, but it was too big to be slighted
+      now. There was almost a taint of madness. Were all Helen&rsquo;s actions to be
+      governed by a tiny mishap, such as may happen to any young man or woman?
+      Can human nature be constructed on lines so insignificant? The blundering
+      little encounter at Howards End was vital. It propagated itself where
+      graver intercourse lay barren; it was stronger than sisterly intimacy,
+      stronger than reason or books. In one of her moods Helen had confessed
+      that she still &ldquo;enjoyed&rdquo; it in a certain sense. Paul had faded, but the
+      magic of his caress endured. And where there is enjoyment of the past
+      there may also be reaction&mdash;propagation at both ends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, it is odd and sad that our minds should be such seed-beds, and we
+      without power to choose the seed. But man is an odd, sad creature as yet,
+      intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of the growths within himself.
+      He cannot be bored about psychology. He leaves it to the specialist, which
+      is as if he should leave his dinner to be eaten by a steam-engine. He
+      cannot be bothered to digest his own soul. Margaret and Helen have been
+      more patient, and it is suggested that Margaret has succeeded&mdash;so far
+      as success is yet possible. She does understand herself, she has some
+      rudimentary control over her own growth. Whether Helen has succeeded one
+      cannot say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day that Mrs. Munt rallied Helen&rsquo;s letter arrived. She had posted it
+      at Munich, and would be in London herself on the morrow. It was a
+      disquieting letter, though the opening was affectionate and sane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAREST MEG,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give Helen&rsquo;s love to Aunt Juley. Tell her that I love, and have loved her
+      ever since I can remember. I shall be in London Thursday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My address will be care of the bankers. I have not yet settled on a
+      hotel, so write or wire to me there and give me detailed news. If Aunt
+      Juley is much better, or if, for a terrible reason, it would be no good my
+      coming down to Swanage, you must not think it odd if I do not come. I have
+      all sorts of plans in my head. I am living abroad at present, and want to
+      get back as quickly as possible. Will you please tell me where our
+      furniture is? I should like to take out one or two books; the rest are for
+      you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, dearest Meg. This must read like rather a tiresome letter,
+      but all letters are from your loving
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;HELEN.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a tiresome letter, for it tempted Margaret to tell a lie. If she
+      wrote that Aunt Juley was still in danger her sister would come.
+      Unhealthiness is contagious. We cannot be in contact with those who are in
+      a morbid state without ourselves deteriorating. To &ldquo;act for the best&rdquo;
+       might do Helen good, but would do herself harm, and, at the risk of
+      disaster, she kept her colours flying a little longer. She replied that
+      their aunt was much better, and awaited developments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby approved of her reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a pleasanter
+      companion than before. Oxford had done much for him. He had lost his
+      peevishness, and could hide his indifference to people and his interest in
+      food. But he had not grown more human. The years between eighteen and
+      twenty-two, so magical for most, were leading him gently from boyhood to
+      middle age. He had never known young-manliness, that quality which warms
+      the heart till death, and gives Mr. Wilcox an imperishable charm. He was
+      frigid, through no fault of his own, and without cruelty. He thought Helen
+      wrong and Margaret right, but the family trouble was for him what a scene
+      behind footlights is for most people. He had only one suggestion to make,
+      and that was characteristic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you tell Mr. Wilcox?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he has come across that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would do all he could, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you know best. But he is practical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the student&rsquo;s belief in experts. Margaret demurred for one or two
+      reasons. Presently Helen&rsquo;s answer came. She sent a telegram requesting the
+      address of the furniture, as she would now return at once. Margaret
+      replied, &ldquo;Certainly not; meet me at the bankers&rsquo; at four.&rdquo; She and Tibby
+      went up to London. Helen was not at the bankers&rsquo;, and they were refused
+      her address. Helen had passed into chaos.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret put her arm round her brother. He was all that she had left, and
+      never had he seemed more unsubstantial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby love, what next?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied: &ldquo;It is extraordinary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear, your judgment&rsquo;s often clearer than mine. Have you any notion what&rsquo;s
+      at the back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None, unless it&rsquo;s something mental.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;that!&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Quite impossible.&rdquo; But the suggestion had
+      been uttered, and in a few minutes she took it up herself. Nothing else
+      explained. And London agreed with Tibby. The mask fell off the city, and
+      she saw it for what it really is&mdash;a caricature of infinity. The
+      familiar barriers, the streets along which she moved, the houses between
+      which she had made her little journeys for so many years, became
+      negligible suddenly. Helen seemed one with grimy trees and the traffic and
+      the slowly-flowing slabs of mud. She had accomplished a hideous act of
+      renunciation and returned to the One. Margaret&rsquo;s own faith held firm. She
+      knew the human soul will be merged, if it be merged at all, with the stars
+      and the sea. Yet she felt that her sister had been going amiss for many
+      years. It was symbolic the catastrophe should come now, on a London
+      afternoon, while rain fell slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was the only hope. Henry was definite. He might know of some paths
+      in the chaos that were hidden from them, and she determined to take
+      Tibby&rsquo;s advice and lay the whole matter in his hands. They must call at
+      his office. He could not well make it worse. She went for a few moments
+      into St. Paul&rsquo;s, whose dome stands out of the welter so bravely, as if
+      preaching the gospel of form. But within, St. Paul&rsquo;s is as its
+      surroundings&mdash;echoes and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible
+      mosaics, wet footmarks, crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum
+      requiris, circumspice; it points us back to London. There was no hope of
+      Helen here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry was unsatisfactory at first. That she had expected. He was overjoyed
+      to see her back from Swanage, and slow to admit the growth of a new
+      trouble. When they told him of their search, he only chaffed Tibby and the
+      Schlegels generally, and declared that it was &ldquo;just like Helen&rdquo; to lead
+      her relatives a dance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is what we all say,&rdquo; replied Margaret. &ldquo;But why should it be just
+      like Helen? Why should she be allowed to be so queer, and to grow
+      queerer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me. I&rsquo;m a plain man of business. I live and let live. My advice
+      to you both is, don&rsquo;t worry. Margaret, you&rsquo;ve got black marks again under
+      your eyes. You know that&rsquo;s strictly forbidden. First your aunt&mdash;then
+      your sister. No, we aren&rsquo;t going to have it. Are we, Theobald?&rdquo; He rang
+      the bell. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you some tea, and then you go straight to Ducie
+      Street. I can&rsquo;t have my girl looking as old as her husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same, you have not quite seen our point,&rdquo; said Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox, who was in good spirits, retorted, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t suppose I ever
+      shall.&rdquo; He leant back, laughing at the gifted but ridiculous family, while
+      the fire flickered over the map of Africa. Margaret motioned to her
+      brother to go on. Rather diffident, he obeyed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&rsquo;s point is this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Our sister may be mad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles, who was working in the inner room, looked round.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in, Charles,&rdquo; said Margaret kindly. &ldquo;Could you help us at all? We
+      are again in trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m afraid I cannot. What are the facts? We are all mad more or less, you
+      know, in these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The facts are as follows,&rdquo; replied Tibby, who had at times a pedantic
+      lucidity. &ldquo;The facts are that she has been in England for three days and
+      will not see us. She has forbidden the bankers to give us her address. She
+      refuses to answer questions. Margaret finds her letters colourless. There
+      are other facts, but these are the most striking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has never behaved like this before, then?&rdquo; asked Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not!&rdquo; said his wife, with a frown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear, how am I to know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A senseless spasm of annoyance came over her. &ldquo;You know quite well that
+      Helen never sins against affection,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You must have noticed that
+      much in her, surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes; she and I have always hit it off together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Henry&mdash;can&rsquo;t you see?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She recovered herself, but not before Charles had observed her. Stupid and
+      attentive, he was watching the scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was meaning that when she was eccentric in the past, one could trace it
+      back to the heart in the long-run. She behaved oddly because she cared for
+      some one, or wanted to help them. There&rsquo;s no possible excuse for her now.
+      She is grieving us deeply, and that is why I am sure that she is not well.
+      &lsquo;Mad&rsquo; is too terrible a word, but she is not well. I shall never believe
+      it. I shouldn&rsquo;t discuss my sister with you if I thought she was well&mdash;trouble
+      you about her, I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry began to grow serious. Ill-health was to him something perfectly
+      definite. Generally well himself, he could not realise that we sink to it
+      by slow gradations. The sick had no rights; they were outside the pale;
+      one could lie to them remorselessly. When his first wife was seized, he
+      had promised to take her down into Hertfordshire, but meanwhile arranged
+      with a nursing-home instead. Helen, too, was ill. And the plan that he
+      sketched out for her capture, clever and well-meaning as it was, drew its
+      ethics from the wolf-pack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You want to get hold of her?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the problem, isn&rsquo;t it? She
+      has got to see a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For all I know she has seen one already.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; don&rsquo;t interrupt.&rdquo; He rose to his feet and thought intently. The
+      genial, tentative host disappeared, and they saw instead the man who had
+      carved money out of Greece and Africa, and bought forests from the natives
+      for a few bottles of gin. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got it,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s perfectly
+      easy. Leave it to me. We&rsquo;ll send her down to Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How will you do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After her books. Tell her that she must unpack them herself. Then you can
+      meet her there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henry, that&rsquo;s just what she won&rsquo;t let me do. It&rsquo;s part of her&mdash;whatever
+      it is&mdash;never to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you won&rsquo;t tell her you&rsquo;re going. When she is there, looking at
+      the cases, you&rsquo;ll just stroll in. If nothing is wrong with her, so much
+      the better. But there&rsquo;ll be the motor round the corner, and we can run her
+      to a specialist in no time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret shook her head. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t seem impossible to me,&rdquo; said Tibby; &ldquo;it is surely a very tippy
+      plan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is impossible, because&mdash;&rdquo; She looked at her husband sadly. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+      not the particular language that Helen and I talk, if you see my meaning.
+      It would do splendidly for other people, whom I don&rsquo;t blame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Helen doesn&rsquo;t talk,&rdquo; said Tibby. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s our whole difficulty. She
+      won&rsquo;t talk your particular language, and on that account you think she&rsquo;s
+      ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Henry; it&rsquo;s sweet of you, but I couldn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you have scruples.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And sooner than go against them you would have your sister suffer. You
+      could have got her down to Swanage by a word, but you had scruples. And
+      scruples are all very well. I am as scrupulous as any man alive, I hope;
+      but when it is a case like this, when there is a question of madness&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I deny it&rsquo;s madness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said just now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s madness when I say it, but not when you say it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;Margaret! Margaret!&rdquo; he groaned. &ldquo;No
+      education can teach a woman logic. Now, my dear, my time is valuable. Do
+      you want me to help you or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Answer my question. Plain question, plain answer. Do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles surprised them by interrupting. &ldquo;Pater, we may as well keep
+      Howards End out of it,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Charles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles could give no reason; but Margaret felt as if, over tremendous
+      distance, a salutation had passed between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The whole house is at sixes and sevens,&rdquo; he said crossly. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want
+      any more mess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s &lsquo;we&rsquo;?&rdquo; asked his father. &ldquo;My boy, pray who&rsquo;s &lsquo;we&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said Charles. &ldquo;I appear always to be
+      intruding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By now Margaret wished she had never mentioned her trouble to her husband.
+      Retreat was impossible. He was determined to push the matter to a
+      satisfactory conclusion, and Helen faded as he talked. Her fair, flying
+      hair and eager eyes counted for nothing, for she was ill, without rights,
+      and any of her friends might hunt her. Sick at heart, Margaret joined in
+      the chase. She wrote her sister a lying letter, at her husband&rsquo;s
+      dictation; she said the furniture was all at Howards End, but could be
+      seen on Monday next at 3 P.M., when a charwoman would be in attendance. It
+      was a cold letter, and the more plausible for that. Helen would think she
+      was offended. And on Monday next she and Henry were to lunch with Dolly,
+      and then ambush themselves in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After they had gone, Mr. Wilcox said to his son: &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t have this sort
+      of behaviour, my boy. Margaret&rsquo;s too sweet-natured to mind, but I mind for
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles made no answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything wrong with you, Charles, this afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, pater; but you may be taking on a bigger business than you reckon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      One speaks of the moods of spring, but the days that are her true children
+      have only one mood; they are all full of the rising and dropping of winds,
+      and the whistling of birds. New flowers may come out, the green embroidery
+      of the hedges increase, but the same heaven broods overhead, soft, thick,
+      and blue, the same figures, seen and unseen, are wandering by coppice and
+      meadow. The morning that Margaret had spent with Miss Avery, and the
+      afternoon she set out to entrap Helen, were the scales of a single
+      balance. Time might never have moved, rain never have fallen, and man
+      alone, with his schemes and ailments, was troubling Nature until he saw
+      her through a veil of tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She protested no more. Whether Henry was right or wrong, he was most kind,
+      and she knew of no other standard by which to judge him. She must trust
+      him absolutely. As soon as he had taken up a business, his obtuseness
+      vanished. He profited by the slightest indications, and the capture of
+      Helen promised to be staged as deftly as the marriage of Evie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They went down in the morning as arranged, and he discovered that their
+      victim was actually in Hilton. On his arrival he called at all the
+      livery-stables in the village, and had a few minutes&rsquo; serious conversation
+      with the proprietors. What he said, Margaret did not know&mdash;perhaps
+      not the truth; but news arrived after lunch that a lady had come by the
+      London train, and had taken a fly to Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was bound to drive,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;There will be her books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot make it out,&rdquo; said Margaret for the hundredth time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finish your coffee, dear. We must be off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Margaret, you know you must take plenty,&rdquo; said Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret tried, but suddenly lifted her hand to her eyes. Dolly stole
+      glances at her father-in-law which he did not answer. In the silence the
+      motor came round to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not fit for it,&rdquo; he said anxiously. &ldquo;Let me go alone. I know
+      exactly what to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I am fit,&rdquo; said Margaret, uncovering her face. &ldquo;Only most
+      frightfully worried. I cannot feel that Helen is really alive. Her letters
+      and telegrams seem to have come from some one else. Her voice isn&rsquo;t in
+      them. I don&rsquo;t believe your driver really saw her at the station. I wish
+      I&rsquo;d never mentioned it. I know that Charles is vexed. Yes, he is&mdash;&rdquo;
+       She seized Dolly&rsquo;s hand and kissed it. &ldquo;There, Dolly will forgive me.
+      There. Now we&rsquo;ll be off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry had been looking at her closely. He did not like this breakdown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you want to tidy yourself?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, plenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to the lavatory by the front door, and as soon as the bolt
+      slipped, Mr. Wilcox said quietly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dolly, I&rsquo;m going without her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly&rsquo;s eyes lit up with vulgar excitement. She followed him on tiptoe out
+      to the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her I thought it best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say anything you like. All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The car started well, and with ordinary luck would have got away. But
+      Porgly-woggles, who was playing in the garden, chose this moment to sit
+      down in the middle of the path. Crane, in trying to pass him, ran one
+      wheel over a bed of wallflowers. Dolly screamed. Margaret, hearing the
+      noise, rushed out hatless, and was in time to jump on the footboard. She
+      said not a single word; he was only treating her as she had treated Helen,
+      and her rage at his dishonesty only helped to indicate what Helen would
+      feel against them. She thought, &ldquo;I deserve it; I am punished for lowering
+      my colours.&rdquo; And she accepted his apologies with a calmness that
+      astonished him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I still consider you are not fit for it,&rdquo; he kept saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I was not at lunch. But the whole thing is spread clearly before
+      me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was meaning to act for the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just lend me your scarf, will you. This wind takes one&rsquo;s hair so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, dear girl. Are you all right now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! My hands have stopped trembling.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have quite forgiven me? Then listen. Her cab should already have
+      arrived at Howards End. (We&rsquo;re a little late, but no matter.) Our first
+      move will be to send it down to wait at the farm, as, if possible, one
+      doesn&rsquo;t want a scene before servants. A certain gentleman&rdquo;&mdash;he
+      pointed at Crane&rsquo;s back&mdash;&ldquo;won&rsquo;t drive in, but will wait a little
+      short of the front gate, behind the laurels. Have you still the keys of
+      the house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they aren&rsquo;t wanted. Do you remember how the house stands?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t find her in the porch, we can stroll round into the garden.
+      Our object&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here they stopped to pick up the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just saying to my wife, Mansbridge, that our main object is not to
+      frighten Miss Schlegel. The house, as you know, is my property, so it
+      should seem quite natural for us to be there. The trouble is evidently
+      nervous&mdash;wouldn&rsquo;t you say so, Margaret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, a very young man, began to ask questions about Helen. Was she
+      normal? Was there anything congenital or hereditary? Had anything occurred
+      that was likely to alienate her from her family?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; answered Margaret, wondering what would have happened if she
+      had added: &ldquo;Though she did resent my husband&rsquo;s immorality.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She always was highly strung,&rdquo; pursued Henry, leaning back in the car as
+      it shot past the church. &ldquo;A tendency to spiritualism and those things,
+      though nothing serious. Musical, literary, artistic, but I should say
+      normal&mdash;a very charming girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret&rsquo;s anger and terror increased every moment. How dare these men
+      label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What impertinences that shelter
+      under the name of science! The pack was turning on Helen, to deny her
+      human rights, and it seemed to Margaret that all Schlegels were threatened
+      with her. &ldquo;Were they normal?&rdquo; What a question to ask! And it is always
+      those who know nothing about human nature, who are bored by psychology&mdash;and
+      shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her sister&rsquo;s state, she
+      knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad together if the world
+      chose to consider them so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was now five minutes past three. The car slowed down by the farm, in
+      the yard of which Miss Avery was standing. Henry asked her whether a cab
+      had gone past. She nodded, and the next moment they caught sight of it, at
+      the end of the lane. The car ran silently like a beast of prey. So
+      unsuspicious was Helen that she was sitting in the porch, with her back to
+      the road. She had come. Only her head and shoulders were visible. She sat
+      framed in the vine, and one of her hands played with the buds. The wind
+      ruffled her hair, the sun glorified it; she was as she had always been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was seated next to the door. Before her husband could prevent
+      her, she slipped out. She ran to the garden gate, which was shut, passed
+      through it, and deliberately pushed it in his face. The noise alarmed
+      Helen. Margaret saw her rise with an unfamiliar movement, and, rushing
+      into the porch, learnt the simple explanation of all their fears&mdash;her
+      sister was with child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the truant all right?&rdquo; called Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had time to whisper: &ldquo;Oh, my darling&mdash;&rdquo; The keys of the house
+      were in her hand. She unlocked Howards End and thrust Helen into it. &ldquo;Yes,
+      all right,&rdquo; she said, and stood with her back to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, you look upset!&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mansbridge had followed. Crane was at the gate, and the flyman had stood
+      up on the box. Margaret shook her head at them; she could not speak any
+      more. She remained clutching the keys, as if all their future depended on
+      them. Henry was asking more questions. She shook her head again. His words
+      had no sense. She heard him wonder why she had let Helen in. &ldquo;You might
+      have given me a knock with the gate,&rdquo; was another of his remarks.
+      Presently she heard herself speaking. She, or someone for her, said, &ldquo;Go
+      away.&rdquo; Henry came nearer. He repeated, &ldquo;Margaret, you look upset again. My
+      dear, give me the keys. What are you doing with Helen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, dearest, do go away, and I will manage it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Manage what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stretched out his hand for the keys. She might have obeyed if it had
+      not been for the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop that at least,&rdquo; she said piteously; the doctor had turned back, and
+      was questioning the driver of Helen&rsquo;s cab. A new feeling came over her;
+      she was fighting for women against men. She did not care about rights, but
+      if men came into Howards End, it should be over her body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, this is an odd beginning,&rdquo; said her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor came forward now, and whispered two words to Mr. Wilcox&mdash;the
+      scandal was out. Sincerely horrified, Henry stood gazing at the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot help it,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Do wait. It&rsquo;s not my fault. Please all
+      four of you go away now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the flyman was whispering to Crane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are relying on you to help us, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said the young doctor.
+      &ldquo;Could you go in and persuade your sister to come out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On what grounds?&rdquo; said Margaret, suddenly looking him straight in the
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking it professional to prevaricate, he murmured something about a
+      nervous breakdown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, but it is nothing of the sort. You are not qualified
+      to attend my sister, Mr. Mansbridge. If we require your services, we will
+      let you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can diagnose the case more bluntly if you wish,&rdquo; he retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could, but you have not. You are, therefore, not qualified to attend
+      my sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, Margaret!&rdquo; said Henry, never raising his eyes. &ldquo;This is a
+      terrible business, an appalling business. It&rsquo;s doctor&rsquo;s orders. Open the
+      door.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, but I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This business is as broad as it&rsquo;s long,&rdquo; contributed the doctor. &ldquo;We had
+      better all work together. You need us, Mrs. Wilcox, and we need you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite so,&rdquo; said Henry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not need you in the least,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men looked at each other anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more does my sister, who is still many weeks from her confinement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret, Margaret!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Henry, send your doctor away. What possible use is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox ran his eye over the house. He had a vague feeling that he must
+      stand firm and support the doctor. He himself might need support, for
+      there was trouble ahead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It all turns on affection now,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Affection. Don&rsquo;t you
+      see?&rdquo; Resuming her usual methods, she wrote the word on the house with her
+      finger. &ldquo;Surely you see. I like Helen very much, you not so much. Mr.
+      Mansbridge doesn&rsquo;t know her. That&rsquo;s all. And affection, when reciprocated,
+      gives rights. Put that down in your note-book, Mr. Mansbridge. It&rsquo;s a
+      useful formula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry told her to be calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what you want yourselves,&rdquo; said Margaret, folding her
+      arms. &ldquo;For one sensible remark I will let you in. But you cannot make it.
+      You would trouble my sister for no reason. I will not permit it. I&rsquo;ll
+      stand here all the day sooner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mansbridge,&rdquo; said Henry in a low voice, &ldquo;perhaps not now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pack was breaking up. At a sign from his master, Crane also went back
+      into the car.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Henry, you,&rdquo; she said gently. None of her bitterness had been
+      directed at him. &ldquo;Go away now, dear. I shall want your advice later, no
+      doubt. Forgive me if I have been cross. But, seriously, you must go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too stupid to leave her. Now it was Mr. Mansbridge who called in a
+      low voice to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall soon find you down at Dolly&rsquo;s,&rdquo; she called, as the gate at last
+      clanged between them. The fly moved out of the way, the motor backed,
+      turned a little, backed again, and turned in the narrow road. A string of
+      farm carts came up in the middle; but she waited through all, for there
+      was no hurry. When all was over and the car had started, she opened the
+      door. &ldquo;Oh, my darling!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My darling, forgive me.&rdquo; Helen was
+      standing in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Margaret bolted the door on the inside. Then she would have kissed her
+      sister, but Helen, in a dignified voice, that came strangely from her,
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Convenient! You did not tell me that the books were unpacked. I have
+      found nearly everything that I want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you nothing that was true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been a great surprise, certainly. Has Aunt Juley been ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you wouldn&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d invent that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not,&rdquo; said Helen, turning away, and crying a very little. &ldquo;But
+      one loses faith in everything after this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We thought it was illness, but even then&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t behaved
+      worthily.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen selected another book.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought not to have consulted any one. What would our father have thought
+      of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not think of questioning her sister, or of rebuking her. Both
+      might be necessary in the future, but she had first to purge a greater
+      crime than any that Helen could have committed&mdash;that want of
+      confidence that is the work of the devil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am annoyed,&rdquo; replied Helen. &ldquo;My wishes should have been respected.
+      I would have gone through this meeting if it was necessary, but after Aunt
+      Juley recovered, it was not necessary. Planning my life, as I now have to
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away from those books,&rdquo; called Margaret. &ldquo;Helen, do talk to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just saying that I have stopped living haphazard. One can&rsquo;t go
+      through a great deal of &mdash;&rdquo;&mdash;she left out the noun&mdash;&ldquo;without
+      planning one&rsquo;s actions in advance. I am going to have a child in June, and
+      in the first place conversations, discussions, excitement, are not good
+      for me. I will go through them if necessary, but only then. In the second
+      place I have no right to trouble people. I cannot fit in with England as I
+      know it. I have done something that the English never pardon. It would not
+      be right for them to pardon it. So I must live where I am not known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why didn&rsquo;t you tell me, dearest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Helen judicially. &ldquo;I might have, but decided to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you would never have told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I should. We have taken a flat in Munich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret glanced out of the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By &lsquo;we&rsquo; I mean myself and Monica. But for her, I am and have been and
+      always wish to be alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not heard of Monica.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn&rsquo;t have. She&rsquo;s an Italian&mdash;by birth at least. She makes
+      her living by journalism. I met her originally on Garda. Monica is much
+      the best person to see me through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very fond of her, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has been extraordinarily sensible with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret guessed at Monica&rsquo;s type&mdash;&ldquo;Italiano Inglesiato&rdquo; they had
+      named it&mdash;the crude feminist of the South, whom one respects but
+      avoids. And Helen had turned to it in her need!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not think that we shall never meet,&rdquo; said Helen, with a measured
+      kindness. &ldquo;I shall always have a room for you when you can be spared, and
+      the longer you can be with me the better. But you haven&rsquo;t understood yet,
+      Meg, and of course it is very difficult for you. This is a shock to you.
+      It isn&rsquo;t to me, who have been thinking over our futures for many months,
+      and they won&rsquo;t be changed by a slight contretemps, such as this. I cannot
+      live in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, you&rsquo;ve not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN&rsquo;T talk like
+      this to me if you had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?&rdquo; She dropped a book and sighed
+      wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: &ldquo;Tell me, how is it that all
+      the books are down here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Series of mistakes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who lives here, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you are letting it, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house is dead,&rdquo; said Margaret, with a frown. &ldquo;Why worry on about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest in life. I
+      am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn&rsquo;t the feel of a dead house. The hall
+      seems more alive even than in the old days, when it held the Wilcoxes&rsquo; own
+      things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My husband
+      lent it on condition we&mdash;but by a mistake all our things were
+      unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped. &ldquo;Look here, I
+      can&rsquo;t go on like this. I warn you I won&rsquo;t. Helen, why should you be so
+      miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hate him now,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;I have stopped being a schoolgirl,
+      and, Meg, once again, I&rsquo;m not being unkind. But as for fitting in with
+      your English life&mdash;no, put it out of your head at once. Imagine a
+      visit from me at Ducie Street! It&rsquo;s unthinkable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her quietly
+      moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable, neither asserting
+      innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring freedom and the company of
+      those who would not blame her. She had been through&mdash;how much?
+      Margaret did not know. But it was enough to part her from old habits as
+      well as old friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about yourself,&rdquo; said Helen, who had chosen her books, and was
+      lingering over the furniture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing to tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your marriage has been happy, Meg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I don&rsquo;t feel inclined to talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You feel as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that, but I can&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which
+      henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life, already
+      potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place. Both suffered
+      acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge that affection survived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that you want to go away from me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so&mdash;dear old lady! it isn&rsquo;t any use. I knew we should have
+      nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and take more
+      yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in Munich later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, dearest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For that is all we can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen&rsquo;s common sense; Monica had
+      been extraordinarily good for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to have seen you and the things.&rdquo; She looked at the bookcase
+      lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: &ldquo;The car has gone, and here&rsquo;s
+      your cab.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The spring had
+      never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was leaning on the gate,
+      called out, &ldquo;Please, lady, a message,&rdquo; and handed her Henry&rsquo;s
+      visiting-card through the bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did this come?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Crane had returned with it almost at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with instructions in
+      domestic French. When she and her sister had talked she was to come back
+      for the night to Dolly&rsquo;s. &ldquo;Il faut dormir sur ce sujet.&rdquo; while Helen was
+      to be found une comfortable chambre a l&rsquo;hotel. The final sentence
+      displeased her greatly until she remembered that the Charles&rsquo;s had only
+      one spare room, and so could not invite a third guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry would have done what he could,&rdquo; she interpreted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open, she lost
+      her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going from bookcase to
+      table. She grew more like the old Helen, irresponsible and charming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This IS Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s house?&rdquo; she inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you remember Howards End?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Avery was extraordinary,&rdquo; said Margaret, her own spirits lightening
+      a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of disloyalty. But it
+      brought her relief, and she yielded to it. &ldquo;She loved Mrs. Wilcox, and
+      would rather furnish her home with our things than think of it empty. In
+      consequence here are all the library books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all the books. She hasn&rsquo;t unpacked the Art books, in which she may
+      show her sense. And we never used to have the sword here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sword looks well, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Magnificent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, doesn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s the piano, Meg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I warehoused that in London. Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Curious, too, that the carpet fits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The carpet&rsquo;s a mistake,&rdquo; announced Helen. &ldquo;I know that we had it in
+      London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to come into
+      the dining-room before you start? There&rsquo;s no carpet there.&rdquo;
+      </p>
+     <p>
+      They went in, and each minute their talk became more natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, WHAT a place for mother&rsquo;s chiffonier!&rdquo; cried Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at the chairs, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;North-west.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun.
+      Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es. The window&rsquo;s too high.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try a drawing-room chair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been
+      match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You&rsquo;re perfectly right.
+      It&rsquo;s a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for women.
+      Men don&rsquo;t know what we want&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And never will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree. In two thousand years they&rsquo;ll know. Look where Tibby spilt
+      the soup.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Coffee. It was coffee surely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen shook her head. &ldquo;Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given
+      coffee at that time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was father alive?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you&rsquo;re right and it must have been soup. I was thinking of much
+      later&mdash;that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley&rsquo;s, when she didn&rsquo;t realise
+      that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on purpose. There was
+      some rhyme, &lsquo;Tea, coffee&mdash;coffee tea,&rsquo; that she said to him every
+      morning at breakfast. Wait a minute&mdash;how did it go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;no, I don&rsquo;t. What a detestable boy Tibby was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that greengage-tree,&rdquo; cried Helen, as if the garden was also part of
+      their childhood. &ldquo;Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come the
+      chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love yellow-hammers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret interrupted her. &ldquo;I have got it,&rdquo; she announced.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+       &ldquo;&lsquo;Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
+         Or chocolaritee.&rsquo;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tibby is moderately a dear now,&rdquo; said Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! I knew you&rsquo;d say that in the end. Of course he&rsquo;s a dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A bell rang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen! what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen said, &ldquo;Perhaps the Wilcoxes are beginning the siege.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What nonsense&mdash;listen!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the triviality faded from their faces, though it left something behind&mdash;the
+      knowledge that they never could be parted because their love was rooted in
+      common things. Explanations and appeals had failed; they had tried for a
+      common meeting-ground, and had only made each other unhappy. And all the
+      time their salvation was lying round them&mdash;the past sanctifying the
+      present; the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring that there would
+      after all be a future with laughter and the voices of children. Helen,
+      still smiling, came up to her sister. She said, &ldquo;It is always Meg.&rdquo; They
+      looked into each other&rsquo;s eyes. The inner life had paid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solemnly the clapper tolled. No one was in the front. Margaret went to the
+      kitchen, and struggled between packing-cases to the window. Their visitor
+      was only a little boy with a tin can. And triviality returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Little boy, what do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, I am the milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Miss Avery send you?&rdquo; said Margaret, rather sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then take it back and say we require no milk.&rdquo; While she called to Helen,
+      &ldquo;No, it&rsquo;s not the siege, but possibly an attempt to provision us against
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I like milk,&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;Why send it away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you? Oh, very well. But we&rsquo;ve nothing to put it in, and he wants the
+      can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, I&rsquo;m to call in the morning for the can,&rdquo; said the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house will be locked up then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the morning would I bring eggs too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you the boy whom I saw playing in the stacks last week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The child hung his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, run away and do it again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nice little boy,&rdquo; whispered Helen. &ldquo;I say, what&rsquo;s your name? Mine&rsquo;s
+      Helen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was Helen all over. The Wilcoxes, too, would ask a child its name,
+      but they never told their names in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tom, this one here is Margaret. And at home we&rsquo;ve another called Tibby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine are lop-eareds,&rdquo; replied Tom, supposing Tibby to be a rabbit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a very good and rather a clever little boy. Mind you come again.&mdash;Isn&rsquo;t
+      he charming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;He is probably the son of Madge, and Madge
+      is dreadful. But this place has wonderful powers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I probably agree with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It kills what is dreadful and makes what is beautiful live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do agree,&rdquo; said Helen, as she sipped the milk. &ldquo;But you said that the
+      house was dead not half an hour ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meaning that I was dead. I felt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the house has a surer life than we, even if it was empty, and, as it
+      is, I can&rsquo;t get over that for thirty years the sun has never shone full on
+      our furniture. After all, Wickham Place was a grave. Meg, I&rsquo;ve a startling
+      idea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink some milk to steady you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won&rsquo;t tell you yet,&rdquo; said Helen, &ldquo;because you may laugh or be
+      angry. Let&rsquo;s go upstairs first and give the rooms an airing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They opened window after window, till the inside, too, was rustling to the
+      spring. Curtains blew, picture frames tapped cheerfully. Helen uttered
+      cries of excitement as she found this bed obviously in its right place,
+      that in its wrong one. She was angry with Miss Avery for not having moved
+      the wardrobes up. &ldquo;Then one would see really.&rdquo; She admired the view. She
+      was the Helen who had written the memorable letters four years ago. As
+      they leant out, looking westward, she said: &ldquo;About my idea. Couldn&rsquo;t you
+      and I camp out in this house for the night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think we could well do that,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are beds, tables, towels&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know; but the house isn&rsquo;t supposed to be slept in, and Henry&rsquo;s
+      suggestion was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I require no suggestions. I shall not alter anything in my plans. But it
+      would give me so much pleasure to have one night here with you. It will be
+      something to look back on. Oh, Meg lovey, do let&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Helen, my pet,&rdquo; said Margaret, &ldquo;we can&rsquo;t without getting Henry&rsquo;s
+      leave. Of course, he would give it, but you said yourself that you
+      couldn&rsquo;t visit at Ducie Street now, and this is equally intimate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ducie Street is his house. This is ours. Our furniture, our sort of
+      people coming to the door. Do let us camp out, just one night, and Tom
+      shall feed us on eggs and milk. Why not? It&rsquo;s a moon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret hesitated. &ldquo;I feel Charles wouldn&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; she said at last.
+      &ldquo;Even our furniture annoyed him, and I was going to clear it out when Aunt
+      Juley&rsquo;s illness prevented me. I sympathise with Charles. He feels it&rsquo;s his
+      mother&rsquo;s house. He loves it in rather an untaking way. Henry I could
+      answer for&mdash;not Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he won&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;But I am going to pass out of
+      their lives. What difference will it make in the long run if they say,
+      &lsquo;And she even spent the night at Howards End&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know you&rsquo;ll pass out of their lives? We have thought that
+      twice before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because my plans&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;which you change in a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then because my life is great and theirs are little,&rdquo; said Helen, taking
+      fire. &ldquo;I know of things they can&rsquo;t know of, and so do you. We know that
+      there&rsquo;s poetry. We know that there&rsquo;s death. They can only take them on
+      hearsay. We know this is our house, because it feels ours. Oh, they may
+      take the title-deeds and the door-keys, but for this one night we are at
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be lovely to have you once more alone,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;It may
+      be a chance in a thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and we could talk.&rdquo; She dropped her voice. &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t be a very
+      glorious story. But under that wych-elm&mdash;honestly, I see little
+      happiness ahead. Cannot I have this one night with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I needn&rsquo;t say how much it would mean to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no good hesitating. Shall I drive down to Hilton now and get
+      leave?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we don&rsquo;t want leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Margaret was a loyal wife. In spite of imagination and poetry&mdash;perhaps
+      on account of them&mdash;she could sympathise with the technical attitude
+      that Henry would adopt. If possible, she would be technical, too. A
+      night&rsquo;s lodging&mdash;and they demanded no more&mdash;need not involve the
+      discussion of general principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charles may say no,&rdquo; grumbled Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shan&rsquo;t consult him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go if you like; I should have stopped without leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the touch of selfishness, which was not enough to mar Helen&rsquo;s
+      character, and even added to its beauty. She would have stopped without
+      leave and escaped to Germany the next morning. Margaret kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Expect me back before dark. I am looking forward to it so much. It is
+      like you to have thought of such a beautiful thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a thing, only an ending,&rdquo; said Helen rather sadly; and the sense of
+      tragedy closed in on Margaret again as soon as she left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was afraid of Miss Avery. It is disquieting to fulfil a prophecy,
+      however superficially. She was glad to see no watching figure as she drove
+      past the farm, but only little Tom, turning somersaults in the straw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The tragedy began quietly enough, and, like many another talk, by the
+      man&rsquo;s deft assertion of his superiority. Henry heard her arguing with the
+      driver, stepped out and settled the fellow, who was inclined to be rude,
+      and then led the way to some chairs on the lawn. Dolly, who had not been
+      &ldquo;told,&rdquo; ran out with offers of tea. He refused them, and ordered them to
+      wheel baby&rsquo;s perambulator away, as they desired to be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the diddums can&rsquo;t listen; he isn&rsquo;t nine months old,&rdquo; she pleaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not what I was saying,&rdquo; retorted her father-in-law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Baby was wheeled out of earshot, and did not hear about the crisis till
+      later years. It was now the turn of Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it what we feared?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear girl,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;there is a troublesome business ahead of us, and
+      nothing but the most absolute honesty and plain speech will see us
+      through.&rdquo; Margaret bent her head. &ldquo;I am obliged to question you on
+      subjects we&rsquo;d both prefer to leave untouched. As you know, I am not one of
+      your Bernard Shaws who consider nothing sacred. To speak as I must will
+      pain me, but there are occasions&mdash;We are husband and wife, not
+      children. I am a man of the world, and you are a most exceptional woman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All Margaret&rsquo;s senses forsook her. She blushed, and looked past him at the
+      Six Hills, covered with spring herbage. Noting her colour, he grew still
+      more kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see that you feel as I felt when&mdash;My poor little wife! Oh, be
+      brave! Just one or two questions, and I have done with you. Was your
+      sister wearing a wedding-ring?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret stammered a &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an appalling silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, I really came to ask a favour about Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One point at a time. I am now obliged to ask for the name of her
+      seducer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to her feet and held the chair between them. Her colour had
+      ebbed, and she was grey. It did not displease him that she should receive
+      his question thus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your time,&rdquo; he counselled her. &ldquo;Remember that this is far worse for
+      me than for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She swayed; he feared she was going to faint. Then speech came, and she
+      said slowly: &ldquo;Seducer? No; I do not know her seducer&rsquo;s name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would she not tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never even asked her who seduced her,&rdquo; said Margaret, dwelling on the
+      hateful word thoughtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is singular.&rdquo; Then he changed his mind. &ldquo;Natural perhaps, dear girl,
+      that you shouldn&rsquo;t ask. But until his name is known, nothing can be done.
+      Sit down. How terrible it is to see you so upset! I knew you weren&rsquo;t fit
+      for it. I wish I hadn&rsquo;t taken you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret answered, &ldquo;I like to stand, if you don&rsquo;t mind, for it gives me a
+      pleasant view of the Six Hills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you anything else to ask me, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next you must tell me whether you have gathered anything. I have often
+      noticed your insight, dear. I only wish my own was as good. You may have
+      guessed something, even though your sister said nothing. The slightest
+      hint would help us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is &lsquo;we&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought it best to ring up Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was unnecessary,&rdquo; said Margaret, growing warmer. &ldquo;This news will
+      give Charles disproportionate pain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has at once gone to call on your brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That too was unnecessary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me explain, dear, how the matter stands. You don&rsquo;t think that I and
+      my son are other than gentlemen? It is in Helen&rsquo;s interests that we are
+      acting. It is still not too late to save her name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Margaret hit out for the first time. &ldquo;Are we to make her seducer
+      marry her?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If possible, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Henry, suppose he turned out to be married already? One has heard of
+      such cases.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case he must pay heavily for his misconduct, and be thrashed
+      within an inch of his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So her first blow missed. She was thankful of it. What had tempted her to
+      imperil both of their lives. Henry&rsquo;s obtuseness had saved her as well as
+      himself. Exhausted with anger, she sat down again, blinking at him as he
+      told her as much as he thought fit. At last she said: &ldquo;May I ask you my
+      question now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To-morrow Helen goes to Munich&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, possibly she is right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henry, let a lady finish. To-morrow she goes; to-night, with your
+      permission, she would like to sleep at Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the crisis of his life. Again she would have recalled the words as
+      soon as they were uttered. She had not led up to them with sufficient
+      care. She longed to warn him that they were far more important than he
+      supposed. She saw him weighing them, as if they were a business
+      proposition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why Howards End?&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;Would she not be more comfortable, as
+      I suggested, at the hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret hastened to give him reasons. &ldquo;It is an odd request, but you know
+      what Helen is and what women in her state are.&rdquo; He frowned, and moved
+      irritably. &ldquo;She has the idea that one night in your house would give her
+      pleasure and do her good. I think she&rsquo;s right. Being one of those
+      imaginative girls, the presence of all our books and furniture soothes
+      her. This is a fact. It is the end of her girlhood. Her last words to me
+      were, &lsquo;A beautiful ending.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She values the old furniture for sentimental reasons, in fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly. You have quite understood. It is her last hope of being with
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t agree there, my dear! Helen will have her share of the goods
+      wherever she goes&mdash;possibly more than her share, for you are so fond
+      of her that you&rsquo;d give her anything of yours that she fancies, wouldn&rsquo;t
+      you? and I&rsquo;d raise no objection. I could understand it if it was her old
+      home, because a home, or a house,&rdquo; he changed the word, designedly; he had
+      thought of a telling point&mdash;&ldquo;because a house in which one has once
+      lived becomes in a sort of way sacred, I don&rsquo;t know why. Associations and
+      so on. Now Helen has no associations with Howards End, though I and
+      Charles and Evie have. I do not see why she wants to stay the night there.
+      She will only catch cold.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it that you don&rsquo;t see,&rdquo; cried Margaret. &ldquo;Call it fancy. But realise
+      that fancy is a scientific fact. Helen is fanciful, and wants to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he surprised her&mdash;a rare occurrence. He shot an unexpected bolt.
+      &ldquo;If she wants to sleep one night she may want to sleep two. We shall never
+      get her out of the house, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Margaret, with the precipice in sight. &ldquo;And suppose we don&rsquo;t
+      get her out of the house? Would it matter? She would do no one any harm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the irritated gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Henry,&rdquo; she panted, receding. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mean that. We will only
+      trouble Howards End for this one night. I take her to London to-morrow&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you intend to sleep in a damp house, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She cannot be left alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s quite impossible! Madness. You must be here to meet Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have already told you that your message to Charles was unnecessary, and
+      I have no desire to meet him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margaret&mdash;my Margaret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has this business to do with Charles? If it concerns me little, it
+      concerns you less, and Charles not at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As the future owner of Howards End,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox arching his fingers,
+      &ldquo;I should say that it did concern Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way? Will Helen&rsquo;s condition depreciate the property?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, you are forgetting yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you yourself recommended plain speaking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They looked at each other in amazement. The precipice was at their feet
+      now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Helen commands my sympathy,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;As your husband, I shall do all
+      for her that I can, and I have no doubt that she will prove more sinned
+      against than sinning. But I cannot treat her as if nothing has happened. I
+      should be false to my position in society if I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She controlled herself for the last time. &ldquo;No, let us go back to Helen&rsquo;s
+      request,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is unreasonable, but the request of an unhappy
+      girl. Tomorrow she will go to Germany, and trouble society no longer.
+      To-night she asks to sleep in your empty house&mdash;a house which you do
+      not care about, and which you have not occupied for over a year. May she?
+      Will you give my sister leave? Will you forgive her as you hope to be
+      forgiven, and as you have actually been forgiven? Forgive her for one
+      night only. That will be enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I have actually been forgiven&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind for the moment what I mean by that,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;Answer my
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps some hint of her meaning did dawn on him. If so, he blotted it
+      out. Straight from his fortress he answered: &ldquo;I seem rather
+      unaccommodating, but I have some experience of life, and know how one
+      thing leads to another. I am afraid that your sister had better sleep at
+      the hotel. I have my children and the memory of my dear wife to consider.
+      I am sorry, but see that she leaves my house at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have mentioned Mrs. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A rare occurrence. In reply, may I mention Mrs. Bast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have not been yourself all day,&rdquo; said Henry, and rose from his seat
+      with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized both his hands. She
+      was transfigured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not any more of this!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You shall see the connection if it
+      kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress&mdash;I forgave you. My sister
+      has a lover&mdash;you drive her from the house. Do you see the connection?
+      Stupid, hypocritical, cruel&mdash;oh, contemptible!&mdash;a man who
+      insults his wife when she&rsquo;s alive and cants with her memory when she&rsquo;s
+      dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure, and casts her off to ruin
+      other men. And gives bad financial advice, and then says he is not
+      responsible. These men are you. You can&rsquo;t recognise them, because you
+      cannot connect. I&rsquo;ve had enough of your unneeded kindness. I&rsquo;ve spoilt you
+      long enough. All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you.
+      No one has ever told what you are&mdash;muddled, criminally muddled. Men
+      like you use repentance as a blind, so don&rsquo;t repent. Only say to yourself,
+      &lsquo;What Helen has done, I&rsquo;ve done.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The two cases are different,&rdquo; Henry stammered. His real retort was not
+      quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he wanted a little
+      longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only herself.
+      You remain in society, Helen can&rsquo;t. You have had only pleasure, she may
+      die. You have the insolence to talk to me of differences, Henry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, the uselessness of it! Henry&rsquo;s retort came.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I perceive you are attempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty weapon
+      for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through life has been never
+      to pay the least attention to threats, and I can only repeat what I said
+      before: I do not give you and your sister leave to sleep at Howards End.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first one and
+      then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she stood looking at the
+      Six Hills, tombs of warriors, breasts of the spring. Then she passed out
+      into what was now the evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying. Their
+      interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the English
+      language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them
+      understood. Charles saw in Helen the family foe. He had singled her out as
+      the most dangerous of the Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked forward
+      to telling his wife how right he had been. His mind was made up at once;
+      the girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them farther. If
+      occasion offered she might be married to a villain, or, possibly, to a
+      fool. But this was a concession to morality, it formed no part of his main
+      scheme. Honest and hearty was Charles&rsquo;s dislike, and the past spread
+      itself out very clearly before him; hatred is a skilful compositor. As if
+      they were heads in a note-book, he ran through all the incidents of the
+      Schlegels&rsquo; campaign: the attempt to compromise his brother, his mother&rsquo;s
+      legacy, his father&rsquo;s marriage, the introduction of the furniture, the
+      unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the request to sleep at
+      Howards End; that was to be their master-stroke and the opportunity for
+      his. But he already felt that Howards End was the objective, and, though
+      he disliked the house, was determined to defend it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the conventions:
+      his sister had a right to do what she thought right. It is not difficult
+      to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages among them; men
+      can always be more unconventional than women, and a bachelor of
+      independent means need encounter no difficulties at all. Unlike Charles,
+      Tibby had money enough; his ancestors had earned it for him, and if he
+      shocked the people in one set of lodgings he had only to move into
+      another. His was the leisure without sympathy&mdash;an attitude as fatal
+      as the strenuous; a little cold culture may be raised on it, but no art.
+      His sisters had seen the family danger, and had never forgotten to
+      discount the gold islets that raised them from the sea. Tibby gave all the
+      praise to himself, and so despised the struggling and the submerged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence the absurdity of the interview; the gulf between them was economic
+      as well as spiritual. But several facts passed; Charles pressed for them
+      with an impertinence that the undergraduate could not withstand. On what
+      date had Helen gone abroad? To whom? (Charles was anxious to fasten the
+      scandal on Germany.) Then, changing his tactics, he said roughly: &ldquo;I
+      suppose you realise that you are your sister&rsquo;s protector?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what sense?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If a man played about with my sister, I&rsquo;d send a bullet through him, but
+      perhaps you don&rsquo;t mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mind very much,&rdquo; protested Tibby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who d&rsquo;ye suspect, then? Speak out man. One always suspects some one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one. I don&rsquo;t think so.&rdquo; Involuntarily he blushed. He had remembered
+      the scene in his Oxford rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are hiding something,&rdquo; said Charles. As interviews go, he got the
+      best of this one. &ldquo;When you saw her last, did she mention any one&rsquo;s name?
+      Yes or no!&rdquo; he thundered, so that Tibby started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In my rooms she mentioned some friends, called the Basts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are the Basts?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;People&mdash;friends of hers at Evie&rsquo;s wedding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t remember. But, by great Scott, I do! My aunt told me about some
+      rag-tag. Was she full of them when you saw her? Is there a man? Did she
+      speak of the man? Or&mdash;look here&mdash;have you had any dealings with
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tibby was silent. Without intending it, he had betrayed his sister&rsquo;s
+      confidence; he was not enough interested in human life to see where things
+      will lead to. He had a strong regard for honesty, and his word, once
+      given, had always been kept up to now. He was deeply vexed, not only for
+      the harm he had done Helen, but for the flaw he had discovered in his own
+      equipment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see&mdash;you are in his confidence. They met at your rooms. Oh, what a
+      family, what a family! God help the poor pater&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Tibby found himself alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Leonard&mdash;he would figure at length in a newspaper report, but that
+      evening he did not count for much. The foot of the tree was in shadow,
+      since the moon was still hidden behind the house. But above, to right, to
+      left, down the long meadow the moonlight was streaming. Leonard seemed not
+      a man, but a cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps it was Helen&rsquo;s way of falling in love&mdash;a curious way to
+      Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet imprinted with
+      his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks that had enclosed her
+      emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice herself, or have instincts, but had
+      she ever loved in the noblest way, where man and woman, having lost
+      themselves in sex, desire to lose sex itself in comradeship?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret wondered, but said no word of blame. This was Helen&rsquo;s evening.
+      Troubles enough lay ahead of her&mdash;the loss of friends and of social
+      advantages, the agony, the supreme agony, of motherhood, which is not even
+      yet a matter of common knowledge. For the present let the moon shine
+      brightly and the breezes of the spring blow gently, dying away from the
+      gale of the day, and let the earth, that brings increase, bring peace. Not
+      even to herself dare she blame Helen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was everything or
+      nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse than stealing, and
+      group most sins in an order all must approve, but it cannot group Helen.
+      The surer its pronouncements on this point, the surer may we be that
+      morality is not speaking. Christ was evasive when they questioned Him. It
+      is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was Helen&rsquo;s evening&mdash;won at what cost, and not to be marred by
+      the sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never uttered a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One isolates,&rdquo; said Helen slowly. &ldquo;I isolated Mr. Wilcox from the other
+      forces that were pulling Leonard downhill. Consequently, I was full of
+      pity, and almost of revenge. For weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and
+      so, when your letters came&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need never have written them,&rdquo; sighed Margaret. &ldquo;They never shielded
+      Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy away the past, even for others!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know that it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking back, that was wrong of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking back, darling, I know that it was right. It is right to save the
+      man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice now. But we both
+      thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed the last touch of his
+      callousness. Being very much wrought up by this time&mdash;and Mrs. Bast
+      was upstairs. I had not seen her, and had talked for a long time to
+      Leonard&mdash;I had snubbed him for no reason, and that should have warned
+      me I was in danger. So when the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an
+      explanation. He said that he guessed the explanation&mdash;he knew of it,
+      and you mustn&rsquo;t know. I pressed him to tell me. He said no one must know;
+      it was something to do with his wife. Right up to the end we were Mr. Bast
+      and Miss Schlegel. I was going to tell him that he must be frank with me
+      when I saw his eyes, and guessed that Mr. Wilcox had ruined him in two
+      ways, not one. I drew him to me. I made him tell me. I felt very lonely
+      myself. He is not to blame. He would have gone on worshipping me. I want
+      never to see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to give him
+      money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known about these
+      things!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid her face against the tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The little, too, that is known about growth! Both times it was
+      loneliness, and the night, and panic afterwards. Did Leonard grow out of
+      Paul?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not speak for a moment. So tired was she that her attention
+      had actually wandered to the teeth&mdash;the teeth that had been thrust
+      into the tree&rsquo;s bark to medicate it. From where she sat she could see them
+      gleam. She had been trying to count them. &ldquo;Leonard is a better growth than
+      madness,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I was afraid that you would react against Paul until
+      you went over the verge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did react until I found poor Leonard. I am steady now. I shan&rsquo;t ever
+      like your Henry, dearest Meg, or even speak kindly about him, but all that
+      blinding hate is over. I shall never rave against Wilcoxes any more. I
+      understand how you married him, and you will now be very happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; repeated Helen, her voice growing more tender, &ldquo;I do at last
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little movements.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because in death&mdash;I agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite. I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of that
+      woman&rsquo;s mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She is the house,
+      and the tree that leans over it. People have their own deaths as well as
+      their own lives, and even if there is nothing beyond death, we shall
+      differ in our nothingness. I cannot believe that knowledge such as hers
+      will perish with knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She
+      knew when people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don&rsquo;t
+      doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; called a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, good-night, Miss Avery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should Miss Avery work for us?&rdquo; Helen murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, indeed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into the hedge that divided it from
+      the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had filled up, had reappeared, and
+      her track through the dew followed the path that he had turfed over, when
+      he improved the garden and made it possible for games.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is not quite our house yet,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;When Miss Avery called, I
+      felt we are only a couple of tourists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be that everywhere, and for ever.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But affectionate tourists.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But tourists who pretend each hotel is their home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t pretend very long,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;Sitting under this tree one
+      forgets, but I know that to-morrow I shall see the moon rise out of
+      Germany. Not all your goodness can alter the facts of the case. Unless you
+      will come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret thought for a moment. In the past year she had grown so fond of
+      England that to leave it was a real grief. Yet what detained her? No doubt
+      Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on blustering and muddling into a
+      ripe old age. But what was the good? She had just as soon vanish from his
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your Monica?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not, but I am serious in asking you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, no more plans now. And no more reminiscences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were silent for a little. It was Helen&rsquo;s evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made
+      music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but
+      its song was of the moment. The moment had passed. The tree rustled again.
+      Their senses were sharpened, and they seemed to apprehend life. Life
+      passed. The tree rustled again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep now,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peace of the country was entering into her. It has no commerce with
+      memory, and little with hope. Least of all is it concerned with the hopes
+      of the next five minutes. It is the peace of the present, which passes
+      understanding. Its murmur came &ldquo;now,&rdquo; and &ldquo;now&rdquo; once more as they trod the
+      gravel, and &ldquo;now,&rdquo; as the moonlight fell upon their father&rsquo;s sword. They
+      passed upstairs, kissed, and amidst the endless iterations fell asleep.
+      The house had enshadowed the tree at first, but as the moon rose higher
+      the two disentangled, and were clear for a few moments at midnight.
+      Margaret awoke and looked into the garden. How incomprehensible that
+      Leonard Bast should have won her this night of peace! Was he also part of
+      Mrs. Wilcox&rsquo;s mind?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Far different was Leonard&rsquo;s development. The months after Oniton, whatever
+      minor troubles they might bring him, were all overshadowed by Remorse.
+      When Helen looked back she could philosophise, or she could look into the
+      future and plan for her child. But the father saw nothing beyond his own
+      sin. Weeks afterwards, in the midst of other occupations, he would
+      suddenly cry out, &ldquo;Brute&mdash;you brute, I couldn&rsquo;t have&mdash;&rdquo; and be
+      rent into two people who held dialogues. Or brown rain would descend,
+      blotting out faces and the sky. Even Jacky noticed the change in him. Most
+      terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep. Sometimes he was
+      happy at first, but grew conscious of a burden hanging to him and weighing
+      down his thoughts when they would move. Or little irons scorched his body.
+      Or a sword stabbed him. He would sit at the edge of his bed, holding his
+      heart and moaning, &ldquo;Oh what SHALL I do, whatever SHALL I do?&rdquo; Nothing
+      brought ease. He could put distance between him and the trespass, but it
+      grew in his soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks were right to
+      dethrone her. Her action is too capricious, as though the Erinyes selected
+      for punishment only certain men and certain sins. And of all means to
+      regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy
+      tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the
+      evil. Leonard was driven straight through its torments and emerged pure,
+      but enfeebled&mdash;a better man, who would never lose control of himself
+      again, but also a smaller man, who had less to control. Nor did purity
+      mean peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard to shake off
+      as passion itself, and Leonard continued to start with a cry out of
+      dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never
+      occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their
+      talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton
+      under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute.
+      Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man
+      apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and
+      beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have
+      travelled more gloriously through life than the juggernaut car that was
+      crushing him. Memories of Evie&rsquo;s wedding had warped her, the starched
+      servants, the yards of uneaten food, the rustle of overdressed women,
+      motor-cars oozing grease on the gravel, a pretentious band. She had tasted
+      the lees of this on her arrival; in the darkness, after failure, they
+      intoxicated her. She and the victim seemed alone in a world of unreality,
+      and she loved him absolutely, perhaps for half an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning she was gone. The note that she left, tender and hysterical
+      in tone, and intended to be most kind, hurt her lover terribly. It was as
+      if some work of art had been broken by him, some picture in the National
+      Gallery slashed out of its frame. When he recalled her talents and her
+      social position, he felt that the first passer-by had a right to shoot him
+      down. He was afraid of the waitress and the porters at the
+      railway-station. He was afraid at first of his wife, though later he was
+      to regard her with a strange new tenderness, and to think, &ldquo;There is
+      nothing to choose between us, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The expedition to Shropshire crippled the Basts permanently. Helen in her
+      flight forgot to settle the hotel bill, and took their return tickets away
+      with her; they had to pawn Jacky&rsquo;s bangles to get home, and the smash came
+      a few days afterwards. It is true that Helen offered him five thousand
+      pounds, but such a sum meant nothing to him. He could not see that the
+      girl was desperately righting herself, and trying to save something out of
+      the disaster, if it was only five thousand pounds. But he had to live
+      somehow. He turned to his family, and degraded himself to a professional
+      beggar. There was nothing else for him to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A letter from Leonard,&rdquo; thought Blanche, his sister; &ldquo;and after all this
+      time.&rdquo; She hid it, so that her husband should not see, and when he had
+      gone to his work read it with some emotion, and sent the prodigal a little
+      money out of her dress allowance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A letter from Leonard!&rdquo; said the other sister, Laura, a few days later.
+      She showed it to her husband. He wrote a cruel, insolent reply, but sent
+      more money than Blanche, so Leonard soon wrote to him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And during the winter the system was developed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leonard realised that they need never starve, because it would be too
+      painful for his relatives. Society is based on the family, and the clever
+      wastrel can exploit this indefinitely. Without a generous thought on
+      either side, pounds and pounds passed. The donors disliked Leonard, and he
+      grew to hate them intensely. When Laura censured his immoral marriage, he
+      thought bitterly, &ldquo;She minds that! What would she say if she knew the
+      truth?&rdquo; When Blanche&rsquo;s husband offered him work, he found some pretext for
+      avoiding it. He had wanted work keenly at Oniton, but too much anxiety had
+      shattered him, he was joining the unemployable. When his brother, the
+      lay-reader, did not reply to a letter, he wrote again, saying that he and
+      Jacky would come down to his village on foot. He did not intend this as
+      blackmail. Still the brother sent a postal order, and it became part of
+      the system. And so passed his winter and his spring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the horror there are two bright spots. He never confused the past. He
+      remained alive, and blessed are those who live, if it is only to a sense
+      of sinfulness. The anodyne of muddledom, by which most men blur and blend
+      their mistakes, never passed Leonard&rsquo;s lips&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+        &ldquo;And if I drink oblivion of a day,
+         So shorten I the stature of my soul.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      It is a hard saying, and a hard man wrote it, but it lies at the root of
+      all character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the other bright spot was his tenderness for Jacky. He pitied her with
+      nobility now&mdash;not the contemptuous pity of a man who sticks to a
+      woman through thick and thin. He tried to be less irritable. He wondered
+      what her hungry eyes desired&mdash;nothing that she could express, or that
+      he or any man could give her. Would she ever receive the justice that is
+      mercy&mdash;the justice for by-products that the world is too busy to
+      bestow? She was fond of flowers, generous with money, and not revengeful.
+      If she had borne him a child he might have cared for her. Unmarried,
+      Leonard would never have begged; he would have flickered out and died. But
+      the whole of life is mixed. He had to provide for Jacky, and went down
+      dirty paths that she might have a few feathers and the dishes of food that
+      suited her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day he caught sight of Margaret and her brother. He was in St. Paul&rsquo;s.
+      He had entered the cathedral partly to avoid the rain and partly to see a
+      picture that had educated him in former years. But the light was bad, the
+      picture ill placed, and Time and judgment were inside him now. Death alone
+      still charmed him, with her lap of poppies, on which all men shall sleep.
+      He took one glance, and turned aimlessly away towards a chair. Then down
+      the nave he saw Miss Schlegel and her brother. They stood in the fairway
+      of passengers, and their faces were extremely grave. He was perfectly
+      certain that they were in trouble about their sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once outside&mdash;and he fled immediately&mdash;he wished that he had
+      spoken to them. What was his life? What were a few angry words, or even
+      imprisonment? He had done wrong&mdash;that was the true terror. Whatever
+      they might know, he would tell them everything he knew. He re-entered St.
+      Paul&rsquo;s. But they had moved in his absence, and had gone to lay their
+      difficulties before Mr. Wilcox and Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of Margaret turned remorse into new channels. He desired to
+      confess, and though the desire is proof of a weakened nature, which is
+      about to lose the essence of human intercourse, it did not take an ignoble
+      form. He did not suppose that confession would bring him happiness. It was
+      rather that he yearned to get clear of the tangle. So does the suicide
+      yearn. The impulses are akin, and the crime of suicide lies rather in its
+      disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind. Confession need
+      harm no one&mdash;it can satisfy that test&mdash;and though it was
+      un-English, and ignored by our Anglican cathedral, Leonard had a right to
+      decide upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, he trusted Margaret. He wanted her hardness now. That cold,
+      intellectual nature of hers would be just, if unkind. He would do whatever
+      she told him, even if he had to see Helen. That was the supreme punishment
+      she would exact. And perhaps she would tell him how Helen was. That was
+      the supreme reward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew nothing about Margaret, not even whether she was married to Mr.
+      Wilcox, and tracking her out took several days. That evening he toiled
+      through the wet to Wickham Place, where the new flats were now appearing.
+      Was he also the cause of their move? Were they expelled from society on
+      his account? Thence to a public library, but could find no satisfactory
+      Schlegel in the directory. On the morrow he searched again. He hung about
+      outside Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s office at lunch time, and, as the clerks came out
+      said, &ldquo;Excuse me, sir, but is your boss married?&rdquo; Most of them stared,
+      some said, &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that to you?&rdquo; but one, who had not yet acquired
+      reticence, told him what he wished. Leonard could not learn the private
+      address. That necessitated more trouble with directories and tubes. Ducie
+      Street was not discovered till the Monday, the day that Margaret and her
+      husband went down on their hunting expedition to Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called at about four o&rsquo;clock. The weather had changed, and the sun
+      shone gaily on the ornamental steps&mdash;black and white marble in
+      triangles. Leonard lowered his eyes to them after ringing the bell. He
+      felt in curious health; doors seemed to be opening and shutting inside his
+      body, and he had been obliged to sleep sitting up in bed, with his back
+      propped against the wall. When the parlourmaid came he could not see her
+      face; the brown rain had descended suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mrs. Wilcox live here?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;s out,&rdquo; was the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When will she be back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll ask,&rdquo; said the parlourmaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret had given instructions that no one who mentioned her name should
+      ever be rebuffed. Putting the door on the chain&mdash;for Leonard&rsquo;s
+      appearance demanded this&mdash;she went through to the smoking-room, which
+      was occupied by Tibby. Tibby was asleep. He had had a good lunch. Charles
+      Wilcox had not yet rung him up for the distracting interview. He said
+      drowsily: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Hilton. Howards End. Who is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll ask, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, don&rsquo;t bother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have taken the car to Howards End,&rdquo; said the parlourmaid to Leonard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He thanked her, and asked whereabouts that place was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You appear to want to know a good deal,&rdquo; she remarked. But Margaret had
+      forbidden her to be mysterious. She told him against her better judgment
+      that Howards End was in Hertfordshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a village, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Village! It&rsquo;s Mr. Wilcox&rsquo;s private house&mdash;at least, it&rsquo;s one of
+      them. Mrs. Wilcox keeps her furniture there. Hilton is the village.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. And when will they be back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Schlegel doesn&rsquo;t know. We can&rsquo;t know everything, can we?&rdquo; She shut
+      him out, and went to attend to the telephone, which was ringing furiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He loitered away another night of agony. Confession grew more difficult.
+      As soon as possible he went to bed. He watched a patch of moonlight cross
+      the floor of their lodging, and, as sometimes happens when the mind is
+      overtaxed, he fell asleep for the rest of the room, but kept awake for the
+      patch of moonlight. Horrible! Then began one of those disintegrating
+      dialogues. Part of him said: &ldquo;Why horrible? It&rsquo;s ordinary light from the
+      moon.&rdquo; &ldquo;But it moves.&rdquo; &ldquo;So does the moon.&rdquo; &ldquo;But it is a clenched fist.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; &ldquo;But it is going to touch me.&rdquo; &ldquo;Let it.&rdquo; And, seeming to gather
+      motion, the patch ran up his blanket. Presently a blue snake appeared;
+      then another parallel to it. &ldquo;Is there life in the moon?&rdquo; &ldquo;Of course.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;But I thought it was uninhabited.&rdquo; &ldquo;Not by Time, Death, Judgment, and the
+      smaller snakes.&rdquo; &ldquo;Smaller snakes!&rdquo; said Leonard indignantly and aloud.
+      &ldquo;What a notion!&rdquo; By a rending effort of the will he woke the rest of the
+      room up. Jacky, the bed, their food, their clothes on the chair, gradually
+      entered his consciousness, and the horror vanished outwards, like a ring
+      that is spreading through water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Jacky, I&rsquo;m going out for a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell clear of the striped
+      blanket, and began to cover the shawl that lay over her feet. Why had he
+      been afraid? He went to the window, and saw that the moon was descending
+      through a clear sky. He saw her volcanoes, and the bright expanses that a
+      gracious error has named seas. They paled, for the sun, who had lit them
+      up, was coming to light the earth. Sea of Serenity, Sea of Tranquillity,
+      Ocean of the Lunar Storms, merged into one lucent drop, itself to slip
+      into the sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the moon!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He dressed among the contending lights, and went through his money. It was
+      running low again, but enough for a return ticket to Hilton. As it
+      clinked, Jacky opened her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hullo, Len! What ho, Len!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ho, Jacky! see you again later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned over and slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman at Covent Garden.
+      Leonard passed out and made his way down to the station. The train, though
+      it did not start for an hour, was already drawn up at the end of the
+      platform, and he lay down in it and slept. With the first jolt he was in
+      daylight; they had left the gateways of King&rsquo;s Cross, and were under blue
+      sky. Tunnels followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the
+      embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It rolled
+      along behind the eastern smokes&mdash;a wheel, whose fellow was the
+      descending moon&mdash;and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue sky,
+      not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day. To the left
+      fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to the right Leonard saw
+      up into the Tewin Woods and towards the church, with its wild legend of
+      immortality. Six forest trees&mdash;that is a fact&mdash;grow out of one
+      of the graves in Tewin churchyard. The grave&rsquo;s occupant&mdash;that is the
+      legend&mdash;is an atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest
+      trees would grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and
+      farther afield lay the house of a hermit&mdash;Mrs. Wilcox had known him&mdash;who
+      barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to the poor.
+      While, powdered in between, were the villas of business men, who saw life
+      more steadily, though with the steadiness of the half-closed eye. Over all
+      the sun was streaming, to all the birds were singing, to all the primroses
+      were yellow, and the speedwell blue, and the country, however they
+      interpreted her, was uttering her cry of &ldquo;now.&rdquo; She did not free Leonard
+      yet, and the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at
+      Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting. Leonard noticed the
+      contrast when he stepped out of it into the country. Here men had been up
+      since dawn. Their hours were ruled, not by a London office, but by the
+      movements of the crops and the sun. That they were men of the finest type
+      only the sentimentalists can declare. But they kept to the life of
+      daylight. They are England&rsquo;s hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch
+      of the sun, until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half
+      clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to a nobler
+      stock, and breed yeomen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the chalk pit a motor passed him. In it was another type, whom Nature
+      favours&mdash;the Imperial. Healthy, ever in motion, it hopes to inherit
+      the earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as soundly; strong is
+      the temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman, who carries his country&rsquo;s
+      virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is not what he thinks or seems. He is
+      a destroyer. He prepares the way for cosmopolitanism, and though his
+      ambitions may be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be grey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the conviction of innate
+      goodness elsewhere. It was not the optimism which he had been taught at
+      school. Again and again must the drums tap, and the goblins stalk over the
+      universe before joy can be purged of the superficial. It was rather
+      paradoxical, and arose from his sorrow. Death destroys a man, but the idea
+      of death saves him&mdash;that is the best account of it that has yet been
+      given. Squalor and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us, and
+      strengthen the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not certain that they
+      will, for they are not love&rsquo;s servants. But they can beckon, and the
+      knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he approached the house all thought stopped. Contradictory notions
+      stood side by side in his mind. He was terrified but happy, ashamed, but
+      had done no sin. He knew the confession: &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox, I have done wrong,&rdquo;
+       but sunrise had robbed its meaning, and he felt rather on a supreme
+      adventure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He entered a garden, steadied himself against a motor-car that he found in
+      it, found a door open and entered a house. Yes, it would be very easy.
+      From a room to the left he heard voices, Margaret&rsquo;s amongst them. His own
+      name was called aloud, and a man whom he had never seen said, &ldquo;Oh, is he
+      there? I am not surprised. I now thrash him within an inch of his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Wilcox,&rdquo; said Leonard, &ldquo;I have done wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man took him by the collar and cried, &ldquo;Bring me a stick.&rdquo; Women were
+      screaming. A stick, very bright, descended. It hurt him, not where it
+      descended, but in the heart. Books fell over him in a shower. Nothing had
+      sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get some water,&rdquo; commanded Charles, who had all through kept very calm.
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s shamming. Of course I only used the blade. Here, carry him out into
+      the air.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him. They laid
+      Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel; Helen poured water over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough,&rdquo; said Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, murder&rsquo;s enough,&rdquo; said Miss Avery, coming out of the house with the
+      sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Charles left Ducie Street he had caught the first train home, but had
+      no inkling of the newest development until late at night. Then his father,
+      who had dined alone, sent for him, and in very grave tones inquired for
+      Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know where she is, pater&rdquo; said Charles. &ldquo;Dolly kept back dinner
+      nearly an hour for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me when she comes in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another hour passed. The servants went to bed, and Charles visited his
+      father again, to receive further instructions. Mrs. Wilcox had still not
+      returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll sit up for her as late as you like, but she can hardly be coming.
+      Isn&rsquo;t she stopping with her sister at the hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox thoughtfully&mdash;&ldquo;perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I do anything for you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to-night, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox liked being called sir. He raised his eyes, and gave his son
+      more open a look of tenderness than he usually ventured. He saw Charles as
+      little boy and strong man in one. Though his wife had proved unstable his
+      children were left to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After midnight he tapped on Charles&rsquo;s door. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t sleep,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I
+      had better have a talk with you and get it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He complained of the heat. Charles took him out into the garden, and they
+      paced up and down in their dressing-gowns. Charles became very quiet as
+      the story unrolled; he had known all along that Margaret was as bad as her
+      sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will feel differently in the morning,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, who had of
+      course said nothing about Mrs. Bast. &ldquo;But I cannot let this kind of thing
+      continue without comment. I am morally certain that she is with her sister
+      at Howards End. The house is mine&mdash;and, Charles, it will be yours&mdash;and
+      when I say that no one is to live there, I mean that no one is to live
+      there. I won&rsquo;t have it.&rdquo; He looked angrily at the moon. &ldquo;To my mind this
+      question is connected with something far greater, the rights of property
+      itself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly,&rdquo; said Charles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox linked his arm in his son&rsquo;s, but somehow liked him less as he
+      told him more. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want you to conclude that my wife and I had
+      anything of the nature of a quarrel. She was only overwrought, as who
+      would not be? I shall do what I can for Helen, but on the understanding
+      that they clear out of the house at once. Do you see? That is a sine qua
+      non.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then at eight to-morrow I may go up in the car?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight or earlier. Say that you are acting as my representative, and, of
+      course, use no violence, Charles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morrow, as Charles returned, leaving Leonard dead upon the gravel,
+      it did not seem to him that he had used violence. Death was due to heart
+      disease. His stepmother herself had said so, and even Miss Avery had
+      acknowledged that he only used the flat of the sword. On his way through
+      the village he informed the police, who thanked him, and said there must
+      be an inquest. He found his father in the garden shading his eyes from the
+      sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has been pretty horrible,&rdquo; said Charles gravely. &ldquo;They were there, and
+      they had the man up there with them too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;what man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you last night. His name was Bast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God! is it possible?&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;In your mother&rsquo;s house!
+      Charles, in your mother&rsquo;s house!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, pater. That was what I felt. As a matter of fact, there is no
+      need to trouble about the man. He was in the last stages of heart disease,
+      and just before I could show him what I thought of him he went off. The
+      police are seeing about it at this moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox listened attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got up there&mdash;oh, it couldn&rsquo;t have been more than half-past seven.
+      The Avery woman was lighting a fire for them. They were still upstairs. I
+      waited in the drawing-room. We were all moderately civil and collected,
+      though I had my suspicions. I gave them your message, and Mrs. Wilcox
+      said, &lsquo;Oh yes, I see; yes,&rsquo; in that way of hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promised to tell you, &lsquo;with her love,&rsquo; that she was going to Germany
+      with her sister this evening. That was all we had time for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox seemed relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because by then I suppose the man got tired of hiding, for suddenly Mrs.
+      Wilcox screamed out his name. I recognised it, and I went for him in the
+      hall. Was I right, pater? I thought things were going a little too far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right, my dear boy? I don&rsquo;t know. But you would have been no son of mine
+      if you hadn&rsquo;t. Then did he just&mdash;just&mdash;crumple up as you said?&rdquo;
+       He shrunk from the simple word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He caught hold of the bookcase, which came down over him. So I merely put
+      the sword down and carried him into the garden. We all thought he was
+      shamming. However, he&rsquo;s dead right enough. Awful business!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sword?&rdquo; cried his father, with anxiety in his voice. &ldquo;What sword? Whose
+      sword?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A sword of theirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What were you doing with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, didn&rsquo;t you see, pater, I had to snatch up the first thing handy. I
+      hadn&rsquo;t a riding-whip or stick. I caught him once or twice over the
+      shoulders with the flat of their old German sword.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He pulled over the bookcase, as I said, and fell,&rdquo; said Charles, with a
+      sigh. It was no fun doing errands for his father, who was never quite
+      satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the real cause was heart disease? Of that you&rsquo;re sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That or a fit. However, we shall hear more than enough at the inquest on
+      such unsavoury topics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They went in to breakfast. Charles had a racking headache, consequent on
+      motoring before food. He was also anxious about the future, reflecting
+      that the police must detain Helen and Margaret for the inquest and ferret
+      the whole thing out. He saw himself obliged to leave Hilton. One could not
+      afford to live near the scene of a scandal&mdash;it was not fair on one&rsquo;s
+      wife. His comfort was that the pater&rsquo;s eyes were opened at last. There
+      would be a horrible smash-up, and probably a separation from Margaret;
+      then they would all start again, more as they had been in his mother&rsquo;s
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll go round to the police-station,&rdquo; said his father when
+      breakfast was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo; cried Dolly, who had still not been &ldquo;told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, sir. Which car will you have?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good half-mile,&rdquo; said Charles, stepping into the garden. &ldquo;The
+      sun&rsquo;s very hot for April. Shan&rsquo;t I take you up, and then, perhaps, a
+      little spin round by Tewin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go on as if I didn&rsquo;t know my own mind,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox fretfully.
+      Charles hardened his mouth. &ldquo;You young fellows&rsquo; one idea is to get into a
+      motor. I tell you, I want to walk; I&rsquo;m very fond of walking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, all right; I&rsquo;m about the house if you want me for anything. I thought
+      of not going up to the office to-day, if that is your wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, indeed, my boy,&rdquo; said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his sleeve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charles did not like it; he was uneasy about his father, who did not seem
+      himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about him&mdash;more like
+      a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The Wilcoxes were not
+      lacking in affection; they had it royally, but they did not know how to
+      use it. It was the talent in the napkin, and, for a warm-hearted man,
+      Charles had conveyed very little joy. As he watched his father shuffling
+      up the road, he had a vague regret&mdash;a wish that something had been
+      different somewhere&mdash;a wish (though he did not express it thus) that
+      he had been taught to say &ldquo;I&rdquo; in his youth. He meant to make up for
+      Margaret&rsquo;s defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with
+      her until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick, no
+      doubt&mdash;but how?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to be an
+      inquest on Leonard&rsquo;s body to-morrow, and the police required his son to
+      attend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expected that,&rdquo; said Charles. &ldquo;I shall naturally be the most important
+      witness there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Juley&rsquo;s illness and
+      was not even to end with Leonard&rsquo;s death, it seemed impossible to Margaret
+      that healthy life should re-emerge. Events succeeded in a logical, yet
+      senseless, train. People lost their humanity, and took values as arbitrary
+      as those in a pack of playing-cards. It was natural that Henry should do
+      this and cause Helen to do that, and then think her wrong for doing it;
+      natural that she herself should think him wrong; natural that Leonard
+      should want to know how Helen was, and come, and Charles be angry with him
+      for coming&mdash;natural, but unreal. In this jangle of causes and effects
+      what had become of their true selves? Here Leonard lay dead in the garden,
+      from natural causes; yet life was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky,
+      life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death
+      were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king
+      takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure
+      behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this
+      side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that
+      fetter us now. As a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she,
+      from the turmoil and horror of those days, caught glimpses of the diviner
+      wheels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Helen, dumb with fright, but trying to keep calm for the child&rsquo;s sake,
+      and Miss Avery, calm, but murmuring tenderly, &ldquo;No one ever told the lad
+      he&rsquo;ll have a child&rdquo;&mdash;they also reminded her that horror is not the
+      end. To what ultimate harmony we tend she did not know, but there seemed
+      great chance that a child would be born into the world, to take the great
+      chances of beauty and adventure that the world offers. She moved through
+      the sunlit garden, gathering narcissi, crimson-eyed and white. There was
+      nothing else to be done; the time for telegrams and anger was over and it
+      seemed wisest that the hands of Leonard should be folded on his breast and
+      be filled with flowers. Here was the father; leave it at that. Let Squalor
+      be turned into Tragedy, whose eyes are the stars, and whose hands hold the
+      sunset and the dawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And even the influx of officials, even the return of the doctor, vulgar
+      and acute, could not shake her belief in the eternity of beauty. Science
+      explained people, but could not understand them. After long centuries
+      among the bones and muscles it might be advancing to knowledge of the
+      nerves, but this would never give understanding. One could open the heart
+      to Mr. Mansbridge and his sort without discovering its secrets to them,
+      for they wanted everything down in black and white, and black and white
+      was exactly what they were left with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They questioned her closely about Charles. She never suspected why. Death
+      had come, and the doctor agreed that it was due to heart disease. They
+      asked to see her father&rsquo;s sword. She explained that Charles&rsquo;s anger was
+      natural, but mistaken. Miserable questions about Leonard followed, all of
+      which she answered unfalteringly. Then back to Charles again. &ldquo;No doubt
+      Mr. Wilcox may have induced death,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but if it wasn&rsquo;t one thing
+      it would have been another as you know.&rdquo; At last they thanked her and took
+      the sword and the body down to Hilton. She began to pick up the books from
+      the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen had gone to the farm. It was the best place for her, since she had
+      to wait for the inquest. Though, as if things were not hard enough, Madge
+      and her husband had raised trouble; they did not see why they should
+      receive the offscourings of Howards End. And, of course, they were right.
+      The whole world was going to be right, and amply avenge any brave talk
+      against the conventions. &ldquo;Nothing matters,&rdquo; the Schlegels had said in the
+      past, &ldquo;except one&rsquo;s self-respect and that of one&rsquo;s friends.&rdquo; When the time
+      came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge had yielded, and
+      Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and to-morrow she would
+      return to Germany.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for herself, she determined to go too. No message came from Henry;
+      perhaps he expected her to apologise. Now that she had time to think over
+      her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She neither forgave him for his
+      behaviour nor wished to forgive him. Her speech to him seemed perfect. She
+      would not have altered a word. It had to be uttered once in a life, to
+      adjust the lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only to her
+      husband, but to thousands of men like him&mdash;a protest against the
+      inner darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though he
+      would build up his life without hers, she could not apologise. He had
+      refused to connect, on the clearest issue that can be laid before a man,
+      and their love must take the consequences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, there was nothing more to be done. They had tried not to go over the
+      precipice, but perhaps the fall was inevitable. And it comforted her to
+      think that the future was certainly inevitable; cause and effect would go
+      jangling forward to some goal doubtless, but to none that she could
+      imagine. At such moments the soul retires within, to float upon the bosom
+      of a deeper stream, and has communion with the dead, and sees the world&rsquo;s
+      glory not diminished, but different in kind to what she has supposed. She
+      alters her focus until trivial things are blurred. Margaret had been
+      tending this way all the winter. Leonard&rsquo;s death brought her to the goal.
+      Alas! that Henry should fade away as reality emerged, and only her love
+      for him should remain clear, stamped with his image like the cameos we
+      rescue out of dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With unfaltering eye she traced his future. He would soon present a
+      healthy mind to the world again, and what did he or the world care if he
+      was rotten at the core? He would grow into a rich, jolly old man, at times
+      a little sentimental about women, but emptying his glass with anyone.
+      Tenacious of power, he would keep Charles and the rest dependent, and
+      retire from business reluctantly and at an advanced age. He would settle
+      down&mdash;though she could not realise this. In her eyes Henry was always
+      moving and causing others to move, until the ends of the earth met. But in
+      time he must get too tired to move, and settle down. What next? The
+      inevitable word. The release of the soul to its appropriate Heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Would they meet in it? Margaret believed in immortality for herself. An
+      eternal future had always seemed natural to her. And Henry believed in it
+      for himself. Yet, would they meet again? Are there not rather endless
+      levels beyond the grave, as the theory that he had censured teaches? And
+      his level, whether higher or lower, could it possibly be the same as hers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus gravely meditating, she was summoned by him. He sent up Crane in the
+      motor. Other servants passed like water, but the chauffeur remained,
+      though impertinent and disloyal. Margaret disliked Crane, and he knew it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it the keys that Mr. Wilcox wants?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t say, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t any note for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t say, madam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a moment&rsquo;s thought she locked up Howards End. It was pitiable to see
+      in it the stirrings of warmth that would be quenched for ever. She raked
+      out the fire that was blazing in the kitchen, and spread the coals in the
+      gravelled yard. She closed the windows and drew the curtains. Henry would
+      probably sell the place now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was determined not to spare him, for nothing new had happened as far
+      as they were concerned. Her mood might never have altered from yesterday
+      evening. He was standing a little outside Charles&rsquo;s gate, and motioned the
+      car to stop. When his wife got out he said hoarsely: &ldquo;I prefer to discuss
+      things with you outside.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be more appropriate in the road, I am afraid,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+      &ldquo;Did you get my message?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to Germany with my sister. I must tell you now that I shall
+      make it my permanent home. Our talk last night was more important than you
+      have realised. I am unable to forgive you and am leaving you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am extremely tired,&rdquo; said Henry, in injured tones. &ldquo;I have been walking
+      about all the morning, and wish to sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, if you will consent to sit on the grass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Great North Road should have been bordered all its length with glebe.
+      Henry&rsquo;s kind had filched most of it. She moved to the scrap opposite,
+      wherein were the Six Hills. They sat down on the farther side, so that
+      they could not be seen by Charles or Dolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here are your keys,&rdquo; said Margaret. She tossed them towards him. They
+      fell on the sunlit slope of grass, and he did not pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have something to tell you,&rdquo; he said gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She knew this superficial gentleness, this confession of hastiness, that
+      was only intended to enhance her admiration of the male.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to hear it,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;My sister is going to be ill. My
+      life is going to be with her now. We must manage to build up something,
+      she and I and her child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Munich. We start after the inquest, if she is not too ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After the inquest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you realised what the verdict at the inquest will be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, heart disease.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my dear; manslaughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret drove her fingers through the grass. The hill beneath her moved
+      as if it were alive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Manslaughter,&rdquo; repeated Mr. Wilcox. &ldquo;Charles may go to prison. I dare not
+      tell him. I don&rsquo;t know what to do&mdash;what to do. I&rsquo;m broken&mdash;I&rsquo;m
+      ended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No sudden warmth arose in her. She did not see that to break him was her
+      only hope. She did not enfold the sufferer in her arms. But all through
+      that day and the next a new life began to move. The verdict was brought
+      in. Charles was committed for trial. It was against all reason that he
+      should be punished, but the law, notwithstanding, sentenced him to three
+      years&rsquo; imprisonment. Then Henry&rsquo;s fortress gave way. He could bear no one
+      but his wife; he shambled up to Margaret afterwards and asked her to do
+      what she could with him. She did what seemed easiest&mdash;she took him
+      down to recruit at Howards End.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Tom&rsquo;s father was cutting the big meadow. He passed again and again amid
+      whirring blades and sweet odours of grass, encompassing with narrowing
+      circles the sacred centre of the field. Tom was negotiating with Helen. &ldquo;I
+      haven&rsquo;t any idea,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;Do you suppose baby may, Meg?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret put down her work and regarded them absently. &ldquo;What was that?&rdquo;
+       she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tom wants to know whether baby is old enough to play with hay?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t the least notion,&rdquo; answered Margaret, and took up her work
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Tom, baby is not to stand; he is not to lie on his face; he is not
+      to lie so that his head wags; he is not to be teased or tickled; and he is
+      not to be cut into two or more pieces by the cutter. Will you be as
+      careful as all that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tom held out his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That child is a wonderful nursemaid,&rdquo; remarked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is fond of baby. That&rsquo;s why he does it!&rdquo; was Helen&rsquo;s answer. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re
+      going to be lifelong friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Starting at the ages of six and one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course. It will be a great thing for Tom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be a greater thing for baby.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Fourteen months had passed, but Margaret still stopped at Howards End. No
+      better plan had occurred to her. The meadow was being recut, the great red
+      poppies were reopening in the garden. July would follow with the little
+      red poppies among the wheat, August with the cutting of the wheat. These
+      little events would become part of her year after year. Every summer she
+      would fear lest the well should give out, every winter lest the pipes
+      should freeze; every westerly gale might blow the wych-elm down and bring
+      the end of all things, and so she could not read or talk during a westerly
+      gale. The air was tranquil now. She and her sister were sitting on the
+      remains of Evie&rsquo;s rockery, where the lawn merged into the field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a time they all are!&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;What can they be doing inside?&rdquo;
+       Margaret, who was growing less talkative, made no answer. The noise of the
+      cutter came intermittently, like the breaking of waves. Close by them a
+      man was preparing to scythe out one of the dell-holes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish Henry was out to enjoy this,&rdquo; said Helen. &ldquo;This lovely weather and
+      to be shut up in the house! It&rsquo;s very hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It has to be,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;The hay fever is his chief objection
+      against living here, but he thinks it worth while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meg, is or isn&rsquo;t he ill? I can&rsquo;t make out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not ill. Eternally tired. He has worked very hard all his life, and
+      noticed nothing. Those are the people who collapse when they do notice a
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose he worries dreadfully about his part of the tangle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dreadfully. That is why I wish Dolly had not come, too, to-day. Still, he
+      wanted them all to come. It has to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does he want them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meg, may I tell you something? I like Henry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d be odd if you didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I usen&rsquo;t to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Usen&rsquo;t!&rdquo; She lowered her eyes a moment to the black abyss of the past.
+      They had crossed it, always excepting Leonard and Charles. They were
+      building up a new life, obscure, yet gilded with tranquillity. Leonard was
+      dead; Charles had two years more in prison. One usen&rsquo;t always to see
+      clearly before that time. It was different now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like Henry because he does worry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he likes you because you don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen sighed. She seemed humiliated, and buried her face in her hands.
+      After a time she said: &ldquo;About love,&rdquo; a transition less abrupt than it
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret never stopped working.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean a woman&rsquo;s love for a man. I supposed I should hang my life on to
+      that once, and was driven up and down and about as if something was
+      worrying through me. But everything is peaceful now; I seem cured. That
+      Herr Forstmeister, whom Frieda keeps writing about, must be a noble
+      character, but he doesn&rsquo;t see that I shall never marry him or anyone. It
+      isn&rsquo;t shame or mistrust of myself. I simply couldn&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;m ended. I used to
+      be so dreamy about a man&rsquo;s love as a girl, and think that for good or evil
+      love must be the great thing. But it hasn&rsquo;t been; it has been itself a
+      dream. Do you agree?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not agree. I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought to remember Leonard as my lover,&rdquo; said Helen, stepping down into
+      the field. &ldquo;I tempted him, and killed him, and it is surely the least I
+      can do. I would like to throw out all my heart to Leonard on such an
+      afternoon as this. But I cannot. It is no good pretending. I am forgetting
+      him.&rdquo; Her eyes filled with tears. &ldquo;How nothing seems to match&mdash;how,
+      my darling, my precious&mdash;&rdquo; She broke off. &ldquo;Tommy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, please?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Baby&rsquo;s not to try and stand.&mdash;There&rsquo;s something wanting in me. I see
+      you loving Henry, and understanding him better daily, and I know that
+      death wouldn&rsquo;t part you in the least. But I&mdash;Is it some awful,
+      appalling, criminal defect?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret silenced her. She said: &ldquo;It is only that people are far more
+      different than is pretended. All over the world men and women are worrying
+      because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop. Here and
+      there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don&rsquo;t fret yourself,
+      Helen. Develop what you have; love your child. I do not love children. I
+      am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty and charm, but that
+      is all&mdash;nothing real, not one scrap of what there ought to be. And
+      others&mdash;others go farther still, and move outside humanity
+      altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow. Don&rsquo;t you
+      see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle
+      against sameness. Differences, eternal differences, planted by God in a
+      single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow perhaps, but
+      colour in the daily grey. Then I can&rsquo;t have you worrying about Leonard.
+      Don&rsquo;t drag in the personal when it will not come. Forget him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, but what has Leonard got out of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps an adventure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not for us. But for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen took up a bunch of grass. She looked at the sorrel, and the red and
+      white and yellow clover, and the quaker grass, and the daisies, and the
+      bents that composed it. She raised it to her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it sweetening yet?&rdquo; asked Margaret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, only withered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will sweeten to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen smiled. &ldquo;Oh, Meg, you are a person,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Think of the racket
+      and torture this time last year. But now I couldn&rsquo;t stop unhappy if I
+      tried. What a change&mdash;and all through you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we merely settled down. You and Henry learnt to understand one
+      another and to forgive, all through the autumn and the winter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but who settled us down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not reply. The scything had begun, and she took off her
+      pince-nez to watch it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; cried Helen. &ldquo;You did it all, sweetest, though you&rsquo;re too stupid to
+      see. Living here was your plan&mdash;I wanted you; he wanted you; and
+      everyone said it was impossible, but you knew. Just think of our lives
+      without you, Meg&mdash;I and baby with Monica, revolting by theory, he
+      handed about from Dolly to Evie. But you picked up the pieces, and made us
+      a home. Can&rsquo;t it strike you&mdash;even for a moment&mdash;that your life
+      has been heroic? Can&rsquo;t you remember the two months after Charles&rsquo;s arrest,
+      when you began to act, and did all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You were both ill at the time,&rdquo; said Margaret. &ldquo;I did the obvious things.
+      I had two invalids to nurse. Here was a house, ready furnished and empty.
+      It was obvious. I didn&rsquo;t know myself it would turn into a permanent home.
+      No doubt I have done a little towards straightening the tangle, but things
+      that I can&rsquo;t phrase have helped me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope it will be permanent,&rdquo; said Helen, drifting away to other
+      thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so. There are moments when I feel Howards End peculiarly our
+      own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All the same, London&rsquo;s creeping.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She pointed over the meadow&mdash;over eight or nine meadows, but at the
+      end of them was a red rust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see that in Surrey and even Hampshire now,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;I can see
+      it from the Purbeck Downs. And London is only part of something else, I&rsquo;m
+      afraid. Life&rsquo;s going to be melted down, all over the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret knew that her sister spoke truly. Howards End, Oniton, the
+      Purbeck Downs, the Oderberge, were all survivals, and the melting-pot was
+      being prepared for them. Logically, they had no right to be alive. One&rsquo;s
+      hope was in the weakness of logic. Were they possibly the earth beating
+      time?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because a thing is going strong now, it need not go strong for ever,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;This craze for motion has only set in during the last hundred
+      years. It may be followed by a civilisation that won&rsquo;t be a movement,
+      because it will rest on the earth. All the signs are against it now, but I
+      can&rsquo;t help hoping, and very early in the morning in the garden I feel that
+      our house is the future as well as the past.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They turned and looked at it. Their own memories coloured it now, for
+      Helen&rsquo;s child had been born in the central room of the nine. Then Margaret
+      said, &ldquo;Oh, take care&mdash;!&rdquo; for something moved behind the window of the
+      hall, and the door opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The conclave&rsquo;s breaking at last. I&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Helen retreated with the children far into the field. Friendly voices
+      greeted her. Margaret rose, to encounter a man with a heavy black
+      moustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father has asked for you,&rdquo; he said with hostility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She took her work and followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have been talking business,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;but I dare say you knew
+      all about it beforehand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Clumsy of movement&mdash;for he had spent all his life in the saddle&mdash;Paul
+      drove his foot against the paint of the front door. Mrs. Wilcox gave a
+      little cry of annoyance. She did not like anything scratched; she stopped
+      in the hall to take Dolly&rsquo;s boa and gloves out of a vase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her husband was lying in a great leather chair in the dining-room, and by
+      his side, holding his hand rather ostentatiously, was Evie. Dolly, dressed
+      in purple, sat near the window. The room was a little dark and airless;
+      they were obliged to keep it like this until the carting of the hay.
+      Margaret joined the family without speaking; the five of them had met
+      already at tea, and she knew quite well what was going to be said. Averse
+      to wasting her time, she went on sewing. The clock struck six.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this going to suit everyone?&rdquo; said Henry in a weary voice. He used the
+      old phrases, but their effect was unexpected and shadowy. &ldquo;Because I don&rsquo;t
+      want you all coming here later on and complaining that I have been
+      unfair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s apparently got to suit us,&rdquo; said Paul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon, my boy. You have only to speak, and I will leave the
+      house to you instead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul frowned ill-temperedly, and began scratching at his arm. &ldquo;As I&rsquo;ve
+      given up the outdoor life that suited me, and I have come home to look
+      after the business, it&rsquo;s no good my settling down here,&rdquo; he said at last.
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not really the country, and it&rsquo;s not the town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Does my arrangement suit you, Evie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, Dolly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dolly raised her faded little face, which sorrow could wither but not
+      steady. &ldquo;Perfectly splendidly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I thought Charles wanted it for
+      the boys, but last time I saw him he said no, because we cannot possibly
+      live in this part of England again. Charles says we ought to change our
+      name, but I cannot think what to, for Wilcox just suits Charles and me,
+      and I can&rsquo;t think of any other name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a general silence. Dolly looked nervously round, fearing that
+      she had been inappropriate. Paul continued to scratch his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I leave Howards End to my wife absolutely,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;And let
+      everyone understand that; and after I am dead let there be no jealousy and
+      no surprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret did not answer. There was something uncanny in her triumph. She,
+      who had never expected to conquer anyone, had charged straight through
+      these Wilcoxes and broken up their lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In consequence, I leave my wife no money,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;That is her own
+      wish. All that she would have had will be divided among you. I am also
+      giving you a great deal in my lifetime, so that you may be independent of
+      me. That is her wish, too. She also is giving away a great deal of money.
+      She intends to diminish her income by half during the next ten years; she
+      intends when she dies to leave the house to her nephew, down in the field.
+      Is all that clear? Does everyone understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Paul rose to his feet. He was accustomed to natives, and a very little
+      shook him out of the Englishman. Feeling manly and cynical, he said: &ldquo;Down
+      in the field? Oh, come! I think we might have had the whole establishment,
+      piccaninnies included.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cahill whispered: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, Paul. You promised you&rsquo;d take care.&rdquo;
+       Feeling a woman of the world, she rose and prepared to take her leave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her father kissed her. &ldquo;Good-bye, old girl,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t you worry
+      about me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, dad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then it was Dolly&rsquo;s turn. Anxious to contribute, she laughed nervously,
+      and said: &ldquo;Good-bye, Mr. Wilcox. It does seem curious that Mrs. Wilcox
+      should have left Margaret Howards End, and yet she get it, after all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From Evie came a sharply-drawn breath. &ldquo;Goodbye,&rdquo; she said to Margaret,
+      and kissed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again and again fell the word, like the ebb of a dying sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Dolly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So long, father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, my boy; always take care of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Mrs. Wilcox.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret saw their visitors to the gate. Then she returned to her husband
+      and laid her head in his hands. He was pitiably tired. But Dolly&rsquo;s remark
+      had interested her. At last she said: &ldquo;Could you tell me, Henry, what was
+      that about Mrs. Wilcox having left me Howards End?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tranquilly he replied: &ldquo;Yes, she did. But that is a very old story. When
+      she was ill and you were so kind to her she wanted to make you some
+      return, and, not being herself at the time, scribbled &lsquo;Howards End&rsquo; on a
+      piece of paper. I went into it thoroughly, and, as it was clearly
+      fanciful, I set it aside, little knowing what my Margaret would be to me
+      in the future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost recesses, and
+      she shivered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t do wrong, did I?&rdquo; he asked, bending down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t, darling. Nothing has been done wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From the garden came laughter. &ldquo;Here they are at last!&rdquo; exclaimed Henry,
+      disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the gloom, holding Tom
+      by one hand and carrying her baby on the other. There were shouts of
+      infectious joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The field&rsquo;s cut!&rdquo; Helen cried excitedly&mdash;&ldquo;the big meadow! We&rsquo;ve seen
+      to the very end, and it&rsquo;ll be such a crop of hay as never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      WEYBRIDGE, 1908-1910. <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOWARDS END ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2946-h.htm or 2946-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/2946/
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol, and David Widger
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diff --git a/old/hoend10a.txt b/old/hoend10a.txt
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+
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+
+
+
+This Project Gutenberg Etext was prepared by Eve Sobol.
+
+
+
+
+
+Howards End
+
+by E. M. Forster
+
+
+
+
+One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.
+
+                                          "Howards End,
+                                            "Tuesday.
+"Dearest Meg,
+
+"It isn't going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and
+altogether delightful--red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it
+is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son)
+arrives to-morrow. From hall you go right or left into
+dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room.
+You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in
+a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row
+there, and three attics in a row above. That isn't all the house
+really, but it's all that one notices--nine windows as you look
+up from the front garden.
+
+"Then there's a very big wych-elm--to the left as you look
+up--leaning a little over the house, and standing on the boundary
+between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree already.
+Also ordinary elms, oaks--no nastier than ordinary oaks--
+pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches, though.
+However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only wanted to
+show that it isn't the least what we expected. Why did we settle
+that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their
+garden all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we
+associate them with expensive hotels--Mrs. Wilcox trailing in
+beautiful dresses down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying
+porters, etc. We females are that unjust.
+
+"I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They
+are as angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is
+too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease every month. How
+could he have got hay fever in London? and even if he could, it
+seems hard that you should give up a visit to hear a schoolboy
+sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son who is here) has
+hay fever too, but he's brave, and gets quite cross when we
+inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of
+good. But you won't agree, and I'd better change the subject.
+
+"This long letter is because I'm writing before breakfast. Oh,
+the beautiful vine leaves! The house is covered with a vine. I
+looked out earlier, and Mrs. Wilcox was already in the garden.
+She evidently loves it. No wonder she sometimes looks tired. She
+was watching the large red poppies come out. Then she walked off
+the lawn to the meadow, whose corner to the right I can just see.
+Trail, trail, went her long dress over the sopping grass, and she
+came back with her hands full of the hay that was cut yesterday--
+I suppose for rabbits or something, as she kept on smelling it.
+The air here is delicious. Later on I heard the noise of croquet
+balls, and looked out again, and it was Charles Wilcox
+practising; they are keen on all games. Presently he started
+sneezing and had to stop. Then I hear more clicketing, and it
+is Mr. Wilcox practising, and then, 'a-tissue, a-tissue': he
+has to stop too. Then Evie comes out, and does some calisthenic
+exercises on a machine that is tacked on to a green-gage-tree--
+they put everything to use--and then she says 'a-tissue,' and in
+she goes. And finally Mrs. Wilcox reappears, trail, trail, still
+smelling hay and looking at the flowers. I inflict all this on
+you because once you said that life is sometimes life and
+sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish
+tother from which, and up to now I have always put that down as
+'Meg's clever nonsense.' But this morning, it really does seem
+not life but a play, and it did amuse me enormously to watch the
+W's. Now Mrs. Wilcox has come in.
+
+"I am going to wear [omission]. Last night Mrs. Wilcox wore an
+[omission], and Evie [omission]. So it isn't exactly a
+go-as-you-please place, and if you shut your eyes it still seems
+the wiggly hotel that we expected. Not if you open them. The
+dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of them over the
+lawn--magnificently tall, so that they fall down in garlands, and
+nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks through it
+and a cow. These belong to the farm, which is the only house near
+us. There goes the breakfast gong. Much love. Modified love to
+Tibby. Love to Aunt Juley; how good of her to come and keep you
+company, but what a bore. Burn this. Will write again Thursday.
+
+                                                      "HELEN."
+
+                                           Howards End
+                                              Friday
+
+"Dearest Meg,
+
+"I am having a glorious time. I like them all. Mrs. Wilcox, if
+quieter than in Germany, is sweeter than ever, and I never saw
+anything like her steady unselfishness, and the best of it is
+that the others do not take advantage of her. They are the very
+happiest, jolliest family that you can imagine. I do really feel
+that we are making friends. The fun of it is that they think me a
+noodle, and say so--at least, Mr. Wilcox does--and when that
+happens, and one doesn't mind, it's a pretty sure test, isn't
+it? He says the most horrid things about woman's suffrage so
+nicely, and when I said I believed in equality he just folded his
+arms and gave me such a setting down as I've never had. Meg,
+shall we ever learn to talk less? I never felt so ashamed of
+myself in my life. I couldn't point to a time when men had been
+equal, nor even to a time when the wish to be equal had made them
+happier in other ways. I couldn't say a word. I had just picked
+up the notion that equality is good from some book--probably from
+poetry, or you. Anyhow, it's been knocked into pieces, and, like
+all people who are really strong, Mr. Wilcox did it without
+hurting me. On the other hand, I laugh at them for catching hay
+fever. We live like fighting-cocks, and Charles takes us out
+every day in the motor--a tomb with trees in it, a hermit's
+house, a wonderful road that was made by the Kings of Mercia--
+tennis--a cricket match--bridge and at night we squeeze up in
+this lovely house. The whole clan's here now--it's like a rabbit
+warren. Evie is a dear. They want me to stop over Sunday--I
+suppose it won't matter if I do. Marvellous weather and the views
+marvellous--views westward to the high ground. Thank you for your
+letter. Burn this.
+
+                                      "Your affectionate
+                                         "HELEN."
+
+
+                                       "Howards End,
+                                         "Sunday.
+
+"Dearest, dearest Meg,--I do not know what you will say: Paul and
+I are in love--the younger son who only came here Wednesday."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Margaret glanced at her sister's note and pushed it over the
+breakfast-table to her aunt. There was a moment's hush, and then
+the flood-gates opened.
+
+"I can tell you nothing, Aunt Juley. I know no more than you do.
+We met--we only met the father and mother abroad last spring. I
+know so little that I didn't even know their son's name. It's all
+so--" She waved her hand and laughed a little.
+
+"In that case it is far too sudden."
+
+"Who knows, Aunt Juley, who knows?"
+
+"But, Margaret, dear, I mean, we mustn't be unpractical now that
+we've come to facts. It is too sudden, surely."
+
+"Who knows!"
+
+"But, Margaret, dear--"
+
+"I'll go for her other letters," said Margaret. "No, I won't,
+I'll finish my breakfast. In fact, I haven't them. We met the
+Wilcoxes on an awful expedition that we made from Heidelberg to
+Speyer. Helen and I had got it into our heads that there was a
+grand old cathedral at Speyer--the Archbishop of Speyer was one
+of the seven electors--you know--'Speyer, Maintz, and
+Koln.' Those three sees once commanded the Rhine Valley and got
+it the name of Priest Street."
+
+"I still feel quite uneasy about this business, Margaret."
+
+"The train crossed by a bridge of boats, and at first sight it
+looked quite fine. But oh, in five minutes we had seen the whole
+thing. The cathedral had been ruined, absolutely ruined, by
+restoration; not an inch left of the original structure. We
+wasted a whole day, and came across the Wilcoxes as we were
+eating our sandwiches in the public gardens. They too, poor
+things, had been taken in--they were actually stopping at
+Speyer--and they rather liked Helen's insisting that they must
+fly with us to Heidelberg. As a matter of fact, they did come on
+next day. We all took some drives together. They knew us well
+enough to ask Helen to come and see them--at least, I was asked
+too, but Tibby's illness prevented me, so last Monday she went
+alone. That's all. You know as much as I do now. It's a young man
+out of the unknown. She was to have come back Saturday, but put
+off till Monday, perhaps on account of--I don't know."
+
+She broke off, and listened to the sounds of a London morning.
+Their house was in Wickham Place, and fairly quiet, for a lofty
+promontory of buildings separated it from the main thoroughfare.
+One had the sense of a backwater, or rather of an estuary, whose
+waters flowed in from the invisible sea, and ebbed into a
+profound silence while the waves without were still beating.
+Though the promontory consisted of flats--expensive, with
+cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms--it
+fulfilled its purpose, and gained for the older houses opposite a
+certain measure of peace.
+
+These, too, would be swept away in time, and another
+promontory would arise upon their site, as humanity piled itself
+higher and higher on the precious soil of London.
+
+Mrs. Munt had her own method of interpreting her nieces. She
+decided that Margaret was a little hysterical, and was trying to
+gain time by a torrent of talk. Feeling very diplomatic, she
+lamented the fate of Speyer, and declared that never, never
+should she be so misguided as to visit it, and added of her own
+accord that the principles of restoration were ill understood in
+Germany. "The Germans," she said, "are too thorough, and this is
+all very well sometimes, but at other times it does not do."
+
+"Exactly," said Margaret; "Germans are too thorough." And her
+eyes began to shine.
+
+"Of course I regard you Schlegels as English," said Mrs. Munt
+hastily--"English to the backbone."
+
+Margaret leaned forward and stroked her hand.
+
+"And that reminds me--Helen's letter."
+
+"Oh yes, Aunt Juley, I am thinking all right about Helen's
+letter. I know--I must go down and see her. I am thinking about
+her all right. I am meaning to go down."
+
+"But go with some plan," said Mrs. Munt, admitting into her
+kindly voice a note of exasperation. "Margaret, if I may
+interfere, don't be taken by surprise. What do you think of the
+Wilcoxes? Are they our sort? Are they likely people? Could they
+appreciate Helen, who is to my mind a very special sort of
+person? Do they care about Literature and Art? That is most
+important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most
+important. How old would the son be? She says 'younger son.'
+Would he be in a position to marry? Is he likely to make Helen
+happy? Did you gather--"
+
+"I gathered nothing."
+
+They began to talk at once.
+
+"Then in that case--"
+
+"In that case I can make no plans, don't you see."
+
+"On the contrary--"
+
+"I hate plans. I hate lines of action. Helen isn't a baby."
+
+"Then in that case, my dear, why go down?"
+
+Margaret was silent. If her aunt could not see why she must go
+down, she was not going to tell her. She was not going to say, "I
+love my dear sister; I must be near her at this crisis of her
+life." The affections are more reticent than the passions, and
+their expression more subtle. If she herself should ever fall in
+love with a man, she, like Helen, would proclaim it from the
+housetops, but as she loved only a sister she used the voiceless
+language of sympathy.
+
+"I consider you odd girls," continued Mrs. Munt, "and very
+wonderful girls, and in many ways far older than your years.
+But--you won't be offended? frankly, I feel you are not up to
+this business. It requires an older person. Dear, I have nothing
+to
+call me back to Swanage." She spread out her plump arms. "I am
+all at your disposal. Let me go down to this house whose name I
+forget instead of you."
+
+"Aunt Juley"--she jumped up and kissed her--"I must, must go
+to Howards End myself. You don't exactly understand, though
+I can never thank you properly for offering."
+
+"I do understand," retorted Mrs. Munt, with immense confidence.
+"I go down in no spirit of interference, but to make inquiries.
+Inquiries are necessary. Now, I am going to be rude. You would
+say the wrong thing; to a certainty you would. In your anxiety
+for Helen's happiness you would offend the whole of these
+Wilcoxes by asking one of your impetuous questions--not that one
+minds offending them."
+
+"I shall ask no questions. I have it in Helen's writing that she
+and a man are in love. There is no question to ask as long as she
+keeps to that. All the rest isn't worth a straw. A long
+engagement if you like, but inquiries, questions, plans, lines of
+action--no, Aunt Juley, no."
+
+Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but
+filled with something that took the place of both qualities--
+something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and
+sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through
+life.
+
+"If Helen had written the same to me about a shop assistant or a
+penniless clerk--"
+
+"Dear Margaret, do come into the library and shut the door. Your
+good maids are dusting the banisters."
+
+"--or if she had wanted to marry the man who calls for Carter
+Paterson, I should have said the same." Then, with one of those
+turns that convinced her aunt that she was not mad really, and
+convinced observers of another type that she was not a barren
+theorist, she added: "Though in the case of Carter Paterson I
+should want it to be a very long engagement indeed, I must say."
+
+"I should think so," said Mrs. Munt; "and, indeed, I can scarcely
+follow you. Now, just imagine if you said anything of that sort
+to the Wilcoxes. I understand it, but most good people would
+think you mad. Imagine how disconcerting for Helen! What is
+wanted is a person who will go slowly, slowly in this business,
+and see how things are and where they are likely to lead to."
+
+Margaret was down on this.
+
+"But you implied just now that the engagement must be broken
+off."
+
+"I think probably it must; but slowly."
+
+"Can you break an engagement off slowly?" Her eyes lit up.
+"What's an engagement made of, do you suppose? I think it's made
+of some hard stuff that may snap, but can't break. It is
+different
+to the other ties of life. They stretch or bend. They admit of
+degree. They're different."
+
+"Exactly so. But won't you let me just run down to Howards House,
+and save you all the discomfort? I will really not interfere, but
+I do so thoroughly understand the kind of thing you Schlegels
+want that one quiet look round will be enough for me."
+
+Margaret again thanked her, again kissed her, and then ran
+upstairs to see her brother.
+
+He was not so well.
+
+The hay fever had worried him a good deal all night. His head
+ached, his eyes were wet, his mucous membrane, he informed her,
+in a most unsatisfactory condition. The only thing that made life
+worth living was the thought of Walter Savage Landor, from whose
+Imaginary Conversations she had promised to read at frequent
+intervals during the day.
+
+It was rather difficult. Something must be done about Helen. She
+must be assured that it is not a criminal offence to love at
+first sight. A telegram to this effect would be cold and cryptic,
+a personal visit seemed each moment more impossible. Now the
+doctor arrived, and said that Tibby was quite bad. Might it
+really be best to accept Aunt Juley's kind offer, and to send her
+down to Howards End with a note?
+
+Certainly Margaret was impulsive. She did swing rapidly from one
+decision to another. Running downstairs into the library, she
+cried: "Yes, I have changed my mind; I do wish that you would
+go."
+
+There was a train from King's Cross at eleven. At half-past ten
+Tibby, with rare self-effacement, fell asleep, and Margaret was
+able to drive her aunt to the station.
+
+"You will remember, Aunt Juley, not to be drawn into discussing
+the engagement. Give my letter to Helen, and say whatever you
+feel yourself, but do keep clear of the relatives. We have
+scarcely got their names straight yet, and, besides, that sort of
+thing is so uncivilised and wrong."
+
+"So uncivilised?" queried Mrs. Munt, fearing that she was losing
+the point of some brilliant remark.
+
+"Oh, I used an affected word. I only meant would you please talk
+the thing over only with Helen."
+
+"Only with Helen."
+
+"Because--" But it was no moment to expound the personal nature
+of love. Even Margaret shrank from it, and contented herself with
+stroking her good aunt's hand, and with meditating, half sensibly
+and half poetically, on the journey that was about to begin from
+King's Cross.
+
+Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had
+strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our
+gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out
+into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In
+Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west; down the
+inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable
+Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston; Wessex behind
+the poised chaos of Waterloo. Italians realise this, as is
+natural; those of them who are so unfortunate as to serve as
+waiters in Berlin call the Anhalt Bahnhof the Stazione d'Italia,
+because by it they must return to their homes. And he is a chilly
+Londoner who does not endow his stations with some personality,
+and extend to them, however shyly, the emotions of fear and love.
+
+To Margaret--I hope that it will not set the reader against her--
+the station of King's Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its
+very situation--withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours
+of St. Pancras--implied a comment on the materialism of life.
+Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering
+between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal
+adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly
+not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. If you
+think this ridiculous, remember that it is not Margaret who is
+telling you about it; and let me hasten to add that they were in
+plenty of time for the train; that Mrs. Munt, though she took a
+second-class ticket, was put by the guard into a first (only two
+"seconds" on the train, one smoking and the other babies--one
+cannot be expected to travel with babies); and that Margaret, on
+her return to Wickham Place, was confronted with the following
+telegram:
+
+"All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one--, HELEN."
+
+But Aunt Juley was gone--gone irrevocably, and no power on earth
+could stop her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Most complacently did Mrs. Munt rehearse her mission. Her nieces
+were independent young women, and it was not often that she was
+able to help them. Emily's daughters had never been quite like
+other girls. They had been left motherless when Tibby was born,
+when Helen was five and Margaret herself but thirteen. It was
+before the passing of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, so Mrs.
+Munt could without impropriety offer to go and keep house at
+Wickham Place. But her brother-in-law, who was peculiar and a
+German, had referred the question to Margaret, who with the
+crudity of youth had answered, "No, they could manage much better
+alone." Five years later Mr. Schlegel had died too, and Mrs. Munt
+had repeated her offer. Margaret, crude no longer, had been
+grateful and extremely nice, but the substance of her answer had
+been the same. "I must not interfere a third time," thought Mrs.
+Munt. However, of course she did. She learnt, to her horror, that
+Margaret, now of age, was taking her money out of the old safe
+investments and putting it into Foreign Things, which always
+smash. Silence would have been criminal. Her own fortune was
+invested in Home Rails, and most ardently did she beg her niece
+to imitate her. "Then we should be together, dear." Margaret, out
+of politeness, invested a few hundreds in the Nottingham and
+Derby Railway, and though the Foreign Things did admirably and
+the Nottingham and Derby declined with the steady dignity of
+which only Home Rails are capable, Mrs. Munt never ceased to
+rejoice, and to say, "I did manage that, at all events. When the
+smash comes poor Margaret will have a nest-egg to fall back
+upon." This year Helen came of age, and exactly the same thing
+happened in Helen's case; she also would shift her money out of
+Consols, but she, too, almost without being pressed, consecrated
+a fraction of it to the Nottingham and Derby Railway. So far so
+good, but in social matters their aunt had accomplished nothing.
+Sooner or later the girls would enter on the process known as
+throwing themselves away, and if they had delayed hitherto, it
+was only that they might throw themselves more vehemently in the
+future. They saw too many people at Wickham Place--unshaven
+musicians, an actress even, German cousins (one knows what
+foreigners are), acquaintances picked up at Continental hotels
+(one knows what they are too). It was interesting, and down at
+Swanage no one appreciated culture more than Mrs. Munt; but it
+was dangerous, and disaster was bound to come. How right she was,
+and how lucky to be on the spot when the disaster came!
+
+The train sped northward, under innumerable tunnels. It was only
+an hour's journey, but Mrs. Munt had to raise and lower the
+window again and again. She passed through the South Welwyn
+Tunnel, saw light for a moment, and entered the North Welwyn
+Tunnel, of tragic fame. She traversed the immense viaduct, whose
+arches span untroubled meadows and the dreamy flow of Tewin
+Water. She skirted the parks of politicians. At times the Great
+North Road accompanied her, more suggestive of infinity than any
+railway, awakening, after a nap of a hundred years, to such life
+as is conferred by the stench of motor-cars, and to such culture
+as is implied by the advertisements of antibilious pills. To
+history, to tragedy, to the past, to the future, Mrs. Munt
+remained equally indifferent; hers but to concentrate on the end
+of her journey, and to rescue poor Helen from this dreadful mess.
+
+The station for Howards End was at Hilton, one of the large
+villages that are strung so frequently along the North Road, and
+that owe their size to the traffic of coaching and pre-coaching
+days. Being near London, it had not shared in the rural decay,
+and its long High Street had budded out right and left into
+residential estates. For about a mile a series of tiled and
+slated houses passed before Mrs. Munt's inattentive eyes, a
+series broken at one point by six Danish tumuli that stood
+shoulder to shoulder along the highroad, tombs of soldiers.
+Beyond these tumuli, habitations thickened, and the train came to
+a standstill in a tangle that was almost a town.
+
+The station, like the scenery, like Helen's letters, struck an
+indeterminate note. Into which country will it lead, England or
+Suburbia? It was new, it had island platforms and a subway, and
+the superficial comfort exacted by business men. But it held
+hints of local life, personal intercourse, as even Mrs. Munt was
+to discover.
+
+"I want a house," she confided to the ticket boy. "Its name is
+Howards Lodge. Do you know where it is?"
+
+"Mr. Wilcox!" the boy called.
+
+A young man in front of them turned around.
+
+"She's wanting Howards End."
+
+There was nothing for it but to go forward, though Mrs. Munt was
+too much agitated even to stare at the stranger. But remembering
+that there were two brothers, she had the sense to say to him,
+"Excuse me asking, but are you the younger Mr. Wilcox or the
+elder?"
+
+"The younger. Can I do anything for you?"
+
+"Oh, well"--she controlled herself with difficulty. "Really. Are
+you? I--" She moved; away from the ticket boy and lowered her
+voice. "I am Miss Schlegel's aunt. I ought to introduce myself,
+oughtn't I? My name is Mrs. Munt."
+
+She was conscious that he raised his cap and said quite coolly,
+"Oh, rather; Miss Schlegel is stopping with us. Did you want to
+see her?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"I'll call you a cab. No; wait a mo--" He thought. "Our motor's
+here. I'll run you up in it."
+
+"That is very kind."
+
+"Not at all, if you'll just wait till they bring out a parcel
+from the office. This way."
+
+"My niece is not with you by any chance?"
+
+"No; I came over with my father. He has gone on north in your
+train. You'll see Miss Schlegel at lunch. You're coming up to
+lunch, I hope?"
+
+"I should like to come UP," said Mrs. Munt, not committing
+herself to nourishment until she had studied Helen's lover a
+little more. He seemed a gentleman, but had so rattled her round
+that her powers of observation were numbed. She glanced at him
+stealthily.
+
+To a feminine eye there was nothing amiss in the sharp
+depressions at the corners of his mouth, or in the rather
+box-like construction of his forehead. He was dark, clean-shaven,
+and seemed accustomed to command.
+
+"In front or behind? Which do you prefer? It may be windy in
+front."
+
+"In front if I may; then we can talk."
+
+"But excuse me one moment--I can't think what they're doing with
+that parcel." He strode into the booking-office, and called with
+a new voice: "Hi! hi, you there! Are you going to keep me waiting
+all day? Parcel for Wilcox, Howards End. Just look sharp!"
+
+Emerging, he said in quieter tones: "This station's abominably
+organised; if I had my way, the whole lot of 'em should get the
+sack. May I help you in?"
+
+"This is very good of you," said Mrs. Munt, as she settled
+herself into a luxurious cavern of red leather, and suffered her
+person to be padded with rugs and shawls. She was more civil than
+she had intended, but really this young man was very kind.
+Moreover, she was a little afraid of him; his self-possession was
+extraordinary. "Very good indeed," she repeated, adding: "It is
+just what I should have wished."
+
+"Very good of you to say so," he replied, with a slight look of
+surprise, which, like most slight looks, escaped Mrs. Munt's
+attention. "I was just tooling my father over to catch the down
+train."
+
+"You see, we heard from Helen this morning."
+
+Young Wilcox was pouring in petrol, starting his engine, and
+performing other actions with which this story has no concern.
+The great car began to rock, and the form of Mrs. Munt, trying to
+explain things, sprang agreeably up and down among the red
+cushions. "The mater will be very glad to see you," he mumbled.
+"Hi! I say. Parcel. Parcel for Howards End. Bring it out. Hi!"
+
+A bearded porter emerged with the parcel in one hand and an entry
+book in the other. With the gathering whir of the motor these
+ejaculations mingled: "Sign, must I? Why the--should I sign after
+all this bother? Not even got a pencil on you? Remember next time
+I report you to the station-master. My time's of value, though
+yours mayn't be. Here"--here being a tip.
+
+"Extremely sorry, Mrs. Munt."
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Wilcox."
+
+"And do you object to going through the village? It is rather a
+longer spin, but I have one or two commissions."
+
+"I should love going through the village. Naturally I am very
+anxious to talk things over with you."
+
+As she said this she felt ashamed, for she was disobeying
+Margaret's instructions. Only disobeying them in the letter,
+surely. Margaret had only warned her against discussing the
+incident with outsiders. Surely it was not "uncivilised or wrong"
+to discuss it with the young man himself, since chance had thrown
+them together.
+
+A reticent fellow, he made no reply. Mounting by her side, he put
+on gloves and spectacles, and off they drove, the bearded porter
+--life is a mysterious business--looking after them with
+admiration.
+
+The wind was in their faces down the station road, blowing the
+dust into Mrs. Munt's eyes. But as soon as they turned into the
+Great North Road she opened fire. "You can well imagine," she
+said, "that the news was a great shock to us."
+
+"What news?"
+
+"Mr. Wilcox," she said frankly, "Margaret has told me everything
+--everything. I have seen Helen's letter."
+
+He could not look her in the face, as his eyes were fixed on his
+work; he was travelling as quickly as he dared down the High
+Street. But he inclined his head in her direction, and said: "I
+beg your pardon; I didn't catch."
+
+"About Helen. Helen, of course. Helen is a very exceptional
+person--I am sure you will let me say this, feeling towards her
+as you do--indeed, all the Schlegels are exceptional. I come in
+no spirit of interference, but it was a great shock."
+
+They drew up opposite a draper's. Without replying, he turned
+round in his seat, and contemplated the cloud of dust that they
+had raised in their passage through the village. It was settling
+again, but not all into the road from which he had taken it. Some
+of it had percolated through the open windows, some had whitened
+the roses and gooseberries of the wayside gardens, while a
+certain proportion had entered the lungs of the villagers. "I
+wonder when they'll learn wisdom and tar the roads," was his
+comment. Then a man ran out of the draper's with a roll of
+oilcloth, and off they went again.
+
+"Margaret could not come herself, on account of poor Tibby, so I
+am here to represent her and to have a good talk."
+
+"I'm sorry to be so dense," said the young man, again drawing up
+outside a shop. "But I still haven't quite understood."
+
+"Helen, Mr. Wilcox--my niece and you."
+
+He pushed up his goggles and gazed at her, absolutely
+bewildered. Horror smote her to the heart, for even she began to
+suspect that they were at cross-purposes, and that she had
+commenced her mission by some hideous blunder.
+
+"Miss Schlegel and myself?" he asked, compressing his lips.
+
+"I trust there has been no misunderstanding," quavered Mrs. Munt.
+"Her letter certainly read that way."
+
+"What way?"
+
+"That you and she--" She paused, then drooped her eyelids.
+
+"I think I catch your meaning," he said stickily. "What an
+extraordinary mistake!"
+
+"Then you didn't the least--" she stammered, getting blood-red in
+the face, and wishing she had never been born.
+
+"Scarcely, as I am already engaged to another lady." There was a
+moment's silence, and then he caught his breath and exploded
+with, "Oh, good God! Don't tell me it 's some silliness of
+Paul's."
+
+"But you are Paul."
+
+"I'm not."
+
+"Then why did you say so at the station?"
+
+"I said nothing of the sort."
+
+"I beg your pardon, you did."
+
+"I beg your pardon, I did not. My name is Charles."
+
+"Younger" may mean son as opposed to father, or second brother as
+opposed to first. There is much to be said for either view, and
+later on they said it. But they had other questions before them
+now.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that Paul--"
+
+But she did not like his voice. He sounded as if he was talking
+to a porter, and, certain that he had deceived her at the
+station, she too grew angry.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that Paul and your niece--"
+
+Mrs. Munt--such is human nature--determined that she would
+champion the lovers. She was not going to be bullied by a severe
+young man. "Yes, they care for one another very much indeed," she
+said. "I dare say they will tell you about it by-and-by. We
+heard this morning."
+
+And Charles clenched his fist and cried, "The idiot, the idiot,
+the little fool!"
+
+Mrs. Munt tried to divest herself of her rugs. "If that is your
+attitude, Mr. Wilcox, I prefer to walk."
+
+"I beg you will do no such thing. I take you up this moment to
+the house. Let me tell you the thing's impossible, and must be
+stopped."
+
+Mrs. Munt did not often lose her temper, and when she did it was
+only to protect those whom she loved. On this occasion she blazed
+out. "I quite agree, sir. The thing is impossible, and I will
+come up and stop it. My niece is a very exceptional person, and I
+am not inclined to sit still while she throws herself away on
+those who will not appreciate her."
+
+Charles worked his jaws.
+
+"Considering she has only known your brother since Wednesday, and
+only met your father and mother at a stray hotel--"
+
+"Could you possibly lower your voice? The shopman will overhear."
+
+Esprit de classe--if one may coin the phrase--was strong in Mrs.
+Munt. She sat quivering while a member of the lower orders
+deposited a metal funnel, a saucepan, and a garden squirt beside
+the roll of oilcloth.
+
+"Right behind?"
+
+"Yes, sir." And the lower orders vanished in a cloud of dust.
+
+"I warn you: Paul hasn't a penny; it's useless."
+
+"No need to warn us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you. The warning is all
+the other way. My niece has been very foolish, and I shall give
+her a good scolding and take her back to London with me."
+
+"He has to make his way out in Nigeria. He couldn't think of
+marrying for years, and when he does it must be a woman who can
+stand the climate, and is in other ways-- Why hasn't he told us?
+Of course he's ashamed. He knows he's been a fool. And so he has
+--a downright fool."
+
+She grew furious.
+
+"Whereas Miss Schlegel has lost no time in publishing the news."
+
+"If I were a man, Mr. Wilcox, for that last remark I'd box your
+ears. You're not fit to clean my niece's boots, to sit in the
+same room with her, and you dare--you actually dare-- I decline
+to argue with such a person."
+
+"All I know is, she's spread the thing and he hasn't, and my
+father's away and I--"
+
+"And all that I know is--"
+
+"Might I finish my sentence, please?"
+
+"No."
+
+Charles clenched his teeth and sent the motor swerving all over
+the lane.
+
+She screamed.
+
+So they played the game of Capping Families, a round of which is
+always played when love would unite two members of our race. But
+they played it with unusual vigour, stating in so many words that
+Schlegels were better than Wilcoxes, Wilcoxes better than
+Schlegels. They flung decency aside. The man was young, the woman
+deeply stirred; in both a vein of coarseness was latent. Their
+quarrel was no more surprising than are most quarrels--inevitable
+at the time, incredible afterwards. But it was more than usually
+futile. A few minutes, and they were enlightened. The motor drew
+up at Howards End, and Helen, looking very pale, ran out to meet
+her aunt.
+
+"Aunt Juley, I have just had a telegram from Margaret; I--I meant
+to stop your coming. It isn't--it's over."
+
+The climax was too much for Mrs. Munt. She burst into tears.
+
+"Aunt Juley dear, don't. Don't let them know I've been so silly.
+It wasn't anything. Do bear up for my sake."
+
+"Paul," cried Charles Wilcox, pulling his gloves off.
+
+"Don't let them know. They are never to know."
+
+"Oh, my darling Helen--"
+
+"Paul! Paul!"
+
+A very young man came out of the house.
+
+"Paul, is there any truth in this?"
+
+"I didn't--I don't--"
+
+"Yes or no, man; plain question, plain answer. Did or didn't
+Miss Schlegel--"
+
+"Charles, dear," said a voice from the garden. "Charles, dear
+Charles, one doesn't ask plain questions. There aren't such
+things."
+
+They were all silent. It was Mrs. Wilcox.
+
+She approached just as Helen's letter had described her, trailing
+noiselessly over the lawn, and there was actually a wisp of hay
+in her hands. She seemed to belong not to the young people and
+their motor, but to the house, and to the tree that overshadowed
+it. One knew that she worshipped the past, and that the
+instinctive wisdom the past can alone bestow had descended upon
+her--that wisdom to which we give the clumsy name of aristocracy.
+High born she might not be. But assuredly she cared about her
+ancestors, and let them help her. When she saw Charles angry,
+Paul frightened, and Mrs. Munt in tears, she heard her ancestors
+say, "Separate those human beings who will hurt each other most.
+The rest can wait." So she did not ask questions. Still less did
+she pretend that nothing had happened, as a competent society
+hostess would have done. She said: "Miss Schlegel, would you take
+your aunt up to your room or to my room, whichever you think
+best. Paul, do find Evie, and tell her lunch for six, but I'm not
+sure whether we shall all be downstairs for it." And when they
+had obeyed her, she turned to her elder son, who still stood in
+the throbbing, stinking car, and smiled at him with tenderness,
+and without saying a word, turned away from him towards her
+flowers.
+
+"Mother," he called, "are you aware that Paul has been playing
+the fool again?"
+
+"It is all right, dear. They have broken off the engagement."
+
+"Engagement--!"
+
+"They do not love any longer, if you prefer it put that way,"
+said Mrs. Wilcox, stooping down to smell a rose.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+Helen and her aunt returned to Wickham Place in a state of
+collapse, and for a little time Margaret had three invalids on
+her hands. Mrs. Munt soon recovered. She possessed to a
+remarkable degree the power of distorting the past, and before
+many days were over she had forgotten the part played by her own
+imprudence in the catastrophe. Even at the crisis she had cried,
+"Thank goodness, poor Margaret is saved this!" which during the
+journey to London evolved into, "It had to be gone through by
+some one," which in its turn ripened into the permanent form of
+"The one time I really did help Emily's girls was over the Wilcox
+business." But Helen was a more serious patient. New ideas had
+burst upon her like a thunderclap, and by them and by their
+reverberations she had been stunned.
+
+The truth was that she had fallen in love, not with an
+individual, but with a family.
+
+Before Paul arrived she had, as it were, been tuned up into his
+key. The energy of the Wilcoxes had fascinated her, had created
+new images of beauty in her responsive mind. To be all day with
+them in the open air, to sleep at night under their roof, had
+seemed the supreme joy of life, and had led to that abandonment
+of personality that is a possible prelude to love. She had liked
+giving in to Mr. Wilcox, or Evie, or Charles; she had liked being
+told that her notions of life were sheltered or academic; that
+Equality was nonsense, Votes for Women nonsense, Socialism
+nonsense, Art and Literature, except when conducive to
+strengthening the character, nonsense. One by one the Schlegel
+fetiches had been overthrown, and, though professing to defend
+them, she had rejoiced. When Mr. Wilcox said that one sound man
+of business did more good to the world than a dozen of your
+social reformers, she had swallowed the curious assertion without
+a gasp, and had leant back luxuriously among the cushions of his
+motorcar. When Charles said, "Why be so polite to servants? they
+don't understand it," she had not given the Schlegel retort of,
+"If they don't understand it, I do." No; she had vowed to be
+less polite to servants in the future. "I am swathed in cant,"
+she thought, "and it is good for me to be stripped of it." And
+all that she thought or did or breathed was a quiet preparation
+for Paul. Paul was inevitable. Charles was taken up with another
+girl, Mr. Wilcox was so old, Evie so young, Mrs. Wilcox so
+different. Round the absent brother she began to throw the halo
+of Romance, to irradiate him with all the splendour of those
+happy days, to feel that in him she should draw nearest to the
+robust ideal. He and she were about the same age, Evie said. Most
+people thought Paul handsomer than his brother. He was certainly
+a better shot, though not so good at golf. And when Paul
+appeared, flushed with the triumph of getting through an
+examination, and ready to flirt with any pretty girl, Helen met
+him halfway, or more than halfway, and turned towards him on the
+Sunday evening.
+
+He had been talking of his approaching exile in Nigeria, and he
+should have continued to talk of it, and allowed their guest to
+recover. But the heave of her bosom flattered him. Passion was
+possible, and he became passionate. Deep down in him something
+whispered, "This girl would let you kiss her; you might not have
+such a chance again."
+
+That was "how it happened," or, rather, how Helen described it to
+her sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own. But
+the poetry of that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there
+was in life for hours after it--who can describe that? It is so
+easy for an Englishman to sneer at these chance collisions of
+human beings. To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they
+offer an equal opportunity. It is so easy to talk of "passing
+emotion," and to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed.
+Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We
+recognise that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are
+personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere
+opportunities for an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the
+impulse too highly. We do not admit that by collisions of this
+trivial sort the doors of heaven may be shaken open. To Helen, at
+all events, her life was to bring nothing more intense than the
+embrace of this boy who played no part in it. He had drawn her
+out of the house, where there was danger of surprise and light;
+he had led her by a path he knew, until they stood under the
+column of the vast wych-elm. A man in the darkness, he had
+whispered "I love you" when she was desiring love. In time his
+slender personality faded, the scene that he had evoked endured.
+In all the variable years that followed she never saw the like of
+it again.
+
+"I understand," said Margaret--s"at least, I understand as much
+as ever is understood of these things. Tell me now what happened
+on the Monday morning."
+
+"It was over at once."
+
+"How, Helen?"
+
+"I was still happy while I dressed, but as I came downstairs I
+got nervous, and when I went into the dining-room I knew it was
+no good. There was Evie--I can't explain--managing the tea-urn,
+and Mr. Wilcox reading the Times."
+
+"Was Paul there?"
+
+"Yes; and Charles was talking to him about stocks and shares, and
+he looked frightened."
+
+By slight indications the sisters could convey much to each
+other. Margaret saw horror latent in the scene, and Helen's next
+remark did not surprise her.
+
+"Somehow, when that kind of man looks frightened it is too awful.
+It is all right for us to be frightened, or for men of another
+sort--father, for instance; but for men like that! When I saw all
+the others so placid, and Paul mad with terror in case I said the
+wrong thing, I felt for a moment that the whole Wilcox family was
+a fraud, just a wall of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs,
+and that if it fell I should find nothing behind it but panic
+and emptiness."
+
+"I don't think that. The Wilcoxes struck me as being genuine
+people, particularly the wife."
+
+"No, I don't really think that. But Paul was so broad-shouldered;
+all kinds of extraordinary things made it worse, and I knew that
+it would never do--never. I said to him after breakfast, when the
+others were practising strokes, 'We rather lost our heads,' and
+he looked better at once, though frightfully ashamed. He began a
+speech about having no money to marry on, but it hurt him to make
+it, and I stopped him. Then he said, 'I must beg your pardon over
+this, Miss Schlegel; I can't think what came over me last night.'
+And I said, 'Nor what over me; never mind.' And then we parted--
+at least, until I remembered that I had written straight off to
+tell you the night before, and that frightened him again. I asked
+him to send a telegram for me, for he knew you would be coming or
+something; and he tried to get hold of the motor, but Charles and
+Mr. Wilcox wanted it to go to the station; and Charles offered to
+send the telegram for me, and then I had to say that the telegram
+was of no consequence, for Paul said Charles might read it, and
+though I wrote it out several times, he always said people would
+suspect something. He took it himself at last, pretending that he
+must walk down to get cartridges, and, what with one thing and
+the other, it was not handed in at the post-office until too
+late. It was the most terrible morning. Paul disliked me more and
+more, and Evie talked cricket averages till I nearly screamed. I
+cannot think how I stood her all the other days. At last Charles
+and his father started for the station, and then came your
+telegram warning me that Aunt Juley was coming by that train, and
+Paul--oh, rather horrible--said that I had muddled it. But Mrs.
+Wilcox knew."
+
+"Knew what?"
+
+"Everything; though we neither of us told her a word, and she had
+known all along, I think."
+
+"Oh, she must have overheard you."
+
+"I suppose so, but it seemed wonderful. When Charles and Aunt
+Juley drove up, calling each other names, Mrs. Wilcox stepped in
+from the garden and made everything less terrible. Ugh! but it
+has been a disgusting business. To think that--" She sighed.
+
+"To think that because you and a young man meet for a moment,
+there must be all these telegrams and anger," supplied Margaret.
+
+Helen nodded.
+
+"I've often thought about it, Helen. It's one of the most
+interesting things in the world. The truth is that there is a
+great outer life that you and I have never touched--a life in
+which telegrams and anger count. Personal relations, that we
+think supreme, are not supreme there. There love means marriage
+settlements, death, death duties. So far I'm clear. But here my
+difficulty. This outer life, though obviously horrid; often seems
+the real one--there's grit in it. It does breed character. Do
+personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?"
+
+"Oh, Meg--, that's what I felt, only not so clearly, when the
+Wilcoxes were so competent, and seemed to have their hands on all
+the ropes."
+
+"Don't you feel it now?"
+
+"I remember Paul at breakfast," said Helen quietly. "I shall
+never forget him. He had nothing to fall back upon. I know that
+personal relations are the real life, for ever and ever."
+
+"Amen!"
+
+So the Wilcox episode fell into the background, leaving behind it
+memories of sweetness and horror that mingled, and the sisters
+pursued the life that Helen had commended. They talked to each
+other and to other people, they filled the tall thin house at
+Wickham Place with those whom they liked or could befriend. They
+even attended public meetings. In their own fashion they cared
+deeply about politics, though not as politicians would have us
+care; they desired that public life should mirror whatever is
+good in the life within. Temperance, tolerance, and sexual
+equality were intelligible cries to them; whereas they did not
+follow our Forward Policy in Tibet with the keen attention that
+it merits, and would at times dismiss the whole British Empire
+with a puzzled, if reverent, sigh. Not out of them are the shows
+of history erected: the world would be a grey, bloodless place
+were it composed entirely of Miss Schlegels. But the world being
+what it is, perhaps they shine out in it like stars.
+
+A word on their origin. They were not "English to the back-bone,"
+as their aunt had piously asserted. But, on the other hand, they
+were not "Germans of the dreadful sort." Their father had
+belonged to a type that was more prominent in Germany fifty years
+ago than now. He was not the aggressive German, so dear to the
+English journalist, nor the domestic German, so dear to the
+English wit. If one classed him at all it would be as the
+countryman of Hegel and Kant, as the idealist, inclined to be
+dreamy, whose Imperialism was the Imperialism of the air. Not
+that his life had been inactive. He had fought like blazes
+against Denmark, Austria, France. But he had fought without
+visualising the results of victory. A hint of the truth broke on
+him after Sedan, when he saw the dyed moustaches of Napoleon
+going grey; another when he entered Paris, and saw the smashed
+windows of the Tuileries. Peace came--it was all very immense,
+one had turned into an Empire--but he knew that some quality had
+vanished for which not all Alsace-Lorraine could compensate him.
+Germany a commercial Power, Germany a naval Power, Germany with
+colonies here and a Forward Policy there, and legitimate
+aspirations in the other place, might appeal to others, and be
+fitly served by them; for his own part, he abstained from the
+fruits of victory, and naturalised himself in England. The more
+earnest members of his family never forgave him, and knew that
+his children, though scarcely English of the dreadful sort, would
+never be German to the back-bone. He had obtained work in one of
+our provincial universities, and there married Poor Emily (or
+Die Englanderin, as the case may be), and as she had money,
+they proceeded to London, and came to know a good many people.
+But his gaze was always fixed beyond the sea. It was his hope
+that the clouds of materialism obscuring the Fatherland would
+part in time, and the mild intellectual light re-emerge. "Do you
+imply that we Germans are stupid, Uncle Ernst?" exclaimed a
+haughty and magnificent nephew. Uncle Ernst replied, "To my mind.
+You use the intellect, but you no longer care about it. That I
+call stupidity." As the haughty nephew did not follow, he
+continued, "You only care about the things that you can use, and
+therefore arrange them in the following order: Money, supremely
+useful; intellect, rather useful; imagination, of no use at all.
+No"--for the other had protested--"your Pan-Germanism is no more
+imaginative than is our Imperialism over here. It is the vice of
+a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand
+square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square
+mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as
+heaven. That is not imagination. No, it kills it. When their
+poets over here try to celebrate bigness they are dead at once,
+and naturally. Your poets too are dying, your philosophers, your
+musicians, to whom Europe has listened for two hundred years.
+Gone. Gone with the little courts that nurtured them--gone with
+Esterhazy and Weimar. What? What's that? Your universities? Oh
+yes, you have learned men, who collect more facts than do the
+learned men of England. They collect facts, and facts, and
+empires of facts. But which of them will rekindle the light
+within?"
+
+To all this Margaret listened, sitting on the haughty nephew's
+knee.
+
+It was a unique education for the little girls. The haughty
+nephew would be at Wickham Place one day, bringing with him an
+even haughtier wife, both convinced that Germany was appointed by
+God to govern the world. Aunt Juley would come the next day,
+convinced that Great Britain had been appointed to the same post
+by the same authority. Were both these loud-voiced parties right?
+On one occasion they had met and Margaret with clasped hands had
+implored them to argue the subject out in her presence. Whereat
+they blushed, and began to talk about the weather. "Papa," she
+cried--she was a most offensive child--"why will they not discuss
+this most clear question?" Her father, surveying the parties
+grimly, replied that he did not know. Putting her head on one
+side, Margaret then remarked, "To me one of two things is very
+clear; either God does not know his own mind about England and
+Germany, or else these do not know the mind of God." A hateful
+little girl, but at thirteen she had grasped a dilemma that most
+people travel through life without perceiving. Her brain darted
+up and down; it grew pliant and strong. Her conclusion was, that
+any human being lies nearer to the unseen than any organisation,
+and from this she never varied.
+
+Helen advanced along the same lines, though with a more
+irresponsible tread. In character she resembled her sister, but
+she was pretty, and so apt to have a more amusing time. People
+gathered round her more readily, especially when they were new
+acquaintances, and she did enjoy a little homage very much. When
+their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham Place, she
+often absorbed the whole of the company, while Margaret--both
+were tremendous talkers--fell flat. Neither sister bothered about
+this. Helen never apologised afterwards, Margaret did not feel
+the slightest rancour. But looks have their influence upon
+character. The sisters were alike as little girls, but at the
+time of the Wilcox episode their methods were beginning to
+diverge; the younger was rather apt to entice people, and, in
+enticing them, to be herself enticed; the elder went straight
+ahead, and accepted an occasional failure as part of the game.
+
+Little need be premised about Tibby. He was now an intelligent
+man of sixteen, but dyspeptic and difficile.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is
+the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of
+man.  All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you
+are like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come--
+of course, not so as to disturb the others--or like Helen, who
+can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood; or like
+Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is
+profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open
+on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who
+remembers all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch; or like
+Fraulein Mosebach's young man, who can remember nothing but
+Fraulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes
+more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap
+at two shillings. It is cheap, even if you hear it in the Queen's
+Hall, dreariest music-room in London, though not as dreary as the
+Free Trade Hall, Manchester; and even if you sit on the extreme
+left of that hall, so that the brass bumps at you before the
+rest of the orchestra arrives, it is still cheap.
+
+"Whom is Margaret talking to?" said Mrs. Munt, at the conclusion
+of the first movement. She was again in London on a visit to
+Wickham Place.
+
+Helen looked down the long line of their party, and said that she
+did not know.
+
+"Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an interest
+in?"
+
+"I expect so," Helen replied. Music enwrapped her, and she could
+not enter into the distinction that divides young men whom one
+takes an interest in from young men whom one knows.
+
+"You girls are so wonderful in always having--Oh dear! one
+mustn't talk."
+
+For the Andante had begun--very beautiful, but bearing a family
+likeness to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven had
+written, and, to Helen's mind, rather disconnecting the heroes
+and shipwrecks of the first movement from the heroes and goblins
+of the third. She heard the tune through once, and then her
+attention wandered, and she gazed at the audience, or the organ,
+or the architecture. Much did she censure the attenuated Cupids
+who encircle the ceiling of the Queen's Hall, inclining each to
+each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow pantaloons, on which
+the October sunlight struck. "How awful to marry a man like those
+Cupids!" thought Helen. Here Beethoven started decorating his
+tune, so she heard him through once more, and then she smiled at
+her Cousin Frieda. But Frieda, listening to Classical Music,
+could not respond. Herr Liesecke, too, looked as if wild horses
+could not make him inattentive; there were lines across his
+forehead, his lips were parted, his pince-nez at right angles to
+his nose, and he had laid a thick, white hand on either knee. And
+next to her was Aunt Juley, so British, and wanting to tap. How
+interesting that row of people was! What diverse influences had
+gone to the making! Here Beethoven, after humming and hawing with
+great sweetness, said "Heigho," and the Andante came to an end.
+Applause, and a round of "wunderschoning" and pracht volleying
+from the German contingent. Margaret started talking to her new
+young man; Helen said to her aunt: "Now comes the wonderful
+movement: first of all the goblins, and then a trio of elephants
+dancing"; and Tibby implored the company generally to look out
+for the transitional passage on the drum.
+
+"On the what, dear?"
+
+"On the drum, Aunt Juley."
+
+"No; look out for the part where you think you have done with the
+goblins and they come back," breathed Helen, as the music started
+with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end.
+Others followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was
+that that made them so terrible to Helen. They merely observed in
+passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in
+the world. After the interlude of elephants dancing, they
+returned and made the observation for the second time. Helen
+could not contradict them, for, once at all events, she had felt
+the same, and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse.
+Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right.
+Her brother raised his finger; it was the transitional passage on
+the drum.
+
+For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold of the
+goblins and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in person.
+He gave them a little push, and they began to walk in a major key
+instead of in a minor, and then--he blew with his mouth and they
+were scattered! Gusts of splendour, gods and demigods contending
+with vast swords, colour and fragrance broadcast on the field of
+battle, magnificent victory, magnificent death! Oh, it all burst
+before the girl, and she even stretched out her gloved hands as
+if it was tangible. Any fate was titanic; any contest desirable;
+conqueror and conquered would alike be applauded by the angels of
+the utmost stars.
+
+And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? They were
+only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human
+impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or ex-President
+Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins
+really had been there. They might return--and they did. It was as
+if the splendour of life might boil over and waste to steam and
+froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible, ominous note,
+and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked quietly over the
+universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and
+emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.
+Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the
+ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and
+again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of
+splendour, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and
+of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his
+Fifth Symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there.
+They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one
+can trust Beethoven when he says other things.
+
+Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She desired to be
+alone. The music had summed up to her all that had happened or
+could happen in her career.
+
+She read it as a tangible statement, which could never be
+superseded. The notes meant this and that to her, and they could
+have no other meaning, and life could have no other meaning. She
+pushed right out of the building and walked slowly down the
+outside staircase, breathing the autumnal air, and then she
+strolled home.
+
+"Margaret," called Mrs. Munt, "is Helen all right?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"She is always going away in the middle of a programme," said
+Tibby.
+
+"The music has evidently moved her deeply," said Fraulein
+Mosebach.
+
+"Excuse me," said Margaret's young man, who had for some time
+been preparing a sentence, "but that lady has, quite
+inadvertently, taken my umbrella."
+
+"Oh, good gracious me!--I am so sorry. Tibby, run after Helen."
+
+"I shall miss the Four Serious Songs if I do."
+
+"Tibby, love, you must go."
+
+"It isn't of any consequence," said the young man, in truth a
+little uneasy about his umbrella.
+
+"But of course it is. Tibby! Tibby!"
+
+Tibby rose to his feet, and wilfully caught his person on the
+backs of the chairs. By the time he had tipped up the seat and
+had found his hat, and had deposited his full score in safety, it
+was "too late" to go after Helen. The Four Serious Songs had
+begun, and one could not move during their performance.
+
+"My sister is so careless," whispered Margaret.
+
+"Not at all," replied the young man; but his voice was dead and
+cold.
+
+"If you would give me your address--"
+
+"Oh, not at all, not at all;" and he wrapped his greatcoat over
+his knees.
+
+Then the Four Serious Songs rang shallow in Margaret's ears.
+Brahms, for all his grumbling and grizzling, had never guessed
+what it felt like to be suspected of stealing an umbrella. For
+this fool of a young man thought that she and Helen and Tibby had
+been playing the confidence trick on him, and that if he gave his
+address they would break into his rooms some midnight or other
+and steal his walking-stick too. Most ladies would have laughed,
+but Margaret really minded, for it gave her a glimpse into
+squalor. To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy
+can indulge; the poor cannot afford it. As soon as Brahms had
+grunted himself out, she gave him her card and said, "That is
+where we live; if you preferred, you could call for the umbrella
+after the concert, but I didn't like to trouble you when it has
+all been our fault."
+
+His face brightened a little when he saw that Wickham Place was
+W. It was sad to see him corroded with suspicion, and yet not
+daring to be impolite, in case these well-dressed people were
+honest after all. She took it as a good sign that he said to her,
+"It's a fine programme this afternoon, is it not?" for this was
+the remark with which he had originally opened, before the
+umbrella intervened.
+
+"The Beethoven's fine," said Margaret, who was not a female of
+the encouraging type. "I don't like the Brahms, though, nor the
+Mendelssohn that came first and ugh! I don't like this Elgar
+that's coming."
+
+"What, what?" called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. "The 'Pomp and
+Circumstance' will not be fine?"
+
+"Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!" cried her aunt.
+
+"Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for 'Pomp and
+Circumstance,' and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious
+for him to hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,--you musn't run
+down our English composers, Margaret."
+
+"For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin," said
+Fraulein Mosebach, "on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little."
+
+"Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English
+art. And English literature, except Shakespeare, and he's a
+German. Very well, Frieda, you may go."
+
+The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common
+impulse, they rose to their feet and fled from "Pomp and
+Circumstance."
+
+"We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true," said
+Herr Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just
+as the music started.
+
+"Margaret--" loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.
+
+"Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful
+little bag behind her on the seat."
+
+Sure enough, there was Frieda's reticule, containing her address
+book, her pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.
+
+"Oh, what a bother--what a family we are! Fr--frieda!"
+
+"Hush!" said all those who thought the music fine.
+
+"But it's the number they want in Finsbury Circus."
+
+"Might I--couldn't I--" said the suspicious young man, and got
+very red.
+
+"Oh, I would be so grateful."
+
+He took the bag--money clinking inside it--and slipped up the
+gangway with it. He was just in time to catch them at the
+swing-door, and he received a pretty smile from the German girl
+and a fine bow from her cavalier. He returned to his seat
+upsides with the world. The trust that they had reposed in him
+was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his mistrust for them,
+and that probably he would not be "had" over his umbrella. This
+young man had been "had" in the past badly, perhaps
+overwhelmingly--and now most of his energies went in defending
+himself against the unknown. But this afternoon--perhaps on
+account of music--he perceived that one must slack off
+occasionally or what is the good of being alive? Wickham Place,
+W., though a risk, was as safe as most things, and he would risk
+it.
+
+So when the concert was over and Margaret said, "We live quite
+near; I am going there now. Could you walk round with me, and
+we'll find your umbrella?" he said, "Thank you," peaceably, and
+followed her out of the Queen's Hall. She wished that he was not
+so anxious to hand a lady downstairs, or to carry a lady's
+programme for her--his class was near enough her own for its
+manners to vex her. But she found him interesting on the whole--
+every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that time--and
+while her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to invite
+him to tea.
+
+"How tired one gets after music!" she began.
+
+"Do you find the atmosphere of Queen's Hall oppressive?"
+
+"Yes, horribly."
+
+"But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more
+oppressive."
+
+"Do you go there much?"
+
+"When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera."
+
+Helen would have exclaimed, "So do I. I love the gallery," and
+thus have endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these
+things. But Margaret had an almost morbid horror of "drawing
+people out," of "making things go." She had been to the gallery
+at Covent Garden, but she did not "attend" it, preferring the
+more expensive seats; still less did she love it. So she made no
+reply.
+
+"This year I have been three times--to 'Faust,' 'Tosca,' and--"
+Was it "Tannhouser" or "Tannhoyser"? Better not risk the word.
+
+Margaret disliked "Tosca" and "Faust." And so, for one reason and
+another, they walked on in silence, chaperoned by the voice of
+Mrs. Munt, who was getting into difficulties with her nephew.
+
+"I do in a WAY remember the passage, Tibby, but when every
+instrument is so beautiful, it is difficult to pick out one thing
+rather than another. I am sure that you and Helen take me to the
+very nicest concerts. Not a dull note from beginning to end. I
+only wish that our German friends had stayed till it finished."
+
+"But surely you haven't forgotten the drum steadily beating on
+the low C, Aunt Juley?" came Tibby's voice. "No one could. It's
+unmistakable."
+
+"A specially loud part?" hazarded Mrs. Munt. "Of course I do not
+go in for being musical," she added, the shot failing. "I only
+care for music--a very different thing. But still I will say this
+for myself--I do know when I like a thing and when I don't. Some
+people are the same about pictures. They can go into a picture
+gallery--Miss Conder can--and say straight off what they feel,
+all round the wall. I never could do that. But music is so
+different from pictures, to my mind. When it comes to music I am
+as safe as houses, and I assure you, Tibby, I am by no means
+pleased by everything. There was a thing--something about a faun
+in French--which Helen went into ecstasies over, but I thought it
+most tinkling and superficial, and said so, and I held to my
+opinion too."
+
+"Do you agree?" asked Margaret. "Do you think music is so
+different from pictures?"
+
+"I--I should have thought so, kind of," he said.
+
+"So should I. Now, my sister declares they're just the same. We
+have great arguments over it. She says I'm dense; I say she's
+sloppy." Getting under way, she cried: "Now, doesn't it seem
+absurd to you? What is the good of the Arts if they 're
+interchangeable? What is the good of the ear if it tells you the
+same as the eye? Helen's one aim is to translate tunes into the
+language of painting, and pictures into the language of music.
+It's very ingenious, and she says several pretty things in the
+process, but what's gained, I'd like to know? Oh, it's all
+rubbish, radically false. If Monet's really Debussy, and
+Debussy's really Monet, neither gentleman is worth his salt--
+that's my opinion."
+
+Evidently these sisters quarrelled.
+
+"Now, this very symphony that we've just been having--she won't
+let it alone. She labels it with meanings from start to finish;
+turns it into literature. I wonder if the day will ever return
+when music will be treated as music. Yet I don't know. There's my
+brother--behind us. He treats music as music, and oh, my
+goodness!
+He makes me angrier than any one, simply furious. With him I
+daren't even argue."
+
+An unhappy family, if talented.
+
+"But, of course, the real villain is Wagner. He has done more
+than any man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of
+the arts. I do feel that music is in a very serious state just
+now, though extraordinarily interesting. Every now and then in
+history there do come these terrible geniuses, like Wagner, who
+stir up all the wells of thought at once. For a moment it's
+splendid. Such a splash as never was. But afterwards--such a lot
+of mud; and the wells--as it were, they communicate with each
+other too easily now, and not one of them will run quite clear.
+That's what Wagner's done."
+
+Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds. If
+only he could talk like this, he would have caught the world. Oh,
+to acquire culture! Oh, to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh,
+to be well informed, discoursing at ease on every subject that a
+lady started! But it would take one years. With an hour at lunch
+and a few shattered hours in the evening, how was it possible to
+catch up with leisured women, who had been reading steadily from
+childhood? His brain might be full of names, he might have even
+heard of Monet and Debussy; the trouble was that he could not
+string them together into a sentence, he could not make them
+"tell," he could not quite forget about his stolen umbrella. Yes,
+the umbrella was the real trouble. Behind Monet and Debussy the
+umbrella persisted, with the steady beat of a drum. "I suppose my
+umbrella will be all right," he was thinking. "I don't really
+mind about it. I will think about music instead. I suppose my
+umbrella will be all right." Earlier in the afternoon he had
+worried about seats. Ought he to have paid as much as two
+shillings? Earlier still he had wondered, "Shall I try to do
+without a programme?" There had always been something to worry
+him ever since he could remember, always something that
+distracted him in the pursuit of beauty. For he did pursue
+beauty, and, therefore, Margaret's speeches did flutter away from
+him like birds.
+
+Margaret talked ahead, occasionally saying, "Don't you think so?
+don't you feel the same?" And once she stopped, and said, "Oh, do
+interrupt me!" which terrified him. She did not attract him,
+though she filled him with awe. Her figure was meagre, her face
+seemed all teeth and eyes, her references to her sister and her
+brother were uncharitable. For all her cleverness and culture,
+she was probably one of those soulless, atheistical women who
+have been so shown up by Miss Corelli. It was surprising (and
+alarming) that she should suddenly say, "I do hope that you'll
+come in and have some tea. We should be so glad. I have dragged
+you so far out of your way."
+
+They had arrived at Wickham Place. The sun had set, and the
+backwater, in deep shadow, was filling with a gentle haze. To the
+right the fantastic sky-line of the flats towered black against
+the hues of evening; to the left the older houses raised a
+square-cut, irregular parapet against the grey. Margaret fumbled
+for her latch-key. Of course she had forgotten it. So, grasping
+her umbrella by its ferrule, she leant over the area and tapped
+at the dining-room window.
+
+"Helen! Let us in!"
+
+"All right," said a voice.
+
+"You've been taking this gentleman's umbrella."
+
+"Taken a what?" said Helen, opening the door. "Oh, what's that?
+Do come in! How do you do?"
+
+"Helen, you must not be so ramshackly. You took this gentleman's
+umbrella away from Queen's Hall, and he has had the trouble of
+coming round for it."
+
+"Oh, I am so sorry!" cried Helen, all her hair flying. She had
+pulled off her hat as soon as she returned, and had flung herself
+into the big dining-room chair. "I do nothing but steal
+umbrellas. I am so very sorry! Do come in and choose one. Is yours
+a hooky or a nobbly? Mine's a nobbly--at least, I THINK it is."
+
+The light was turned on, and they began to search the hall,
+Helen, who had abruptly parted with the Fifth Symphony,
+commenting with shrill little cries.
+
+"Don't you talk, Meg,! You stole an old gentleman's silk top-hat.
+Yes, she did, Aunt Juley. It is a positive fact. She thought it
+was a muff. Oh, heavens! I've knocked the In-and-Out card down.
+Where's Frieda? Tibby, why don't you ever-- No, I can't remember
+what I was going to say. That wasn't it, but do tell the maids to
+hurry tea up. What about this umbrella? " She opened it. "No,
+it's all gone along the seams. It's an appalling umbrella. It
+must be mine."
+
+But it was not.
+
+He took it from her, murmured a few words of thanks, and then
+fled, with the lilting step of the clerk.
+
+"But if you will stop--" cried Margaret. "Now, Helen, how stupid
+you've been!"
+
+"Whatever have I done?"
+
+"Don't you see that you've frightened him away? I meant him to
+stop to tea. You oughtn't to talk about stealing or holes in an
+umbrella. I saw his nice eyes getting so miserable. No, it's not
+a bit of good now." For Helen had darted out into the street,
+shouting, "Oh, do stop!"
+
+"I dare say it is all for the best," opined Mrs. Munt. "We know
+nothing about the young man, Margaret, and your drawing-room is
+full of very tempting little things."
+
+But Helen cried: "Aunt Juley, how can you! You make me more and
+more ashamed. I'd rather he had been a thief and taken all the
+apostle spoons than that I-- Well, I must shut the front-door, I
+suppose. One more failure for Helen."
+
+"Yes, I think the apostle spoons could have gone as rent," said
+Margaret. Seeing that her aunt did not understand, she added:
+"You remember 'rent'? It was one of father's words-- Rent to the
+ideal, to his own faith in human nature. You remember how he
+would trust strangers, and if they fooled him he would say,
+'It's better to be fooled than to be suspicious'--that the
+confidence trick is the work of man, but the want-of-confidence
+trick is the work of the devil."
+
+"I remember something of the sort now," said Mrs. Munt, rather
+tartly, for she longed to add, "It was lucky that your father
+married a wife with money." But this was unkind, and she
+contented herself with, "Why, he might have stolen the little
+Ricketts picture as well."
+
+"Better that he had," said Helen stoutly.
+
+"No, I agree with Aunt Juley," said Margaret. "I'd rather
+mistrust people than lose my little Ricketts. There are limits."
+
+Their brother, finding the incident commonplace, had stolen
+upstairs to see whether there were scones for tea. He warmed the
+teapot--almost too deftly--rejected the orange pekoe that the
+parlour-maid had provided, poured in five spoonfuls of a superior
+blend, filled up with really boiling water, and now called to the
+ladies to be quick or they would lose the aroma.
+
+"All right, Auntie Tibby," called Heien, while Margaret,
+thoughtful again, said: "In a way, I wish we had a real boy in
+the house--the kind of boy who cares for men. It would make
+entertaining so much easier."
+
+"So do I," said her sister. "Tibby only cares for cultured
+females singing Brahms." And when they joined him she said rather
+sharply: "Why didn't you make that young man welcome, Tibby? You
+must do the host a little, you know. You ought to have taken his
+hat and coaxed him into stopping, instead of letting him be
+swamped by screaming women."
+
+Tibby sighed, and drew a long strand of hair over his forehead.
+
+"Oh, it's no good looking superior. I mean what I say."
+
+"Leave Tibby alone!" said Margaret, who could not bear her
+brother to be scolded.
+
+"Here's the house a regular hen-coop!" grumbled Helen.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" protested Mrs. Munt. "How can you say such
+dreadful things! The number of men you get here has always
+astonished me. If there is any danger it's the other way round."
+
+"Yes, but it's the wrong sort of men, Helen means."
+
+"No, I don't," corrected Helen. "We get the right sort of man,
+but the wrong side of him, and I say that's Tibby's fault. There
+ought to be a something about the house--an--I don't know what."
+
+"A touch of the W's, perhaps?"
+
+Helen put out her tongue.
+
+"Who are the W's?" asked Tibby.
+
+"The W's are things I and Meg and Aunt Juley know about and you
+don't, so there!"
+
+"I suppose that ours is a female house," said Margaret, "and one
+must just accept it. No, Aunt Juley, I don't mean that this house
+is full of women. I am trying to say something much more clever.
+I mean that it was irrevocably feminine, even in father's time.
+Now I'm sure you understand! Well, I'll give you another example.
+It'll shock you, but I don't care. Suppose Queen Victoria gave a
+dinner-party, and that the guests had been Leighton, Millais,
+Swinburne, Rossetti, Meredith, Fitzgerald, etc. Do you suppose
+that the atmosphere of that dinner would have been artistic?
+Heavens, no! The very chairs on which they sat would have seen to
+that. So with out house--it must be feminine, and all we can do
+is to see that it isn't effeminate. Just as another house that I
+can mention, but won't, sounded irrevocably masculine, and all
+its inmates can do is to see that it isn't brutal."
+
+"That house being the W's house, I presume," said Tibby.
+
+"You're not going to be told about the W's, my child," Helen
+cried, "so don't you think it. And on the other hand, I don't the
+least mind if you find out, so don't you think you've done
+anything clever, in either case. Give me a cigarette."
+
+"You do what you can for the house," said Margaret. "The
+drawing-room reeks of smoke."
+
+"If you smoked too, the house might suddenly turn masculine.
+Atmosphere is probably a question of touch and go. Even at Queen
+Victoria's dinner-party--if something had been just a little
+Different--perhaps if she'd worn a clinging Liberty tea-gown
+instead of a magenta satin."
+
+"With an India shawl over her shoulders--"
+
+"Fastened at the bosom with a Cairngorm-pin."
+
+Bursts of disloyal laughter--you must remember that they are half
+German--greeted these suggestions, and Margaret said pensively,
+"How inconceivable it would be if the Royal Family cared about
+Art." And the conversation drifted away and away, and Helen's
+cigarette turned to a spot in the darkness, and the great flats
+opposite were sown with lighted windows which vanished and were
+refit again, and vanished incessantly. Beyond them the
+thoroughfare roared gently--a tide that could never be quiet,
+while in the east, invisible behind the smokes of Wapping, the
+moon was rising.
+
+"That reminds me, Margaret. We might have taken that young man
+into the dining-room, at all events. Only the majolica plate--and
+that is so firmly set in the wall. I am really distressed that he
+had no tea."
+
+For that little incident had impressed the three women more than
+might be supposed. It remained as a goblin footfall, as a hint
+that all is not for the best in the best of all possible worlds,
+and that beneath these superstructures of wealth and art there
+wanders an ill-fed boy, who has recovered his umbrella indeed,
+but who has left no address behind him, and no name.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and
+only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story
+deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend
+that they are gentlefolk.
+
+The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility.
+He was not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people
+whom he knew had dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he
+was poor, and would admit it; he would have died sooner than
+confess any inferiority to the rich. This may be splendid of him.
+But he was inferior to most rich people, there is not the least
+doubt of it. He was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor
+as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable. His mind and his
+body had been alike underfed, because he was poor, and because he
+was modern they were always craving better food. Had he lived
+some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations of the
+past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his
+income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of
+Democracy had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern
+wings, and proclaiming, "All men are equal--all men, that is to
+say, who possess umbrellas," and so he was obliged to assert
+gentility, lest he slip into the abyss where nothing counts, and
+the statements of Democracy are inaudible.
+
+As he walked away from Wickham Place, his first care was to prove
+that he was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in
+his pride, he tried to wound them in return. They were probably
+not ladies. Would real ladies have asked him to tea? They were
+certainly ill-natured and cold. At each step his feeling of
+superiority increased. Would a real lady have talked about
+stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves after all, and if
+he had gone into the house they would have clapped a chloroformed
+handkerchief over his face. He walked on complacently as far as
+the Houses of Parliament. There an empty stomach asserted itself,
+and told him that he was a fool.
+
+"Evening, Mr. Bast."
+
+"Evening, Mr. Dealtry."
+
+"Nice evening."
+
+"Evening."
+
+Mr. Dealtry, a fellow clerk, passed on, and Leonard stood
+wondering whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would
+take him, or whether he would walk. He decided to walk--it is no
+good giving in, and he had spent money enough at Queen's Hall--
+and he walked over Westminster Bridge, in front of St. Thomas's
+Hospital, and through the immense tunnel that passes under the
+South-Western main line at Vauxhall. In the tunnel he paused and
+listened to the roar of the trains. A sharp pain darted through
+his head, and he was conscious of the exact form of his eye
+sockets. He pushed on for another mile, and did not slacken speed
+until he stood at the entrance of a road called Camelia Road
+which was at present his home.
+
+Here he stopped again, and glanced suspiciously to right and
+left, like a rabbit that is going to bolt into its hole. A block
+of flats, constructed with extreme cheapness, towered on either
+hand. Farther down the road two more blocks were being built, and
+beyond these an old house was being demolished to accommodate
+another pair. It was the kind of scene that may be observed all
+over London, whatever the locality--bricks and mortar rising and
+falling with the restlessness of the water in a fountain as the
+city receives more and more men upon her soil. Camelia Road would
+soon stand out like a fortress, and command, for a little, an
+extensive view. Only for a little. Plans were out for the
+erection of flats in Magnolia Road also. And again a few years,
+and all the flats in either road might be pulled down, and new
+buildings, of a vastness at present unimaginable, might arise
+where they had fallen.
+
+"Evening, Mr. Bast."
+
+"Evening, Mr. Cunningham."
+
+"Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in
+Manchester."
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in
+Manchester," repeated Mr. Cunningham, tapping the Sunday paper,
+in which the calamity in question had just been announced to him.
+
+"Ah, yes," said Leonard, who was not going to let on that he had
+not bought a Sunday paper.
+
+"If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be
+stationary in 1960."
+
+"You don't say so."
+
+"I call it a very serious thing, eh?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Cunningham."
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Bast."
+
+Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats, and turned, not
+upstairs, but down, into what is known to house agents as a
+semi-basement, and to other men as a cellar. He opened the door,
+and cried, "Hullo!" with the pseudo geniality of the Cockney.
+There was no reply. "Hullo!" he repeated. The sitting-room was
+empty, though the electric light had been left burning. A look of
+relief came over his face, and he flung himself into the
+armchair.
+
+The sitting-room contained, besides the armchair, two other
+chairs, a piano, a three-legged table, and a cosy corner. Of the
+walls, one was occupied by the window, the other by a draped
+mantelshelf bristling with Cupids. Opposite the window was the
+door, and beside the door a bookcase, while over the piano there
+extended one of the masterpieces of Maud Goodman. It was an
+amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the curtains were
+drawn, and the lights turned on, and the gas-stove unlit. But it
+struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the
+dwelling-place. It had been too easily gained, and could be
+relinquished too easily.
+
+As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged
+table, and a photograph frame, honourably poised upon it, slid
+sideways, fell off into the fireplace, and smashed. He swore in a
+colourless sort of way, and picked the photograph up. It
+represented a young lady called Jacky, and had been taken at the
+time when young ladies called Jacky were often photographed with
+their mouths open. Teeth of dazzling whiteness extended along
+either of Jacky's jaw's, and positively weighed her head
+sideways, so large were they and so numerous. Take my word for
+it, that smile was simply stunning, and it is only you and I who
+will be fastidious, and complain that true joy begins in the
+eyes, and that the eyes of Jacky did not accord with her smile,
+but were anxious and hungry.
+
+Leonard tried to pull out the fragments of glass, and cut his
+fingers and swore again. A drop of blood fell on the frame,
+another followed, spilling over on to the exposed photograph. He
+swore more vigorously, and dashed into the kitchen, where he
+bathed his hands. The kitchen was the same size as the
+sitting-room; beyond it was a bedroom. This completed his home.
+He was renting the flat furnished; of all the objects that
+encumbered it none were his own except the photograph frame, the
+Cupids, and the books.
+
+"Damn, damn, damnation!" he murmured, together with such other
+words as he had learnt from older men. Then he raised his hand to
+his forehead and said, "Oh, damn it all--"which meant something
+different. He pulled himself together. He drank a little tea,
+black and silent, that still survived upon an upper shelf. He
+swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake. Then he went back to the
+sitting-room, settled himself anew, and began to read a volume of
+Ruskin.
+
+"Seven miles to the north of Venice--"
+
+How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command
+of admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking to us from
+his gondola.
+
+"Seven miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand which
+nearer the city rise little above low-water mark attain by
+degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields
+of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and
+intercepted by narrow creeks of sea."
+
+Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin; he understood him
+to be the greatest master of English Prose. He read forward
+steadily, occasionally making a few notes.
+
+"Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession,
+and first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what
+is very peculiar to this church--its luminousness."
+
+Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he
+adapt it to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with
+modifications, when he next wrote a letter to his brother, the
+lay-reader? For example:
+
+"Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession,
+and first (for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said
+already), what is very peculiar to this flat--its obscurity."
+
+Something told him that the modifications would not do; and that
+something, had he known it, was the spirit of English Prose. "My
+flat is dark as well as stuffy." Those were the words for him.
+
+And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping melodiously of
+Effort and Self-Sacrifice, full of high purpose, full of beauty,
+full even of sympathy and the love of men, yet somehow eluding
+all that was actual and insistent in Leonard's life. For it was
+the voice of one who had never been dirty or hungry, and had not
+guessed successfully what dirt and hunger are.
+
+Leonard listened to it with reverence. He felt that he was being
+done good to, and that if he kept on with Ruskin, and the Queen's
+Hall Concerts, and some pictures by Watts, he would one day push
+his head out of the grey waters and see the universe. He believed
+in sudden conversion, a belief which may be right, but which is
+peculiarly attractive to a half-baked mind. It is the basis of
+much popular religion; in the domain of business it dominates the
+Stock Exchange, and becomes that "bit of luck" by which all
+successes and failures are explained. "If only I had a bit of
+luck, the whole thing would come straight... He's got a most
+magnificent place down at Streatham and a 20 h.p. Fiat, but
+then, mind you, he's had luck... I 'm sorry the wife's so late,
+but she never has any luck over catching trains." Leonard was
+superior to these people; he did believe in effort and in a
+steady preparation for the change that he desired. But of a
+heritage that may expand gradually, he had no conception; he
+hoped to come to Culture suddenly, much as the Revivalist hopes
+to come to Jesus. Those Miss Schlegels had come to it; they had
+done the trick; their hands were upon the ropes, once and for
+all. And meanwhile, his flat was dark, as well as stuffy.
+
+Presently there was a noise on the staircase. He shut up
+Margaret's card in the pages of Ruskin, and opened the door. A
+woman entered, of whom it is simplest to say that she was not
+respectable. Her appearance was awesome. She seemed all strings
+and bell-pulls--ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that clinked and
+caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck, with the
+ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double row of
+pearls, her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be
+detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was
+flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we
+sowed with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which
+germinated here yes, and there no. She wore it on the back of her
+head. As for her hair, or rather hairs, they are too complicated
+to describe, but one system went down her back, lying in a thick
+pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny, rippled
+around her forehead. The face--the face does not signify. It was
+the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so
+numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so
+white. Yes, Jacky was past her prime, whatever that prime may
+have been. She was descending quicker than most women into the
+colourless years, and the look in her eyes confessed it."
+
+"What ho!" said Leonard, greeting the apparition with much
+spirit, and helping it off with its boa.
+
+Jacky, in husky tones, replied, "What ho!"
+
+"Been out?" he asked. The question sounds superfluous, but it
+cannot have been really, for the lady answered, "No," adding,
+"Oh, I am so tired."
+
+"You tired?"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I'm tired," said he, hanging the boa up.
+
+"Oh, Len, I am so tired."
+
+"I've been to that classical concert I told you about," said
+Leonard.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I came back as soon as it was over."
+
+"Any one been round to our place?" asked Jacky.
+
+"Not that I've seen. I met Mr. Cunningham outside, and we passed
+a few remarks."
+
+"What, not Mr. Cunningham?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Oh, you mean Mr. Cunningham."
+
+"Yes. Mr. Cunningham."
+
+"I've been out to tea at a lady friend's."
+
+Her secret being at last given--to the world, and the name of the
+lady friend being even adumbrated, Jacky made no further
+experiments in the difficult and tiring art of conversation. She
+never had been a great talker. Even in her photographic days she
+had relied upon her smile and her figure to attract, and now
+that she was
+
+      "On the shelf,
+       On the shelf,
+       Boys, boys, I'm on the shelf,"
+
+she was not likely to find her tongue. Occasional bursts of song
+(of which the above is an example) still issued from her lips,
+but the spoken word was rare.
+
+She sat down on Leonard's knee, and began to fondle him. She was
+now a massive woman of thirty-three, and her weight hurt him, but
+he could not very well say anything. Then she said, "Is that a
+book you're reading?" and he said, "That's a book," and drew it
+from her unreluctant grasp. Margaret's card fell out of it. It
+fell face downwards, and he murmured, "Bookmarker."
+
+"Len--"
+
+"What is it?" he asked, a little wearily, for she only had one
+topic of conversation when she sat upon his knee.
+
+"You do love me?"
+
+"Jacky, you know that I do. How can you ask such questions!"
+
+"But you do love me, Len, don't you?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+A pause. The other remark was still due.
+
+"Len--"
+
+"Well? What is it?"
+
+"Len, you will make it all right?"
+
+"I can't have you ask me that again," said the boy, flaring up
+into a sudden passion. "I've promised to marry you when I'm of
+age, and that's enough. My word's my word. I've promised to marry
+you as soon as ever I'm twenty-one, and I can't keep on being
+worried. I've worries enough. It isn't likely I'd throw you over,
+let alone my word, when I've spent all this money. Besides, I'm
+an Englishman, and I never go back on my word. Jacky, do be
+reasonable. Of course I'll marry you. Only do stop badgering me."
+
+"When's your birthday, Len?"
+
+"I've told you again and again, the eleventh of November next.
+Now get off my knee a bit; some one must get supper, I suppose."
+
+Jacky went through to the bedroom, and began to see to her hat.
+This meant blowing at it with short sharp puffs. Leonard tidied
+up the sitting-room, and began to prepare their evening meal. He
+put a penny into the slot of the gas-meter, and soon the flat was
+reeking with metallic fumes. Somehow he could not recover his
+temper, and all the time he was cooking he continued to complain
+bitterly.
+
+"It really is too bad when a fellow isn't trusted. It makes one
+feel so wild, when I've pretended to the people here that you're
+my wife--all right, all right, you SHALL be my wife--and I've
+bought you the ring to wear, and I've taken this flat furnished,
+and it's far more than I can afford, and yet you aren't content,
+and I've also not told the truth when I've written home. He
+lowered his voice. "He'd stop it." In a tone of horror, that was
+a little luxurious, he repeated: "My brother'd stop it. I'm going
+against the whole world, Jacky.
+
+"That's what I am, Jacky. I don't take any heed of what any one
+says. I just go straight forward, I do. That's always been my
+way. I'm not one of your weak knock-kneed chaps. If a woman's in
+trouble, I don't leave her in the lurch. That's not my street.
+No, thank you.
+
+"I'll tell you another thing too. I care a good deal about
+improving myself by means of Literature and Art, and so getting a
+wider outlook. For instance, when you came in I was reading
+Ruskin's Stones of Venice. I don't say this to boast, but just to
+show you the kind of man I am. I can tell you, I enjoyed that
+classical concert this afternoon."
+
+To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent. When supper
+was ready--and not before--she emerged from the bedroom, saying:
+"But you do love me, don't you?"
+
+They began with a soup square, which Leonard had just dissolved
+in some hot water. It was followed by the tongue--a freckled
+cylinder of meat, with a little jelly at the top, and a great
+deal of yellow fat at the bottom--ending with another square
+dissolved in water (jelly: pineapple), which Leonard had prepared
+earlier in the day. Jacky ate contentedly enough, occasionally
+looking at her man with those anxious eyes, to which nothing else
+in her appearance corresponded, and which yet seemed to mirror
+her soul. And Leonard managed to convince his stomach that it was
+having a nourishing meal.
+
+After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few
+statements. She observed that her "likeness" had been broken. He
+found occasion to remark, for the second time, that he had come
+straight back home after the concert at Queen's Hall. Presently
+she sat upon his knee. The inhabitants of Camelia Road tramped to
+and fro outside the window, just on a level with their heads, and
+the family in the flat on the ground-floor began to sing, "Hark,
+my soul, it is the Lord."
+
+"That tune fairly gives me the hump," said Leonard.
+
+Jacky followed this, and said that, for her part, she thought it
+a lovely tune.
+
+"No; I'll play you something lovely. Get up, dear, for a minute."
+
+He went to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg. He played
+badly and vulgarly, but the performance was not without its
+effect, for Jacky said she thought she'd be going to bed. As she
+receded, a new set of interests possessed the boy, and he began
+to think of what had been said about music by that odd Miss
+Schlegel--the one that twisted her face about so when she spoke.
+Then the thoughts grew sad and envious. There was the girl named
+Helen, who had pinched his umbrella, and the German girl who had
+smiled at him pleasantly, and Herr some one, and Aunt some one,
+and the brother--all, all with their hands on the ropes. They had
+all passed up that narrow, rich staircase at Wickham Place to
+some ample room, whither he could never follow them, not if he
+read for ten hours a day. Oh, it was no good, this continual
+aspiration. Some are born cultured; the rest had better go in for
+whatever comes easy. To see life steadily and to see it whole was
+not for the likes of him.
+
+From the darkness beyond the kitchen a voice called, Len?"
+
+"You in bed?" he asked, his forehead twitching.
+
+"All right."
+
+Presently she called him again.
+
+"I must clean my boots ready for the morning," he answered.
+
+Presently she called him again.
+
+"I rather want to get this chapter done."
+
+"What?"
+
+He closed his ears against her.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"All right, Jacky, nothing; I'm reading a book."
+
+"What?"
+
+"What?" he answered, catching her degraded deafness.
+
+Presently she called him again.
+
+Ruskin had visited Torcello by this time, and was ordering his
+gondoliers to take him to Murano. It occurred to him, as he
+glided over the whispering lagoons, that the power of Nature
+could not be shortened by the folly, nor her beauty altogether
+saddened by the misery of such as Leonard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"Oh, Margaret," cried her aunt next morning, "such a most
+unfortunate thing has happened. I could not get you alone."
+
+The most unfortunate thing was not very serious. One of the flats
+in the ornate block opposite had been taken furnished by the
+Wilcox family, "coming up, no doubt, in the hope of getting into
+London society." That Mrs. Munt should be the first to discover
+the misfortune was not remarkable, for she was so interested in
+the flats, that she watched their every mutation with unwearying
+care. In theory she despised them--they took away that old-world
+look--they cut off the sun--flats house a flashy type of person.
+But if the truth had been known, she found her visits to Wickham
+Place twice as amusing since Wickham Mansions had arisen, and
+would in a couple of days learn more about them than her nieces
+in a couple of months, or her nephew in a couple of years. She
+would stroll across and make friends with the porters, and
+inquire what the rents were, exclaiming for example: "What! a
+hundred and twenty for a basement? You'll never get it!" And they
+would answer: "One can but try, madam." The passenger lifts, the
+arrangement for coals (a great temptation for a dishonest
+porter), were all familiar matters to her, and perhaps a relief
+from the politico-economical-esthetic atmosphere that reigned at
+the Schlegels.
+
+Margaret received the information calmly, and did not agree that
+it would throw a cloud over poor Helen's life.
+
+"Oh, but Helen isn't a girl with no interests," she explained.
+"She has plenty of other things and other people to think about.
+She made a false start with the Wilcoxes, and she'll be as
+willing as we are to have nothing more to do with them."
+
+"For a clever girl, dear, how very oddly you do talk. Helen'll
+HAVE to have something more to do with them, now that they 're
+all opposite. She may meet that Paul in the street. She cannot
+very well not bow."
+
+"Of course she must bow. But look here; let's do the flowers. I
+was going to say, the will to be interested in him has died, and
+what else matters? I look on that disastrous episode (over which
+you were so kind) as the killing of a nerve in Helen. It's dead,
+and she'll never be troubled with it again. The only things that
+matter are the things that interest one. Bowing, even calling and
+leaving cards, even a dinner-party--we can do all those things to
+the Wilcoxes, if they find it agreeable; but the other thing, the
+one important thing--never again. Don't you see?"
+
+Mrs. Munt did not see, and indeed Margaret was making a most
+questionable statement--that any emotion, any interest once
+vividly aroused, can wholly die.
+
+"I also have the honour to inform you that the Wilcoxes are bored
+with us. I didn't tell you at the time--it might have made you
+angry, and you had enough to worry you--but I wrote a letter to
+Mrs. W, and apologised for the trouble that Helen had given them.
+She didn't answer it."
+
+"How very rude!"
+
+"I wonder. Or was it sensible?"
+
+"No, Margaret, most rude."
+
+"In either case one can class it as reassuring."
+
+Mrs. Munt sighed. She was going back to Swanage on the morrow,
+just as her nieces were wanting her most. Other regrets crowded
+upon her: for instance, how magnificently she would have cut
+Charles if she had met him face to face. She had already seen
+him, giving an order to the porter--and very common he looked in
+a tall hat. But unfortunately his back was turned to her, and
+though she had cut his back, she could not regard this as a
+telling snub.
+
+"But you will be careful, won't you?" she exhorted.
+
+"Oh, certainly. Fiendishly careful."
+
+"And Helen must be careful, too."
+
+"Careful over what?" cried Helen, at that moment coming into the
+room with her cousin.
+
+"Nothing" said Margaret, seized with a momentary awkwardness.
+
+"Careful over what, Aunt Juley?"
+
+Mrs. Munt assumed a cryptic air. "It is only that a certain
+family, whom we know by name but do not mention, as you said
+yourself last night after the concert, have taken the flat
+opposite from the Mathesons--where the plants are in the
+balcony."
+
+Helen began some laughing reply, and then disconcerted them all
+by blushing. Mrs. Munt was so disconcerted that she exclaimed,
+"What, Helen, you don't mind them coming, do you?" and deepened
+the blush to crimson.
+
+"Of course I don't mind," said Helen a little crossly. "It is
+that you and Meg are both so absurdly grave about it, when
+there's nothing to be grave about at all."
+
+"I'm not grave," protested Margaret, a little cross in her turn.
+
+"Well, you look grave; doesn't she, Frieda?"
+
+"I don't feel grave, that's all I can say; you're going quite on
+the wrong tack."
+
+"No, she does not feel grave," echoed Mrs. Munt. "I can bear
+witness to that. She disagrees--"
+
+"Hark!" interrupted Fraulein Mosebach. "I hear Bruno entering the
+hall."
+
+For Herr Liesecke was due at Wickham Place to call for the two
+younger girls. He was not entering the hall--in fact, he did not
+enter it for quite five minutes. But Frieda detected a delicate
+situation, and said that she and Helen had much better wait for
+Bruno down below, and leave Margaret and Mrs. Munt to finish
+arranging the flowers. Helen acquiesced. But, as if to prove that
+the situation was not delicate really, she stopped in the doorway
+and said:
+
+"Did you say the Mathesons' flat, Aunt Juley? How wonderful you
+are! I never knew that the name of the woman who laced too
+tightly was Matheson."
+
+"Come, Helen," said her cousin.
+
+"Go, Helen," said her aunt; and continued to Margaret almost in
+the same breath: "Helen cannot deceive me. She does mind."
+
+"Oh, hush!" breathed Margaret. "Frieda'll hear you, and she can
+be so tiresome."
+
+"She minds," persisted Mrs. Munt, moving thoughtfully about the
+room, and pulling the dead chrysanthemums out of the vases. "I
+knew she'd mind--and I'm sure a girl ought to! Such an
+experience! Such awful coarse-grained people! I know more about
+them than you do, which you forget, and if Charles had taken you
+that motor drive--well, you'd have reached the house a perfect
+wreck. Oh, Margaret, you don't know what you are in for! They're
+all bottled up against the drawing-room window. There's Mrs.
+Wilcox--I've seen her. There's Paul. There's Evie, who is a minx.
+There's Charles--I saw him to start with. And who would an
+elderly man with a moustache and a copper-coloured face be?"
+
+"Mr. Wilcox, possibly."
+
+"I knew it. And there's Mr. Wilcox."
+
+"It's a shame to call his face copper colour," complained
+Margaret. "He has a remarkably good complexion for a man of his
+age."
+
+Mrs. Munt, triumphant elsewhere, could afford to concede Mr.
+Wilcox his complexion. She passed on from it to the plan of
+campaign that her nieces should pursue in the future. Margaret
+tried to stop her.
+
+"Helen did not take the news quite as I expected, but the Wilcox
+nerve is dead in her really, so there's no need for plans."
+
+"It's as well to be prepared."
+
+"No--it's as well not to be prepared."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+Her thought drew being from the obscure borderland. She could not
+explain in so many words, but she felt that those who prepare for
+all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at
+the expense of joy. It is necessary to prepare for an
+examination, or a dinner-party, or a possible fall in the price
+of stock: those who attempt human relations must adopt another
+method, or fail. "Because I'd sooner risk it," was her lame
+conclusion.
+
+"But imagine the evenings," exclaimed her aunt, pointing to the
+Mansions with the spout of the watering can. "Turn the electric
+light on here or there, and it's almost the same room. One
+evening they may forget to draw their blinds down, and you'll see
+them; and the next, you yours, and they'll see you. Impossible to
+sit out on the balconies. Impossible to water the plants, or even
+speak. Imagine going out of the front-door, and they come out
+opposite at the same moment. And yet you tell me that plans are
+unnecessary, and you'd rather risk it."
+
+"I hope to risk things all my life."
+
+"Oh, Margaret, most dangerous."
+
+"But after all," she continued with a smile, "there's never any
+great risk as long as you have money."
+
+"Oh, shame! What a shocking speech!"
+
+"Money pads the edges of things," said Miss Schlegel. "God help
+those who have none."
+
+"But this is something quite new!" said Mrs. Munt, who collected
+new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially
+attracted by those that are portable.
+
+"New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You
+and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so
+firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence. It's
+only when we see some one near us tottering that we realise all
+that an independent income means. Last night, when we were
+talking up here round the fire, I began to think that the very
+soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not
+the absence of love, but the absence of coin."
+
+"I call that rather cynical."
+
+"So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are
+tempted to criticise others, that we are standing on these
+islands, and that most of the others are down below the surface
+of the sea. The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to
+love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love
+no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June, if Helen
+and Paul Wilcox had been poor people, and couldn't invoke
+railways and motor-cars to part them."
+
+"That's more like Socialism," said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.
+
+"Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one's
+hand spread open on the table. I'm tired of these rich people who
+pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the
+piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each
+year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby
+will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away
+into the sea they are renewed--from the sea, yes, from the sea.
+And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders,
+and all our speeches; and because we don't want to steal
+umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want
+to steal them and do steal them sometimes, and that what's a joke
+up here is down there reality."
+
+"There they go--there goes Fraulein Mosebach. Really, for a
+German she does dress charmingly. Oh!--"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Helen was looking up at the Wilcoxes' flat."
+
+"Why shouldn't she?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, I interrupted you. What was it you were
+saying about reality?"
+
+"I had worked round to myself, as usual," answered Margaret in
+tones that were suddenly preoccupied.
+
+"Do tell me this, at all events. Are you for the rich or for the
+poor?"
+
+"Too difficult. Ask me another. Am I for poverty or for riches?
+For riches. Hurrah for riches!"
+
+"For riches!" echoed Mrs. Munt, having, as it were, at last
+secured her nut.
+
+"Yes. For riches. Money for ever!"
+
+"So am I, and so, I am afraid, are most of my acquaintances at
+Swanage, but I am surprised that you agree with us."
+
+"Thank you so much, Aunt Juley. While I have talked theories, you
+have done the flowers."
+
+"Not at all, dear. I wish you would let me help you in more
+important things."
+
+"Well, would you be very kind? Would you come round with me to
+the registry office? There's a housemaid who won't say yes but
+doesn't say no."
+
+On their way thither they too looked up at the Wilcoxes' flat.
+Evie was in the balcony, "staring most rudely," according to Mrs.
+Munt. Oh yes, it was a nuisance, there was no doubt of it. Helen
+was proof against a passing encounter, but--Margaret began to
+lose confidence. Might it reawake the dying nerve if the family
+were living close against her eyes? And Frieda Mosebach was
+stopping with them for another fortnight, and Frieda was sharp,
+abominably sharp, and quite capable of remarking, "You love one
+of the young gentlemen opposite, yes?" The remark would be
+untrue, but of the kind which, if stated often enough, may become
+true; just as the remark, "England and Germany are bound to
+fight," renders war a little more likely each time that it is
+made, and is therefore made the more readily by the gutter press
+of either nation. Have the private emotions also their gutter
+press? Margaret thought so, and feared that good Aunt Juley and
+Frieda were typical specimens of it. They might, by continual
+chatter, lead Helen into a repetition of the desires of June.
+Into a repetition--they could not do more; they could not lead
+her into lasting love. They were--she saw it clearly--Journalism;
+her father, with all his defects and wrong-headedness, had been
+Literature, and had he lived, he would have persuaded his
+daughter rightly.
+
+The registry office was holding its morning reception. A string
+of carriages filled the street. Miss Schlegel waited her turn,
+and finally had to be content with an insidious "temporary,"
+being rejected by genuine housemaids on the ground of her
+numerous stairs. Her failure depressed her, and though she forgot
+the failure, the depression remained. On her way home she again
+glanced up at the Wilcoxes' flat, and took the rather matronly
+step of speaking about the matter to Helen.
+
+"Helen, you must tell me whether this thing worries you."
+
+"If what?" said Helen, who was washing her hands for lunch.
+
+"The Ws' coming."
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Really." Then she admitted that she was a little worried on Mrs.
+Wilcox's account; she implied that Mrs. Wilcox might reach
+backward into deep feelings, and be pained by things that never
+touched the other members of that clan. "I shan't mind if Paul
+points at our house and says, 'There lives the girl who tried to
+catch me.' But she might."
+
+"If even that worries you, we could arrange something. There's no
+reason we should be near people who displease us or whom we
+displease, thanks to our money. We might even go away for a
+little."
+
+"Well, I am going away. Frieda's just asked me to Stettin, and I
+shan't be back till after the New Year. Will that do? Or must I
+fly the country altogether? Really, Meg, what has come over you
+to make such a fuss?"
+
+"Oh, I'm getting an old maid, I suppose. I thought I minded
+nothing, but really I--I should be bored if you fell in love with
+the same man twice and"--she cleared her throat--"you did go
+red, you know, when Aunt Juley attacked you this morning. I
+shouldn't have referred to it otherwise."
+
+But Helen's laugh rang true, as she raised a soapy hand to heaven
+and swore that never, nowhere and nohow, would she again fall in
+love with any of the Wilcox family, down to its remotest
+collaterals.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The friendship between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which was to
+develop so quickly and with such strange results, may perhaps
+have had its beginnings at Speyer, in the spring. Perhaps the
+elder lady, as she gazed at the vulgar, ruddy cathedral, and
+listened to the talk of her husband and Helen, may have detected
+in the other and less charming of the sisters a deeper sympathy,
+a sounder judgment. She was capable of detecting such things.
+Perhaps it was she who had desired the Miss Schlegels to be
+invited to Howards End, and Margaret whose presence she had
+particularly desired. All this is speculation; Mrs. Wilcox has
+left few clear indications behind her. It is certain that she
+came to call at Wickham Place a fortnight later, the very day
+that Helen was going with her cousin to Stettin.
+
+"Helen!" cried Fraulein Mosebach in awestruck tones (she was now
+in her cousin's confidence)--"his mother has forgiven you!" And
+then, remembering that in England the new-comer ought not to call
+before she is called upon, she changed her tone from awe to
+disapproval, and opined that Mrs. Wilcox was keine Dame.
+
+"Bother the whole family!" snapped Margaret. "Helen, stop
+giggling and pirouetting, and go and finish your packing. Why
+can't the woman leave us alone?"
+
+"I don't know what I shall do with Meg," Helen retorted,
+collapsing upon the stairs. She's got Wilcox and Box upon the
+brain. Meg, Meg, I don't love the young gentleman; I don't love
+the young gentleman, Meg, Meg. Can a body speak plainer?"
+
+"Most certainly her love has died," asserted Fraulein Mosebach.
+
+"Most certainly it has, Frieda, but that will not prevent me from
+being bored with the Wilcoxes if I return the call."
+
+Then Helen simulated tears, and Fraulein Mosebach, who thought
+her extremely amusing, did the same. "Oh, boo hoo! boo hoo hoo!
+Meg's going to return the call, and I can't. 'Cos why? 'Cos I'm
+going to German-eye."
+
+"If you are going to Germany, go and pack; if you aren't, go and
+call on the Wilcoxes instead of me."
+
+"But, Meg, Meg, I don't love the young gentleman; I don't love
+the young--O lud, who's that coming down the stairs? I vow 'tis
+my brother. O crimini!"
+
+A male--even such a male as Tibby--was enough to stop the
+foolery. The barrier of sex, though decreasing among the
+civilised, is still high, and higher on the side of women. Helen
+could tell her sister all, and her cousin much about Paul; she
+told her brother nothing. It was not prudishness, for she now
+spoke of "the Wilcox ideal" with laughter, and even with a
+growing brutality. Nor was it precaution, for Tibby seldom
+repeated any news that did not concern himself. It was rather the
+feeling that she betrayed a secret into the camp of men, and
+that, however trivial it was on this side of the barrier, it
+would become important on that. So she stopped, or rather began
+to fool on other subjects, until her long-suffering relatives
+drove her upstairs. Fraulein Mosebach followed her, but lingered
+to say heavily over the banisters to Margaret, "It is all right--
+she does not love the young man--he has not been worthy of her."
+
+"Yes, I know; thanks very much."
+
+"I thought I did right to tell you."
+
+"Ever so many thanks."
+
+"What's that?" asked Tibby. No one told him, and he proceeded
+into the dining-room, to eat plums.
+
+That evening Margaret took decisive action. The house was very
+quiet, and the fog--we are in November now--pressed against the
+windows like an excluded ghost. Frieda and Helen and all their
+luggages had gone. Tibby, who was not feeling well, lay stretched
+on a sofa by the fire. Margaret sat by him, thinking. Her mind
+darted from impulse to impulse, and finally marshalled them all
+in review. The practical person, who knows what he wants at once,
+and generally knows nothing else, will accuse her of indecision.
+But this was the way her mind worked. And when she did act, no
+one could accuse her of indecision then. She hit out as lustily
+as if she had not considered the matter at all. The letter that
+she wrote Mrs. Wilcox glowed with the native hue of resolution.
+The pale cast of thought was with her a breath rather than a
+tarnish, a breath that leaves the colours all the more vivid when
+it has been wiped away.
+
+"DEAR MRS. WILCOX,
+
+"I have to write something discourteous. It would be better if we
+did not meet. Both my sister and my aunt have given displeasure
+to your family, and, in my sister's case, the grounds for
+displeasure might recur. So far as I know she no longer occupies
+her thoughts with your son. But it would not be fair, either to
+her or to you, if they met, and it is therefore right that our
+acquaintance, which began so pleasantly, should end.
+
+"I fear that you will not agree with this; indeed, I know that
+you will not, since you have been good enough to call on us. It
+is only an instinct on my part, and no doubt the instinct is
+wrong. My sister would, undoubtedly, say that it is wrong. I
+write without her knowledge, and I hope that you will not
+associate her with my discourtesy.
+
+                              "Believe me,
+                                   "Yours truly,
+                                        "M. J. SCHLEGEL."
+
+Margaret sent this letter round by the post. Next morning she
+received the following reply by hand:
+
+
+"DEAR MISS SCHLEGEL,
+
+"You should not have written me such a letter. I called to tell
+you that Paul has gone abroad.
+
+                                      "RUTH WILCOX."
+
+Margaret's cheeks burnt. She could not finish her breakfast. She
+was on fire with shame. Helen had told her that the youth was
+leaving England, but other things had seemed more important, and
+she had forgotten. All her absurd anxieties fell to the ground,
+and in their place arose the certainty that she had been rude to
+Mrs. Wilcox. Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in
+the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it is necessary, but woe to
+those who employ it without due need. She flung on a hat and
+shawl, just like a poor woman, and plunged into the fog, which
+still continued. Her lips were compressed, the letter remained in
+her hand, and in this state she crossed the street, entered the
+marble vestibule of the flats, eluded the concierges, and ran up
+the stairs till she reached the second floor. She sent in her
+name,
+and to her surprise was shown straight into Mrs. Wilcox's
+bedroom.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, I have made the baddest blunder. I am more,
+more ashamed and sorry than I can say."
+
+Mrs. Wilcox bowed gravely. She was offended, and did not pretend
+to the contrary. She was sitting up in bed, writing letters on an
+invalid table that spanned her knees. A breakfast tray was on
+another table beside her. The light of the fire, the light from
+the window, and the light of a candle-lamp, which threw a
+quivering halo round her hands combined to create a strange
+atmosphere of dissolution.
+
+"I knew he was going to India in November, but I forgot."
+
+"He sailed on the 17th for Nigeria, in Africa."
+
+"I knew--I know. I have been too absurd all through. I am very
+much ashamed."
+
+Mrs. Wilcox did not answer.
+
+"I am more sorry than I can say, and I hope that you will forgive
+me."
+
+"It doesn't matter, Miss Schlegel. It is good of you to have come
+round so promptly."
+
+"It does matter," cried Margaret. "I have been rude to you; and
+my sister is not even at home, so there was not even that
+excuse."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"She has just gone to Germany."
+
+"She gone as well," murmured the other. "Yes, certainly, it is
+quite safe--safe, absolutely, now."
+
+"You've been worrying too!" exclaimed Margaret, getting more and
+more excited, and taking a chair without invitation. "How
+perfectly extraordinary! I can see that you have. You felt as I
+do; Helen mustn't meet him again."
+
+"I did think it best."
+
+"Now why?"
+
+"That's a most difficult question," said Mrs. Wilcox, smiling,
+and a little losing her expression of annoyance. "I think you put
+it best in your letter--it was an instinct, which may be wrong."
+
+"It wasn't that your son still--"
+
+"Oh no; he often--my Paul is very young, you see."
+
+"Then what was it?"
+
+She repeated: "An instinct which may be wrong."
+
+"In other words, they belong to types that can fall in love, but
+couldn't live together. That's dreadfully probable. I'm afraid
+that in nine cases out of ten Nature pulls one way and human
+nature another."
+
+"These are indeed 'other words,'" said Mrs. Wilcox. "I had
+nothing so coherent in my head. I was merely alarmed when I knew
+that my boy cared for your sister."
+
+"Ah, I have always been wanting to ask you. How DID you know?
+Helen was so surprised when our aunt drove up, and you stepped
+forward and arranged things. Did Paul tell you?"
+
+"There is nothing to be gained by discussing that," said Mrs.
+Wilcox after a moment's pause.
+
+"Mrs. Wilcox, were you very angry with us last June? I wrote you
+a letter and you didn't answer it."
+
+"I was certainly against taking Mrs. Matheson's flat. I knew it
+was opposite your house."
+
+"But it's all right now?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"You only think? You aren't sure? I do love these little muddles
+tidied up?"
+
+"Oh yes, I'm sure," said Mrs. Wilcox, moving with uneasiness
+beneath the clothes. "I always sound uncertain over things. It is
+my way of speaking."
+
+"That's all right, and I'm sure, too."
+
+Here the maid came in to remove the breakfast-tray. They were
+interrupted, and when they resumed conversation it was on more
+normal lines.
+
+"I must say good-bye now--you will be getting up."
+
+"No--please stop a little longer--I am taking a day in bed. Now
+and then I do."
+
+"I thought of you as one of the early risers."
+
+"At Howards End--yes; there is nothing to get up for in London."
+
+"Nothing to get up for?" cried the scandalised Margaret. "When
+there are all the autumn exhibitions, and Ysaye playing in the
+afternoon! Not to mention people."
+
+"The truth is, I am a little tired. First came the wedding, and
+then Paul went off, and, instead of resting yesterday, I paid a
+round of calls."
+
+"A wedding?"
+
+"Yes; Charles, my elder son, is married."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"We took the flat chiefly on that account, and also that Paul
+could get his African outfit. The flat belongs to a cousin of my
+husband's, and she most kindly offered it to us. So before the
+day came we were able to make the acquaintance of Dolly's people,
+which we had not yet done."
+
+Margaret asked who Dolly's people were.
+
+"Fussell. The father is in the Indian army--retired; the brother
+is in the army. The mother is dead."
+
+So perhaps these were the "chinless sunburnt men" whom Helen had
+espied one afternoon through the window. Margaret felt mildly
+interested in the fortunes of the Wilcox family. She had acquired
+the habit on Helen's account, and it still clung to her. She
+asked for more information about Miss Dolly Fussell that was, and
+was given it in even, unemotional tones. Mrs. Wilcox's voice,
+though sweet and compelling, had little range of expression. It
+suggested that pictures, concerts, and people are all of small
+and equal value. Only once had it quickened--when speaking of
+Howards End.
+
+"Charles and Albert Fussell have known one another some time.
+They belong to the same club, and are both devoted to golf. Dolly
+plays golf too, though I believe not so well; and they first met
+in a mixed foursome. We all like her, and are very much pleased.
+They were married on the 11th, a few days before Paul sailed.
+Charles was very anxious to have his brother as best man, so he
+made a great point of having it on the 11th. The Fussells would
+have preferred it after Christmas, but they were very nice about
+it. There is Dolly's photograph--in that double frame."
+
+"Are you quite certain that I'm not interrupting, Mrs. Wilcox?"
+
+"Yes, quite."
+
+"Then I will stay. I'm enjoying this."
+
+Dolly's photograph was now examined. It was signed "For dear
+Mims," which Mrs. Wilcox interpreted as "the name she and Charles
+had settled that she should call me." Dolly looked silly, and had
+one of those triangular faces that so often prove attractive to a
+robust man. She was very pretty. From her Margaret passed to
+Charles, whose features prevailed opposite. She speculated on the
+forces that had drawn the two together till God parted them. She
+found time to hope that they would be happy.
+
+"They have gone to Naples for their honeymoon."
+
+"Lucky people!"
+
+"I can hardly imagine Charles in Italy."
+
+"Doesn't he care for travelling?"
+
+"He likes travel, but he does see through foreigners so. What he
+enjoys most is a motor tour in England, and I think that would
+have carried the day if the weather had not been so abominable.
+His father gave him a car for a wedding present, which for the
+present is being stored at Howards End."
+
+"I suppose you have a garage there?"
+
+"Yes. My husband built a little one only last month, to the west
+of the house, not far from the wych-elm, in what used to be the
+paddock for the pony."
+
+The last words had an indescribable ring about them.
+
+"Where's the pony gone?" asked Margaret after a pause.
+
+"The pony? Oh, dead, ever so long ago."
+
+"The wych-elm I remember. Helen spoke of it as a very splendid
+tree."
+
+"It is the finest wych-elm in Hertfordshire. Did your sister tell
+you about the teeth?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh, it might interest you. There are pigs' teeth stuck into the
+trunk, about four feet from the ground. The country people put
+them in long ago, and they think that if they chew a piece of the
+bark, it will cure the toothache. The teeth are almost grown over
+now, and no one comes to the tree."
+
+"I should. I love folklore and all festering superstitions."
+
+"Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one
+believed in it?"
+
+"Of course it did. It would cure anything--once."
+
+"Certainly I remember cases--you see I lived at Howards End long,
+long before Mr. Wilcox knew it. I was born there."
+
+The conversation again shifted. At the time it seemed little more
+than aimless chatter. She was interested when her hostess
+explained that Howards End was her own property. She was bored
+when too minute an account was given of the Fussell family, of
+the anxieties of Charles concerning Naples, of the movements of
+Mr. Wilcox and Evie, who were motoring in Yorkshire. Margaret
+could not bear being bored. She grew inattentive, played with the
+photograph frame, dropped it, smashed Dolly's glass, apologised,
+was pardoned, cut her finger thereon, was pitied, and finally
+said she must be going--there was all the housekeeping to do, and
+she had to interview Tibby's riding-master.
+
+Then the curious note was struck again.
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Schlegel, good-bye. Thank you for coming. You
+have cheered me up."
+
+"I'm so glad!"
+
+"I--I wonder whether you ever think about yourself?"
+
+"I think of nothing else," said Margaret, blushing, but letting
+her hand remain in that of the invalid.
+
+"I wonder. I wondered at Heidelberg."
+
+"I'M sure!"
+
+"I almost think--"
+
+"Yes?" asked Margaret, for there was a long pause--a pause that
+was somehow akin to the flicker of the fire, the quiver of the
+reading-lamp upon their hands, the white blur from the window; a
+pause of shifting and eternal shadows.
+
+"I almost think you forget you're a girl."
+
+Margaret was startled and a little annoyed. "I'm twenty-nine,"
+she remarked. "That's not so wildly girlish."
+
+Mrs. Wilcox smiled.
+
+"What makes you say that? Do you mean that I have been gauche and
+rude?"
+
+A shake of the head. "I only meant that I am fifty-one, and that
+to me both of you-- Read it all in some book or other; I cannot
+put things clearly."
+
+"Oh, I've got it--inexperience. I'm no better than Helen, you
+mean, and yet I presume to advise her."
+
+"Yes. You have got it. Inexperience is the word."
+
+"Inexperience," repeated Margaret, in serious yet buoyant tones.
+
+"Of course, I have everything to learn--absolutely everything
+--just as much as Helen. Life's very difficult and full of
+surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble
+and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity
+them, to remember the submerged--well, one can't do all these
+things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory.
+It's then that proportion comes in--to live by proportion. Don't
+BEGIN with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in
+as a last resource, when the better things have failed, and a
+deadlock-- Gracious me, I've started preaching!"
+
+"Indeed, you put the difficulties of life splendidly," said Mrs.
+Wilcox, withdrawing her hand into the deeper shadows. "It is just
+what I should have liked to say about them myself."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Mrs. Wilcox cannot be accused of giving Margaret much information
+about life. And Margaret, on the other hand, has made a fair show
+of modesty, and has pretended to an inexperience that she
+certainly did not feel. She had kept house for over ten years;
+she had entertained, almost with distinction; she had brought up
+a charming sister, and was bringing up a brother. Surely, if
+experience is attainable, she had attained it. Yet the little
+luncheon-party that she gave in Mrs. Wilcox's honour was not a
+success. The new friend did not blend with the "one or two
+delightful people" who had been asked to meet her, and the
+atmosphere was one of polite bewilderment. Her tastes were
+simple, her knowledge of culture slight, and she was not
+interested in the New English Art Club, nor in the dividing-line
+between Journalism and Literature, which was started as a
+conversational hare. The delightful people darted after it with
+cries of joy, Margaret leading them, and not till the meal was
+half over did they realise that the principal guest had taken no
+part in the chase. There was no common topic. Mrs. Wilcox, whose
+life had been spent in the service of husband and sons, had
+little to say to strangers who had never shared it, and whose age
+was half her own. Clever talk alarmed her, and withered her
+delicate imaginings; it was the social counterpart of a motor-
+car, all jerks, and she was a wisp of hay, a flower. Twice she
+deplored the weather, twice criticised the train service on the
+Great Northern Railway. They vigorously assented, and rushed on,
+and when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen, her
+hostess was toomuch occupied in placing Rothenstein to answer.
+The question was repeated: "I hope that your sister is safe in
+Germany by now." Margaret checked herself and said, "Yes, thank
+you; I heard on Tuesday." But the demon of vociferation was in
+her, and the nextmoment she was off again.
+
+"Only on Tuesday, for they live right away at Stettin. Did you
+ever know any one living at Stettin?"
+
+"Never," said Mrs. Wilcox gravely, while her neighbour, a young
+man low down in the Education Office, began to discuss what
+people who lived at Stettin ought to look like. Was there such a
+thing as Stettininity? Margaret swept on.
+
+"People at Stettin drop things into boats out of overhanging
+warehouses. At least, our cousins do, but aren't particularly
+rich. The town isn't interesting, except for a clock that rolls
+its eyes, and the view of the Oder, which truly is something
+special. Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, you would love the Oder! The river, or
+rather rivers--there seem to be dozens of them--are intense blue,
+and the plain they run through an intensest green."
+
+"Indeed! That sounds like a most beautiful view, Miss Schlegel."
+
+"So I say, but Helen, who will muddle things, says no, it's like
+music. The course of the Oder is to be like music. It's obliged
+to remind her of a symphonic poem. The part by the landing-stage
+is in B minor, if I remember rightly, but lower down things get
+extremely mixed. There is a slodgy theme in several keys at once,
+meaning mud-banks, and another for the navigable canal, and the
+exit into the Baltic is in C sharp major, pianissimo."
+
+"What do the overhanging warehouses make of that?" asked the man,
+laughing.
+
+"They make a great deal of it," replied Margaret, unexpectedly
+rushing off on a new track. "I think it's affectation to compare
+the Oder to music, and so do you, but the overhanging warehouses
+of Stettin take beauty seriously, which we don't, and the average
+Englishman doesn't, and despises all who do. Now don't say
+'Germans have no taste,' or I shall scream. They haven't. But--
+but--such a tremendous but!--they take poetry seriously. They do
+take poetry seriously."
+
+"Is anything gained by that?"
+
+"Yes, yes. The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may
+miss it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always
+asking beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it
+will come. At Heidelberg I met a fat veterinary surgeon whose
+voice broke with sobs as he repeated some mawkish poetry. So easy
+for me to laugh--I, who never repeat poetry, good or bad, and
+cannot remember one fragment of verse to thrill myself with. My
+blood boils--well, I 'm half German, so put it down to
+patriotism--when I listen to the tasteful contempt of the average
+islander for things Teutonic, whether they're Bocklin or my
+veterinary surgeon. 'Oh, Bocklin,' they say; 'he strains after
+beauty, he peoples Nature with gods too consciously.' Of course
+Bocklin strains, because he wants something--beauty and all the
+other intangible gifts that are floating about the world. So his
+landscapes don't come off, and Leader's do."
+
+"I am not sure that I agree. Do you?" said he, turning to Mrs.
+Wilcox.
+
+She replied: "I think Miss Schlegel puts everything splendidly;"
+and a chill fell on the conversation.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Wilcox, say something nicer than that. It's such a snub
+to be told you put things splendidly."
+
+"I do not mean it as a snub. Your last speech interested me so
+much. Generally people do not seem quite to like Germany. I have
+long wanted to hear what is said on the other side."
+
+"The other side? Then you do disagree. Oh, good! Give us your
+side."
+
+"I have no side. But my husband"--her voice softened, the chill
+increased--"has very little faith in the Continent, and our
+children have all taken after him."
+
+"On what grounds? Do they feel that the Continent is in bad
+form?"
+
+Mrs. Wilcox had no idea; she paid little attention to grounds.
+She was not intellectual, nor even alert, and it was odd that,
+all the same, she should give the idea of greatness. Margaret,
+zigzagging with her friends over Thought and Art, was conscious
+of a personality that transcended their own and dwarfed their
+activities. There was no bitterness in Mrs. Wilcox; there was not
+even criticism; she was lovable, and no ungracious or
+uncharitable word had passed her lips. Yet she and daily life
+were out of focus; one or the other must show blurred. And at
+lunch she seemed more out of focus than usual, and nearer the
+line that divides daily life from a life that may be of greater
+importance.
+
+"You will admit, though, that the Continent--it seems silly to
+speak of 'the Continent,' but really it is all more like itself
+than any part of it is like England. England is unique. Do have
+another jelly first. I was going to say that the Continent, for
+good or for evil, is interested in ideas. Its Literature and Art
+have what one might call the kink of the unseen about them, and
+this persists even through decadence and affectation. There is
+more liberty of action in England, but for liberty of thought go
+to bureaucratic Prussia. People will there discuss with humilit y
+vital questions that we here think ourselves too good to touch
+with tongs."
+
+"I do not want to go to Prussia," said Mrs. Wilcox "not even to
+see that interesting view that you were describing. And for
+discussing with humility I am too old. We never discuss anything
+at Howards End."
+
+"Then you ought to!" said Margaret. "Discussion keeps a house
+alive. It cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone."
+
+"It cannot stand without them," said Mrs. Wilcox, unexpectedly
+catching on to the thought, and rousing, for the first and last
+time, a faint hope in the breasts of the delightful people. "It
+cannot stand without them, and I sometimes think--But I cannot
+expect your generation to agree, for even my daughter disagrees
+with me here."
+
+"Never mind us or her. Do say!"
+
+"I sometimes think that it is wiser to leave action and
+discussion to men."
+
+There was a little silence.
+
+"One admits that the arguments against the suffrage ARE
+extraordinarily strong," said a girl opposite, leaning forward
+and crumbling her bread.
+
+"Are they? I never follow any arguments. I am only too thankful
+not to have a vote myself."
+
+"We didn't mean the vote, though, did we?" supplied Margaret.
+Aren't we differing on something much wider, Mrs. Wilcox?
+Whether women are to remain what they have been since the dawn of
+history; or whether, since men have moved forward so far, they
+too may move forward a little now. I say they may. I would even
+admit a biological change."
+
+"I don't know, I don't know."
+
+"I must be getting back to my overhanging warehouse," said the
+man. "They've turned disgracefully strict."
+
+Mrs. Wilcox also rose.
+
+"Oh, but come upstairs for a little. Miss Quested plays. Do you
+like MacDowell? Do you mind his only having two noises? If you
+must really go, I'll see you out. Won't you even have coffee?"
+
+They left the dining-room closing the door behind them, and as
+Mrs. Wilcox buttoned up her jacket, she said: "What an
+interesting life you all lead in London!"
+
+"No, we don't," said Margaret, with a sudden revulsion. "We lead
+the lives of gibbering monkeys. Mrs. Wilcox--really-- We have
+something quiet and stable at the bottom. We really have. All my
+friends have. Don't pretend you enjoyed lunch, for you loathed
+it, but forgive me by coming again, alone, or by asking me to
+you."
+
+"I am used to young people," said Mrs. Wilcox, and with each word
+she spoke the outlines of known things grew dim. "I hear a great
+deal of chatter at home, for we, like you, entertain a great
+deal. With us it is more sport and politics, but-- I enjoyed my
+lunch very much, Miss Schlegel, dear, and am not pretending, and
+only wish I could have joined in more. For one thing, I'm not
+particularly well just to-day. For another, you younger people
+move so quickly that it dazes me. Charles is the same, Dolly the
+same. But we are all in the same boat, old and young. I never
+forget that."
+
+They were silent for a moment. Then, with a newborn emotion, they
+shook hands. The conversation ceased suddenly when Margaret
+re-entered the dining-room; her friends had been talking over her
+new friend, and had dismissed her as uninteresting.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Several days passed.
+
+Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people--there are many
+of them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our
+interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit
+dawdling round them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is
+involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour--flirting--
+and if carried far enough it is punishable by law. But no law--
+not public opinion even--punishes those who coquette with
+friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of
+misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was she
+one of these?
+
+Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner's impatience,
+she wanted everything to be settled up immediately. She
+mistrusted the periods of quiet that are essential to true
+growth. Desiring to book Mrs. Wilcox as a friend, she pressed on
+the ceremony, pencil, as it were, in hand, pressing the more
+because the rest of the family were away, and the opportunity
+seemed favourable. But the elder woman would not be hurried. She
+refused to fit in with the Wickham Place set, or to reopen
+discussion of Helen and Paul, whom Margaret would have utilised
+as a short-cut. She took her time, or perhaps let time take her,
+and when the crisis did come all was ready.
+
+The crisis opened with a message: Would Miss Schlegel come
+shopping? Christmas was nearing, and Mrs. Wilcox felt behindhand
+with the presents. She had taken some more days in bed, and must
+make up for lost time. Margaret accepted, and at eleven o'clock
+one cheerless morning they started out in a brougham.
+
+"First of all," began Margaret, "we must make a list and tick off
+the people's names. My aunt always does, and this fog may thicken
+up any moment. Have you any ideas?"
+
+"I thought we would go to Harrods or the Haymarket Stores," said
+Mrs. Wilcox rather hopelessly. "Everything is sure to be there. I
+am not a good shopper. The din is so confusing, and your aunt is
+quite right--one ought to make a list. Take my notebook, then,
+and write your own name at the top of the page.
+
+"Oh, hooray!" said Margaret, writing it. "How very kind of you to
+start with me!" But she did not want to receive anything
+expensive. Their acquaintance was singular rather than intimate,
+and she divined that the Wilcox clan would resent any expenditure
+on outsiders; the more compact families do. She did not want to
+be thought a second Helen, who would snatch presents since she
+could not snatch young men, nor to be exposed like a second Aunt
+Juley, to the insults of Charles. A certain austerity of
+demeanour was best, and she added: "I don't really want a
+Yuletide gift, though. In fact, I'd rather not."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I've odd ideas about Christmas. Because I have all that
+money can buy. I want more people, but no more things."
+
+"I should like to give you something worth your acquaintance,
+Miss Schlegel, in memory of your kindness to me during my lonely
+fortnight. It has so happened that I have been left alone, and
+you have stopped me from brooding. I am too apt to brood."
+
+"If that is so," said Margaret, "if I have happened to be of use
+to you, which I didn't know, you cannot pay me back with anything
+tangible."
+
+"I suppose not, but one would like to. Perhaps I shall think of
+something as we go about."
+
+Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was
+written opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was
+white, and when they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At
+times they passed through a clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox's vitality
+was low that morning, and it was Margaret who decided on a horse
+for this little girl, a golliwog for that, for the rector's wife
+a copper warming-tray. "We always give the servants money." "Yes,
+do you, yes, much easier," replied Margaret but felt the
+grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing
+from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and
+toys. Vulgarity reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual
+exhortation against temperance reform, invited men to "Join our
+Christmas goose club"--one bottle of gin, etc., or two, according
+to subscription. A poster of a woman in tights heralded the
+Christmas pantomime, and little red devils, who had come in again
+that year, were prevalent upon the Christmas-cards. Margaret was
+no morbid idealist. She did not wish this spate of business and
+self-advertisement checked. It was only the occasion of it that
+struck her with amazement annually. How many of these vacillating
+shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it was a divine
+event that drew them together? She realised it, though standing
+outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted
+sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a
+young artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if
+pressed, would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their
+belief were Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced,
+a little money spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten.
+Inadequate. But in public who shall express the unseen
+adequately? It is private life that holds out the mirror to
+infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone, that ever hints
+at a personality beyond our daily vision.
+
+"No, I do like Christmas on the whole," she announced. "In its
+clumsy way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is
+clumsier every year."
+
+"Is it? I am only used to country Christmases."
+
+"We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour--carols
+at the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids,
+followed by Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with
+songs from Helen. The drawing-room does very well for that. We
+put the tree in the powder-closet, and draw a curtain when the
+candles are lighted, and with the looking-glass behind it looks
+quite pretty. I wish we might have a powder-closet in our next
+house. Of course, the tree has to be very small, and the presents
+don't hang on it. No; the presents reside in a sort of rocky
+landscape made of crumpled brown paper."
+
+"You spoke of your 'next house,' Miss Schlegel. Then are you
+leaving Wickham Place?"
+
+"Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must."
+
+"Have you been there long?"
+
+"All our lives."
+
+"You will be very sorry to leave it."
+
+"I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father--" She broke
+off, for they had reached the stationery department of the
+Haymarket Stores, and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private
+greeting cards.
+
+"If possible, something distinctive," she sighed. At the counter
+she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with
+her insipidly, wasting much time. "My husband and our daughter
+are motoring." "Bertha, too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!"
+
+Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as
+this. While they talked, she went through a volume of specimen
+cards, and submitted one for Mrs. Wilcox's inspection. Mrs.
+Wilcox was delighted--so original, words so sweet; she would
+order a hundred like that, and could never be sufficiently
+grateful. Then, just as the assistant was booking the order, she
+said: "Do you know, I'll wait. On second thoughts, I'll wait.
+There's plenty of time still, isn't there, and I shall be able to
+get Evie's opinion."
+
+They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were
+in, she said, "But couldn't you get it renewed?"
+
+"I beg your pardon?" asked Margaret.
+
+"The lease, I mean."
+
+"Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How
+very kind of you!"
+
+"Surely something could be done."
+
+"No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down
+Wickham Place, and build flats like yours."
+
+"But how horrible!"
+
+"Landlords are horrible."
+
+Then she said vehemently: "It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it
+isn't right. I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do
+pity you from the bottom of my heart. To be parted from your
+house, your father's house--it oughtn't to be allowed. It is
+worse than dying. I would rather die than-- Oh, poor girls! Can
+what they call civilisation be right, if people mayn't die in the
+room where they were born? My dear, I am so sorry."
+
+Margaret did not know what to say. Mrs. Wilcox had been overtired
+by the shopping, and was inclined to hysteria.
+
+"Howards End was nearly pulled down once. It would have killed
+me."
+
+"I--Howards End must be a very different house to ours. We are
+fond of ours, but there is nothing distinctive about it. As you
+saw, it is an ordinary London house. We shall easily find
+another."
+
+"So you think."
+
+"Again my lack of experience, I suppose!" said Margaret, easing
+away from the subject. "I can't say anything when you take up
+that line, Mrs. Wilcox. I wish I could see myself as you see me--
+foreshortened into a backfisch. Quite the ingenue. Very charming
+--wonderfully well read for my age, but incapable--"
+
+Mrs. Wilcox would not be deterred. "Come down with me to Howards
+End now," she said, more vehemently than ever. "I want you to see
+it. You have never seen it. I want to hear what you say about it,
+for you do put things so wonderfully."
+
+Margaret glanced at the pitiless air and then at the tired face
+of her companion. "Later on I should love it," she continued,
+"but it's hardly the weather for such an expedition, and we ought
+to start when we're fresh. Isn't the house shut up, too?"
+
+She received no answer. Mrs. Wilcox appeared to be annoyed.
+
+"Might I come some other day?"
+
+Mrs. Wilcox bent forward and tapped the glass. "Back to Wickham
+Place, please!" was her order to the coachman. Margaret had been
+snubbed.
+
+"A thousand thanks, Miss Schlegel, for all your help."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"It is such a comfort to get the presents off my mind--the
+Christmas-cards especially. I do admire your choice."
+
+It was her turn to receive no answer. In her turn Margaret became
+annoyed.
+
+"My husband and Evie will be back the day after to-morrow. That
+is why I dragged you out shopping to-day. I stayed in town
+chiefly to shop, but got through nothing, and now he writes that
+they must cut their tour short, the weather is so bad, and the
+police-traps have been so bad--nearly as bad as in Surrey. Ours
+is such a careful chauffeur, and my husband feels it particularly
+hard that they should be treated like road-hogs."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, naturally he--he isn't a road-hog."
+
+"He was exceeding the speed-limit, I conclude. He must expect to
+suffer with the lower animals."
+
+Mrs. Wilcox was silenced. In growing discomfort they drove
+homewards. The city seemed Satanic, the narrower streets
+oppressing like the galleries of a mine.
+
+No harm was done by the fog to trade, for it lay high, and the
+lighted windows of the shops were thronged with customers. It was
+rather a darkening of the spirit which fell back upon itself, to
+find a more grievous darkness within. Margaret nearly spoke a
+dozen times, but something throttled her. She felt petty and
+awkward, and her meditations on Christmas grew more cynical.
+Peace? It may bring other gifts, but is there a single Londoner
+to whom Christmas is peaceful? The craving for excitement and for
+elaboration has ruined that blessing. Goodwill? Had she seen any
+example of it in the hordes of purchasers? Or in herself? She had
+failed to respond to this invitation merely because it was a
+little queer and imaginative--she, whose birthright it was to
+nourish imagination! Better to have accepted, to have tired
+themselves a little by the journey, than coldly to reply, "Might
+I come some other day?" Her cynicism left her. There would be no
+other day. This shadowy woman would never ask her again.
+
+They parted at the Mansions. Mrs. Wilcox went in after due
+civilities, and Margaret watched the tall, lonely figure sweep up
+the hall to the lift. As the glass doors closed on it she had the
+sense of an imprisonment The beautiful head disappeared first,
+still buried in the muff; the long trailing skirt followed. A
+woman of undefinable rarity was going up heavenward, like a
+specimen in a bottle. And into what a heaven--a vault as of hell,
+sooty black, from which soot descended!
+
+At lunch her brother, seeing her inclined for silence insisted on
+talking. Tibby was not ill-natured, but from babyhood something
+drove him to do the unwelcome and the unexpected. Now he gave her
+a long account of the day-school that he sometimes patronised.
+The account was interesting, and she had often pressed him for it
+before, but she could not attend now, for her mind was focussed
+on the invisible. She discerned that Mrs. Wilcox, though a loving
+wife and mother, had only one passion in life--her house--and
+that the moment was solemn when she invited a friend to share
+this passion with her. To answer "another day" was to answer as a
+fool. "Another day" will do for brick and mortar, but not for the
+Holy of Holies into which Howards End had been transfigured. Her
+own curiosity was slight. She had heard more than enough about it
+in the summer. The nine windows, the vine, and the wych-elm had
+no pleasant connections for her, and she would have preferred to
+spend the afternoon at a concert. But imagination triumphed.
+While her brother held forth she determined to go, at whatever
+cost, and to compel Mrs. Wilcox to go, too. When lunch was over
+she stepped over to the flats.
+
+Mrs. Wilcox had just gone away for the night.
+
+Margaret said that it was of no consequence, hurried downstairs,
+and took a hansom to King's Cross. She was convinced that the
+escapade was important, though it would have puzzled her to say
+why. There was question of imprisonment and escape, and though
+she did not know the time of the train, she strained her eyes for
+St. Pancras's clock.
+
+Then the clock of King's Cross swung into sight, a second moon in
+that infernal sky, and her cab drew up at the station. There was
+a train for Hilton in five minutes. She took a ticket, asking in
+her agitation for a single. As she did so, a grave and happy
+voice saluted her and thanked her.
+
+"I will come if I still may," said Margaret, laughing nervously.
+
+"You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my
+house is most beautiful. You are coming to stop. I cannot show
+you my meadow properly except at sunrise. These fogs"--she
+pointed at the station roof--"never spread far. I dare say they
+are sitting in the sun in Hertfordshire, and you will never
+repent joining them."
+
+"I shall never repent joining you."
+
+"It is the same."
+
+They began the walk up the long platform. Far at its end stood
+the train, breasting the darkness without. They never reached it.
+Before imagination could triumph, there were cries of "Mother!
+mother!" and a heavy-browed girl darted out of the cloak-room and
+seized Mrs. Wilcox by the arm.
+
+"Evie!" she gasped--"Evie, my pet--"
+
+The girl called, "Father! I say! look who's here."
+
+"Evie, dearest girl, why aren't you in Yorkshire?"
+
+"No--motor smash--changed plans--father's coming."
+
+"Why, Ruth!" cried Mr. Wilcox, joining them. "that in the name of
+all that's wonderful are you doing here, Ruth?"
+
+Mrs. Wilcox had recovered herself.
+
+"Oh, Henry dear!--here's a lovely surprise--but let me introduce
+--but I think you know Miss Schlegel."
+
+"Oh yes," he replied, not greatly interested. "But how's
+yourself, Ruth?"
+
+"Fit as a fiddle," she answered gaily.
+
+"So are we, and so was our car, which ran A1 as far as Ripon, but
+there a wretched horse and cart which a fool of a driver--"
+
+"Miss Schlegel, our little outing must be for another day."
+
+"I was saying that this fool of a driver, as the policeman
+himself admits."
+
+"Another day, Mrs. Wilcox. Of course."
+
+"--But as we've insured against third party risks, it won't so
+much matter--"
+
+"--Cart and car being practically at right angles--"
+
+The voices of the happy family rose high. Margaret was left
+alone. No one wanted her. Mrs. Wilcox walked out of King's Cross
+between her husband and her daughter, listening to both of them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The funeral was over. The carriages had rolled away through the
+soft mud, and only the poor remained. They approached to the
+newly-dug shaft and looked their last at the coffin, now almost
+hidden beneath the spadefuls of clay. It was their moment. Most
+of them were women from the dead woman's district, to whom black
+garments had been served out by Mr. Wilcox's orders. Pure
+curiosity had brought others. They thrilled with the excitement
+of a death, and of a rapid death, and stood in groups or moved
+between the graves, like drops of ink. The son of one of them, a
+wood-cutter, was perched high above their heads, pollarding one
+of the churchyard elms. From where he sat he could see the
+village of Hilton, strung upon the North Road, with its accreting
+suburbs; the sunset beyond, scarlet and orange, winking at him
+beneath brows of grey; the church; the plantations; and behind
+him an unspoilt country of fields and farms. But he, too, was
+rolling the event luxuriously in his mouth. He tried to tell his
+mother down below all that he had felt when he saw the coffin
+approaching: how he could not leave his work, and yet did not
+like to go on with it; how he had almost slipped out of the tree,
+he was so upset; the rooks had cawed, and no wonder--it was as if
+rooks knew too. His mother claimed the prophetic power herself--
+she had seen a strange look about Mrs. Wilcox for some time.
+London had done the mischief, said others. She had been a kind
+lady; her grandmother had been kind, too--a plainer person, but
+very kind. Ah, the old sort was dying out! Mr. Wilcox, he was a
+kind gentleman. They advanced to the topic again and again,
+dully, but with exaltation. The funeral of a rich person was to
+them what the funeral of Alcestis or Ophelia is to the educated.
+It was Art; though remote from life, it enhanced life's values,
+and they witnessed it avidly.
+
+The grave-diggers, who had kept up an undercurrent of disapproval
+--they disliked Charles; it was not a moment to speak of such
+things, but they did not like Charles Wilcox--the grave-diggers
+finished their work and piled up the wreaths and crosses above
+it. The sun set over Hilton; the grey brows of the evening
+flushed a little, and were cleft with one scarlet frown.
+Chattering sadly to each other, the mourners passed through the
+lych-gate and traversed the chestnut avenues that led down to the
+village. The young wood-cutter stayed a little longer, poised
+above the silence and swaying rhythmically. At last the bough
+fell beneath his saw. With a grunt, he descended, his thoughts
+dwelling no longer on death, but on love, for he was mating. He
+stopped as he passed the new grave; a sheaf of tawny
+chrysanthemums had caught his eye. "They didn't ought to have
+coloured flowers at buryings," he reflected. Trudging on a few
+steps, he stopped again, looked furtively at the dusk, turned
+back, wrenched a chrysanthemum from the sheaf, and hid it in his
+pocket.
+
+After him came silence absolute. The cottage that abutted on the
+churchyard was empty, and no other house stood near. Hour after
+hour the scene of the interment remained without an eye to
+witness it. Clouds drifted over it from the west; or the church
+may have been a ship, high-prowed, steering with all its
+company towards infinity. Towards morning the air grew colder,
+the sky clearer, the surface of the earth hard and sparkling
+above the prostrate dead. The wood-cutter, returning after a
+night of joy, reflected: "They lilies, they chrysants; it's a
+pity I didn't take them all."
+
+Up at Howards End they were attempting breakfast. Charles and
+Evie sat in the dining-room, with Mrs. Charles. Their father, who
+could not bear to see a face, breakfasted upstairs. He suffered
+acutely. Pain came over him in spasms, as if it was physical, and
+even while he was about to eat, his eyes would fill with tears,
+and he would lay down the morsel untasted.
+
+He remembered his wife's even goodness during thirty years. Not
+anything in detail--not courtship or early raptures--but just the
+unvarying virtue, that seemed to him a woman's noblest quality.
+So many women are capricious, breaking into odd flaws of passion
+or frivolity. Not so his wife. Year after year, summer and
+winter, as bride and mother, she had been the same, he had always
+trusted her. Her tenderness! Her innocence! The wonderful
+innocence that was hers by the gift of God. Ruth knew no more of
+worldly wickedness and wisdom than did the flowers in her garden,
+or the grass in her field. Her idea of business--" Henry, why do
+people who have enough money try to get more money?" Her idea of
+politics--" I am sure that if the mothers of various nations
+could meet, there would be no more wars," Her idea of religion--
+ah, this had been a cloud, but a cloud that passed. She came of
+Quaker stock, and he and his family, formerly Dissenters, were
+now members of the Church of England. The rector's sermons had at
+first repelled her, and she had expressed a desire for "a more
+inward light," adding, "not so much for myself as for baby"
+(Charles). Inward light must have been granted, for he heard no
+complaints in later years. They brought up their three children
+without dispute. They had never disputed.
+
+She lay under the earth now. She had gone, and as if to make her
+going the more bitter, had gone with a touch of mystery that was
+all unlike her. "Why didn't you tell me you knew of it?" he had
+moaned, and her faint voice had answered: "I didn't want to,
+Henry--I might have been wrong--and every one hates illnesses."
+He had been told of the horror by a strange doctor, whom she had
+consulted during his absence from town. Was this altogether just?
+Without fully explaining, she had died. It was a fault on her
+part, and--tears rushed into his eyes--what a little fault! It
+was the only time she had deceived him in those thirty years.
+
+He rose to his feet and looked out of the window, for Evie had
+come in with the letters, and he could meet no one's eye. Ah
+yes--she had been a good woman--she had been steady. He chose the
+word deliberately. To him steadiness included all praise. He
+himself, gazing at the wintry garden, is in appearance a steady
+man. His face was not as square as his son's, and, indeed, the
+chin, though firm enough in outline, retreated a little, and the
+lips, ambiguous, were curtained by a moustache. But there was no
+external hint of weakness. The eyes, if capable of kindness and
+good-fellowship, if ruddy for the moment with tears, were the
+eyes of one who could not be driven. The forehead, too, was like
+Charles's. High and straight, brown and polished, merging
+abruptly into temples and skull, it had the effect of a bastion
+that protected his head from the world. At times it had the
+effect of a blank wall. He had dwelt behind it, intact and happy,
+for fifty years. "The post's come, father," said Evie awkwardly.
+
+"Thanks. Put it down."
+
+"Has the breakfast been all right?"
+
+"Yes, thanks."
+
+The girl glanced at him and at it with constraint. She did not
+know what to do.
+
+"Charles says do you want the Times?"
+
+"No, I'll read it later."
+
+"Ring if you want anything, father, won't you?"
+
+"I've all I want."
+
+Having sorted the letters from the circulars, she went back to
+the dining-room.
+
+"Father's eaten nothing," she announced, sitting down with
+wrinkled brows behind the tea-urn.
+
+Charles did not answer, but after a moment he ran quickly
+upstairs, opened the door, and said  "Look here father, you must
+eat, you know; and having paused for a reply that did not come,
+stole down again. "He's going to read his letters first, I
+think," he said evasively; "I dare say he will go on with his
+breakfast afterwards." Then he took up the Times, and for some
+time there was no sound except the clink of cup against saucer
+and of knife on plate.
+
+Poor Mrs. Charles sat between her silent companions terrified at
+the course of events, and a little bored. She was a rubbishy
+little creature, and she knew it. A telegram had dragged her from
+Naples to the death-bed of a woman whom she had scarcely known. A
+word from her husband had plunged her into mourning. She desired
+to mourn inwardly as well, but she wished that Mrs. Wilcox, since
+fated to die, could have died before the marriage, for then less
+would have been expected of her. Crumbling her toast, and too
+nervous to ask for the butter, she remained almost motionless,
+thankful only for this, that her father-in-law was having his
+breakfast upstairs.
+
+At last Charles spoke. "They had no business to be pollarding
+those elms yesterday," he said to his sister.
+
+"No, indeed."
+
+"I must make a note of that," he continued. "I am surprised that
+the rector allowed it."
+
+"Perhaps it may not be the rector's affair."
+
+"Whose else could it be?"
+
+"The lord of the manor."
+
+"Impossible."
+
+"Butter, Dolly?"
+
+"Thank you, Evie dear. Charles--"
+
+"Yes, dear?"
+
+"I didn't know one could pollard elms. I thought one only
+pollarded willows."
+
+"Oh no, one can pollard elms."
+
+"Then why oughtn't the elms in the churchyard to be pollarded?"
+Charles frowned a little, and turned again to his sister.
+
+"Another point. I must speak to Chalkeley."
+
+"Yes, rather; you must complain to Chalkeley."
+
+"It's no good his saying he is not responsible for those men. He
+is responsible."
+
+"Yes, rather."
+
+Brother and sister were not callous. They spoke thus, partly
+because they desired to keep Chalkeley up to the mark--a healthy
+desire in its way--partly because they avoided the personal note
+in life. All Wilcoxes did. It did not seem to them of supreme
+importance. Or it may be as Helen supposed: they realised its
+importance, but were afraid of it. Panic and emptiness, could one
+glance behind. They were not callous, and they left the
+breakfast-table with aching hearts. Their mother never had come
+in to breakfast. It was in the other rooms, and especially in the
+garden, that they felt her loss most. As Charles went out to the
+garage, he was reminded at every step of the woman who had loved
+him and whom he could never replace. What battles he had fought
+against her gentle conservatism! How she had disliked
+improvements, yet how loyally she had accepted them when made! He
+and his father--what trouble they had had to get this very
+garage! With what difficulty had they persuaded her to yield them
+the paddock for it--the paddock that she loved more dearly than
+the garden itself! The vine--she had got her way about the vine.
+It still encumbered the south wall with its unproductive
+branches. And so with Evie, as she stood talking to the cook.
+Though she could take up her mother's work inside the house, just
+as the man could take it up without, she felt that something
+unique had fallen out of her life. Their grief, though less
+poignant than their father's, grew from deeper roots, for a wife
+may be replaced; a mother never. Charles would go back to the
+office. There was little at Howards End. The contents of his
+mother's will had long been known to them. There were no
+legacies, no annuities, none of the posthumous bustle with which
+some of the dead prolong their activities. Trusting her husband,
+she had left him everything without reserve. She was quite a poor
+woman--the house had been all her dowry, and the house would come
+to Charles in time. Her watercolours Mr. Wilcox intended to
+reserve for Paul, while Evie would take the jewellery and lace.
+How easily she slipped out of life! Charles thought the habit
+laudable, though he did not intend to adopt it himself, whereas
+Margaret would have seenin it an almost culpable indifference to
+earthly fame. Cynicism--not the superficial cynicism that snarls
+and sneers, but the cynicism that can go with courtesy and
+tenderness--that was the note of Mrs. Wilcox's will. She wanted
+not to vex people. That accomplished, the earth might freeze over
+her for ever.
+
+No, there was nothing for Charles to wait for. He could not go on
+with his honeymoon, so he would go up to London and work--he felt
+too miserable hanging about. He and Dolly would have the
+furnished flat while his father rested quietly in the country
+with Evie. He could also keep an eye on his own little house,
+which was being painted and decorated for him in one of the
+Surrey suburbs, and in which he hoped to install himself soon
+after Christmas. Yes, he would go up after lunch in his new
+motor, and the town servants, who had come down for the funeral,
+would go up by train.
+
+He found his father's chauffeur in the garage, said "Morning"
+without looking at the man's face, and bending over the car,
+continued: "Hullo! my new car's been driven!"
+
+"Has it, sir?"
+
+"Yes," said Charles, getting rather red; "and whoever's driven it
+hasn't cleaned it properly, for there's mud on the axle. Take it
+off."
+
+The man went for the cloths without a word. He was a chauffeur as
+ugly as sin--not that this did him disservice with Charles, who
+thought charm in a man rather rot, and had soon got rid of the
+little Italian beast with whom they had started.
+
+"Charles--" His bride was tripping after him over the hoar-frost,
+a dainty black column, her little face and elaborate mourning hat
+forming the capital thereof.
+
+"One minute, I'm busy. Well, Crane, who's been driving it, do you
+suppose?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure, sir. No one's driven it since I've been
+back, but, of course, there's the fortnight I've been away with
+the other car in Yorkshire."
+
+The mud came off easily.
+
+"Charles, your father's down. Something's happened. He wants you
+in the house at once. Oh, Charles!"
+
+"Wait, dear, wait a minute. Who had the key of the garage while
+you were away, Crane?"
+
+"The gardener, sir."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that old Penny can drive a motor?"
+
+"No, sir; no one's had the motor out, sir."
+
+"Then how do you account for the mud on the axle?"
+
+"I can't, of course, say for the time I've been in Yorkshire. No
+more mud now, sir."
+
+Charles was vexed. The man was treating him as a fool, and if his
+heart had not been so heavy he would have reported him to his
+father. But it was not a morning for complaints. Ordering the
+motor to be round after lunch, he joined his wife, who had all
+the while been pouring out some incoherent story about a letter
+and a Miss Schlegel.
+
+"Now, Dolly, I can attend to you. Miss Schlegel? What does she
+want?"
+
+When people wrote a letter Charles always asked what they wanted.
+Want was to him the only cause of action. And the question in
+this case was correct, for his wife replied, "She wants Howards
+End."
+
+"Howards End? Now, Crane, just don't forget to put on the Stepney
+wheel."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Now, mind you don't forget, for I-- Come, little woman." When
+they were out of the chauffeur's sight he put his arm round her
+waist and pressed her against him. All his affection and half his
+attention--it was what he granted her throughout their happy
+married life.
+
+"But you haven't listened, Charles."
+
+"What's wrong?"
+
+"I keep on telling you--Howards End. Miss Schlegel's got it."
+
+"Got what?" said Charles, unclasping her. "What the dickens are
+you talking about?"
+
+"Now, Charles, you promised not so say those naughty--"
+
+"Look here, I'm in no mood for foolery. It's no morning for it
+either."
+
+"I tell you--I keep on telling you--Miss Schlegel--she's got
+it--your mother's left it to her--and you've all got to move
+out!"
+
+"HOWARDS END?"
+
+"HOWARDS END!" she screamed, mimicking him, and as she did so
+Evie came dashing out of the shubbery.
+
+"Dolly, go back at once! My father's much annoyed with you.
+Charles"--she hit herself wildly--"come in at once to father.
+He's had a letter that's too awful."
+
+Charles began to run, but checked himself, and stepped heavily
+across the gravel path. There the house was with the nine
+windows, the unprolific vine. He exclaimed, "Schlegels again!"
+and as if to complete chaos, Dolly said, "Oh no, the matron of
+the nursing home has written instead of her."
+
+"Come in, all three of you!" cried his father, no longer inert.
+
+"Dolly, why have you disobeyed me?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Wilcox--"
+
+"I told you not to go out to the garage. I've heard you all
+shouting in the garden. I won't have it. Come in."
+
+He stood in the porch, transformed, letters in his hand.
+
+"Into the dining-room, every one of you. We can't discuss private
+matters in the middle of all the servants. Here, Charles, here;
+read these. See what you make."
+
+Charles took two letters, and read them as he followed the
+procession. The first was a covering note from the matron. Mrs.
+Wilcox had desired her, when the funeral should be over, to
+forward the enclosed. The enclosed--it was from his mother
+herself. She had written: "To my husband: I should like Miss
+Schlegel (Margaret) to have Howards End."
+
+"I suppose we're going to have a talk about this?" he remarked,
+ominously calm.
+
+"Certainly. I was coming out to you when Dolly--"
+
+"Well, let's sit down."
+
+"Come, Evie, don't waste time, sit--down."
+
+In silence they drew up to the breakfast-table. The events of
+yesterday--indeed, of this morning suddenly receded into a past
+so remote that they seemed scarcely to have lived in it. Heavy
+breathings were heard. They were calming themselves. Charles, to
+steady them further, read the enclosure out loud: "A note in my
+mother's handwriting, in an envelope addressed to my father,
+sealed. Inside: 'I should like Miss Schlegel (Margaret) to have
+Howards End.' No date, no signature. Forwarded through the matron
+of that nursing home. Now, the question is--"
+
+Dolly interrupted him. "But I say that note isn't legal. Houses
+ought to be done by a lawyer, Charles, surely."
+
+Her husband worked his jaw severely. Little lumps appeared in
+front of either ear--a symptom that she had not yet learnt to
+respect, and she asked whether she might see the note. Charles
+looked at his father for permission, who said abstractedly, "Give
+it her." She seized it, and at once exclaimed: "Why, it's only in
+pencil! I said so. Pencil never counts."
+
+"We know that it is not legally binding, Dolly," said Mr. Wilcox,
+speaking from out of his fortress. "We are aware of that.
+Legally, I should be justified in tearing it up and throwing it
+into the fire. Of course, my dear, we consider you as one of the
+family, but it will be better if you do not interfere with what
+you do not understand."
+
+Charles, vexed both with his father and his wife, then repeated:
+"The question is--" He had cleared a space of the breakfast-table
+from plates and knives, so that he could draw patterns on the
+tablecloth. "The question is whether Miss Schlegel, during the
+fortnight we were all away, whether she unduly--" He stopped.
+
+"I don't think that," said his father, whose nature was nobler
+than his son's.
+
+"Don't think what?"
+
+"That she would have--that it is a case of undue influence. No,
+to my mind the question is the--the invalid's condition at the
+time she wrote."
+
+"My dear father, consult an expert if you like, but I don't admit
+it is my mother's writing."
+
+"Why, you just said it was!" cried Dolly.
+
+"Never mind if I did," he blazed out; "and hold your tongue."
+
+The poor little wife coloured at this, and, drawing her
+handkerchief from her pocket, shed a few tears. No one noticed
+her. Evie was scowling like an angry boy. The two men were
+gradually assuming the manner of the committee-room. They were
+both at their best when serving on committees. They did not make
+the mistake of handling human affairs in the bulk, but disposed
+of them item by item, sharply. Caligraphy was the item before
+them now, and on it they turned their well-trained brains.
+Charles, after a little demur, accepted the writing as genuine,
+and they passed on to the next point. It is the best--perhaps the
+only--way of dodging emotion. They were the average human
+article, and had they considered the note as a whole it would
+have driven them miserable or mad. Considered item by item, the
+emotional content was minimised, and all went forward smoothly.
+The clock ticked, the coals blazed higher, and contended with the
+white radiance that poured in through the windows. Unnoticed, the
+sun occupied his sky, and the shadows of the tree stems,
+extraordinarily solid, fell like trenches of purple across the
+frosted lawn. It was a glorious winter morning. Evie's fox
+terrier, who had passed for white, was only a dirty grey dog now,
+so intense was the purity that surrounded him. He was
+discredited, but the blackbirds that he was chasing glowed with
+Arabian darkness, for all the conventional colouring of life had
+been altered. Inside, the clock struck ten with a rich and
+confident note. Other clocks confirmed it, and the discussion
+moved towards its close.
+
+To follow it is unnecessary. It is rather a moment when the
+commentator should step forward. Ought the Wilcoxes to have
+offered their home to Margaret? I think not. The appeal was too
+flimsy. It was not legal; it had been written in illness, and
+under the spell of a sudden friendship; it was contrary to the
+dead woman's intentions in the past, contrary to her very nature,
+so far as that nature was understood by them. To them Howards End
+was a house: they could not know that to her it had been a
+spirit, for which she sought a spiritual heir. And--pushing one
+step farther in these mists--may they not have decided even
+better than they supposed? Is it credible that the possessions of
+the spirit can be bequeathed at all? Has the soul offspring? A
+wych-elm tree, a vine, a wisp of hay with dew on it--can passion
+for such things be transmitted where there is no bond of blood?
+No; the Wilcoxes are not to be blamed. The problem is too
+terrific, and they could not even perceive a problem. No; it is
+natural and fitting that after due debate they should tear the
+note up and throw it on to their dining-room fire. The practical
+moralist may acquit them absolutely. He who strives to look
+deeper may acquit them--almost. For one hard fact remains. They
+did neglect a personal appeal. The woman who had died did say to
+them, "Do this," and they answered, "We will not."
+
+The incident made a most painful impression on them. Grief
+mounted into the brain and worked there disquietingly. Yesterday
+they had lamented: "She was a dear mother, a true wife; in our
+absence she neglected her health and died." To-day they
+thought: "She was not as true, as dear, as we supposed." The
+desire for a more inward light had found expression at last, the
+unseen had impacted on the seen, and all that they could say was
+"Treachery." Mrs. Wilcox had been treacherous to the family, to
+the laws of property, to her own written word. How did she expect
+Howards End to be conveyed to Miss Schlegel? Was her husband,
+to whom it legally belonged, to make it over to her as a free
+gift? Was the said Miss Schlegel to have a life interest in it,
+or to own it absolutely? Was there to be no compensation for the
+garage and other improvements that they had made under the
+assumption that all would be theirs some day? Treacherous!
+treacherous and absurd! When we think the dead both treacherous
+and absurd, we have gone far towards reconciling ourselves to
+their departure. That note, scribbled in pencil, sent through the
+matron, was unbusinesslike as well as cruel, and decreased at
+once the value of the woman who had written it.
+
+"Ah, well!" said Mr. Wilcox, rising from the table. "I shouldn't
+have thought it possible."
+
+"Mother couldn't have meant it," said Evie, still frowning.
+
+"No, my girl, of course not."
+
+"Mother believed so in ancestors too--it isn't like her to leave
+anything to an outsider, who'd never appreciate."
+
+"The whole thing is unlike her," he announced. "If Miss Schlegel
+had been poor, if she had wanted a house, I could understand it a
+little. But she has a house of her own. Why should she want
+another? She wouldn't have any use for Howards End."
+
+"That time may prove," murmured Charles.
+
+"How?" asked his sister.
+
+"Presumably she knows--mother will have told her. She got twice
+or three times into the nursing home. Presumably she is awaiting
+developments."
+
+"What a horrid woman!" And Dolly, who had recovered, cried,
+"Why, she may be coming down to turn us out now!"
+
+Charles put her right. "I wish she would," he said ominously. "I
+could then deal with her."
+
+"So could I," echoed his father, who was feeling rather in the
+cold. Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral
+arrangements and in telling him to eat his breakfast, but the boy
+as he grew up was a little dictatorial, and assumed the post of
+chairman too readily. "I could deal with her, if she comes, but
+she won't come. You're all a bit hard on Miss Schlegel."
+
+"That Paul business was pretty scandalous, though."
+
+"I want no more of the Paul business, Charles, as I said at the
+time, and besides, it is quite apart from this business. Margaret
+Schlegel has been officious and tiresome during this terrible
+week, and we have all suffered under her, but upon my soul she's
+honest. She's NOT in collusion with the matron. I'm absolutely
+certain of it. Nor was she with the doctor, I'm equally certain
+of that. She did not hide anything from us, for up to that very
+afternoon she was as ignorant as we are. She, like ourselves, was
+a dupe--" He stopped for a moment. "You see, Charles, in her
+terrible pain your mother put us all in false positions. Paul
+would not have left England, you would not have gone to Italy,
+nor Evie and I into Yorkshire, if only we had known. Well, Miss
+Schlegel's position has been equally false. Take all in all, she
+has not come out of it badly."
+
+Evie said: "But those chrysanthemums--"
+
+"Or coming down to the funeral at all--" echoed Dolly.
+
+"Why shouldn't she come down? She had the right to, and she stood
+far back among the Hilton women. The flowers--certainly we should
+not have sent such flowers, but they may have seemed the right
+thing to her, Evie, and for all you know they may be the custom
+in Germany."
+
+"Oh, I forget she isn't really English," cried Evie. "That would
+explain a lot."
+
+"She's a cosmopolitan," said Charles, looking at his watch. "I
+admit I'm rather down on cosmopolitans. My fault, doubtless. I
+cannot stand them, and a German cosmopolitan is the limit. I
+think that's about all, isn't it? I want to run down and see
+Chalkeley. A bicycle will do. And, by the way, I wish you'd speak
+to Crane some time. I'm certain he's had my new car out."
+
+"Has he done it any harm?"
+
+"No."
+
+"In that case I shall let it pass. It's not worth while having a
+row."
+
+Charles and his father sometimes disagreed. But they always
+parted with an increased regard for one another, and each desired
+no doughtier comrade when it was necessary to voyage for a little
+past the emotions. So the sailors of Ulysses voyaged past the
+Sirens, having first stopped one another's ears with wool.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Charles  need not have been anxious. Miss Schlegel had never
+heard of his mother's strange request. She was to hear of it in
+after years, when she had built up her life differently, and it
+was to fit into position as the headstone of the corner. Her mind
+was bent on other questions now, and by her also it would have
+been rejected as the fantasy of an invalid.
+
+She was parting from these Wilcoxes for the second time. Paul and
+his mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and
+ebbed out of it for ever. The ripple had left no traces behind;
+the wave had strewn at her feet fragments torn from the unknown.
+A curious seeker, she stood for a while at the verge of the sea
+that tells so little, but tells a little, and watched the
+outgoing of this last tremendous tide. Her friend had vanished in
+agony, but not, she believed, in degradation. Her withdrawal had
+hinted at other things besides disease and pain. Some leave our
+life with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox had
+taken the middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She
+had kept proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to
+her friends, but not too much; she had shut up her heart--almost,
+but not entirely. It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought
+to die--neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who
+can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the
+shore that he must leave.
+
+The last word--whatever it would be--had certainly not been said
+in Hilton churchyard. She had not died there. A funeral is not
+death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All
+three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early,
+by which Society would register the quick motions of man. In
+Margaret's eyes Mrs. Wilcox had escaped registration. She had
+gone out of life vividly, her own way, and no dust was so truly
+dust as the contents of that heavy coffin, lowered with
+ceremonial until it rested on the dust of the earth, no flowers
+so utterly wasted as the chrysanthemums that the frost must have
+withered before morning. Margaret had once said she "loved
+superstition." It was not true. Few women had tried more
+earnestly to pierce the accretions in which body and soul are
+enwrapped. The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped her in her work.
+She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a human being
+is, and to what he may aspire. Truer relationships gleamed.
+Perhaps the last word would be hope--hope even on this side of
+the grave.
+
+Meanwhile, she could take an interest in the survivors. In spite
+of her Christmas duties, in spite of her brother, the Wilcoxes
+continued to play a considerable part in her thoughts. She had
+seen so much of them in the final week. They were not "her sort,"
+they were often suspicious and stupid, and deficient where she
+excelled; but collision with them stimulated her, and she felt an
+interest that verged into liking, even for Charles. She desired
+to protect them, and often felt that they could protect her,
+excelling where she was deficient. Once past the rocks of
+emotion, they knew so well what to do, whom to send for; their
+hands were on all the ropes, they had grit as well as grittiness
+and she valued grit enormously. They led a life that she could
+not attain to--the outer life of "telegrams and anger," which had
+detonated when Helen and Paul had touched in June, and had
+detonated again the other week. To Margaret this life was to
+remain a real force. She could not despise it, as Helen and Tibby
+affected to do. It fostered such virtues as neatness, decision,
+and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they
+have formed our civilisation. They form character, too; Margaret
+could not doubt it; they keep the soul from becoming sloppy. How
+dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes, when it takes all sorts to make
+a world?
+
+"Don't brood too much," she wrote to Helen, "on the superiority
+of the unseen to the seen. It's true, but to brood on it is
+medieval. Our business is not to contrast the two, but to
+reconcile them."
+
+Helen replied that she had no intention of brooding on such a
+dull subject. What did her sister take her for? The weather was
+magnificent. She and the Mosebachs had gone tobogganing on the
+only hill that Pomerania boasted. It was fun, but over-crowded,
+for the rest of Pomerania had gone there too. Helen loved the
+country, and her letter glowed with physical exercise and poetry.
+She spoke of the scenery, quiet, yet august; of the snow-clad
+fields, with their scampering herds of deer; of the river and its
+quaint entrance into the Baltic Sea; of the Oderberge, only three
+hundred feet high, from which one slid all too quickly back into
+the Pomeranian plains, and yet these Oderberge were real
+mountains, with pine-forests, streams, and views complete. "It
+isn't size that counts so much as the way things are arranged."
+In another paragraph she referred to Mrs. Wilcox sympathetically,
+but the news had not bitten into her. She had not realised the
+accessories of death, which are in a sense more memorable than
+death itself. The atmosphere of precautions and recriminations,
+and in the midst a human body growing more vivid because it was
+in pain; the end of that body in Hilton churchyard; the survival
+of something that suggested hope, vivid in its turn against
+life's workaday cheerfulness;-- all these were lost to Helen, who
+only felt that a pleasant lady could now be pleasant no longer.
+She returned to Wickham Place full of her own affairs--she had
+had another proposal--and Margaret, after a moment's hesitation,
+was content that this should be so.
+
+The proposal had not been a serious matter. It was the work of
+Fraulein Mosebach, who had conceived the large and patriotic
+notion of winning back her cousins to the Fatherland by
+matrimony. England had played Paul Wilcox, and lost; Germany
+played Herr Forstmeister some one--Helen could not remember his
+name. Herr Forstmeister lived in a wood, and, standing on the
+summit of the Oderberge, he had pointed out his house to Helen,
+or rather, had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay.
+She had exclaimed, "Oh, how lovely! That's the place for me!" and
+in the evening Frieda appeared in her bedroom. "I have a message,
+dear Helen," etc., and so she had, but had been very nice when
+Helen laughed; quite understood--a forest too solitary and damp--
+quite agreed, but Herr Forstmeister believed he had assurance to
+the contrary. Germany had lost, but with good-humour; holding the
+manhood of the world, she felt bound to win. "And there will even
+be some one for Tibby," concluded Helen. "There now, Tibby, think
+of that; Frieda is saving up a little girl for you, in pig-tails
+and white worsted stockings but the feet of the stockings are
+pink as if the little girl had trodden in strawberries. I've
+talked too much. My head aches. Now you talk."
+
+Tibby consented to talk. He too was full of his own affairs, for
+he had just been up to try for a scholarship at Oxford. The men
+were down, and the candidates had been housed in various
+colleges, and had dined in hall. Tibby was sensitive to beauty,
+the experience was new, and he gave a description of his visit
+that was almost glowing. The august and mellow University,
+soaked with the richness of the western counties that it has
+served for a thousand years, appealed at once to the boy's taste;
+it was the kind of thing he could understand, and he understood
+it all the better because it was empty. Oxford is--Oxford; not a
+mere receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its
+inmates to love it rather than to love one another; such at all
+events was to be its effect on Tibby. His sisters sent him there
+that he might make friends, for they knew that his education had
+been cranky, and had severed him from other boys and men. He made
+no friends. His Oxford remained Oxford empty, and he took into
+life with him, not the memory of a radiance, but the memory of a
+colour scheme.
+
+It pleased Margaret to hear her brother and sister talking. They
+did not get on overwell as a rule. For a few moments she listened
+to them, feeling elderly and benign.
+
+Then something occurred to her, and she interrupted.
+
+"Helen, I told you about poor Mrs. Wilcox; that sad business?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have had a correspondence with her son. He was winding up the
+estate, and wrote to ask me whether his mother had wanted me to
+have anything. I thought it good of him, considering I knew her
+so little. I said that she had once spoken of giving me a
+Christmas present, but we both forgot about it afterwards."
+
+"I hope Charles took the hint."
+
+"Yes--that is to say, her husband wrote later on, and thanked me
+for being a little kind to her, and actually gave me her silver
+vinaigrette. Don't you think that is extraordinarily generous? It
+has made me like him very much. He hopes that this will not be
+the end of our acquaintance, but that you and I will go and stop
+with Evie some time in the future. I like Mr. Wilcox. He is
+taking up his work--rubber--it is a big business. I gather he is
+launching out rather. Charles is in it, too. Charles is married--
+a pretty little creature, but she doesn't seem wise. They took on
+the flat, but now they have gone off to a house of their own."
+
+Helen, after a decent pause, continued her account of Stettin.
+How quickly a situation changes! In June she had been in a
+crisis; even in November she could blush and be unnatural; now it
+was January and the whole affair lay forgotten. Looking back on
+the past six months, Margaret realised the chaotic nature of our
+daily life, and its difference from the orderly sequence that has
+been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of false clues
+and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve
+ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful
+career must show a waste of strength that might have removed
+mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who
+is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never
+taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly
+silent. It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself
+a good, and that men, like nations, are the better for staggering
+through life fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has
+scarcely been handled, save by the Greeks. Life is indeed
+dangerous, but not in the way morality would have us believe. It
+is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of it is not a battle. It
+is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its essence is
+romantic beauty. Margaret hoped that for the future she would be
+less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in the past.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to
+lead its life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming
+gracefully on the grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept
+past them, money had been spent and renewed, reputations won and
+lost, and the city herself, emblematic of their lives, rose and
+fell in a continual flux, while her shallows washed more widely
+against the hills of Surrey and over the fields of Hertfordshire.
+This famous building had arisen, that was doomed. To-day
+Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn of Regent
+Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more
+strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human
+beings heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed
+less of the air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the
+leaves were falling by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with
+an admired obscurity.
+
+To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an
+artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near
+future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from
+the town. One can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the
+elemental forces, the public has heard a 'little too much--they
+seem Victorian, while London is Georgian--and those who care for
+the earth with sincerity may wait long ere the pendulum swings
+back to her again. Certainly London fascinates. One visualises it
+as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without purpose, and
+excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before it
+can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no
+pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything; Nature, with
+all her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men.
+A friend explains himself; the earth is explicable--from her we
+came, and we must return to her. But who can explain Westminster
+Bridge Road or Liverpool Street in the morning--the city
+inhaling--or the same thoroughfares in the evening--the city
+exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in desperation beyond the
+fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the universe are
+ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human face.
+London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of
+theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow
+would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not any one pompous
+or tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.
+
+The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him,
+too, away from his moorings, and Margaret's eyes were not opened
+until the lease of Wickham Place expired. She had always known
+that it must expire, but the knowledge only became vivid about
+nine months before the event. Then the house was suddenly ringed
+with pathos. It had seen so much happiness. Why had it to be
+swept away? In the streets of the city she noted for the first
+time the architecture of hurry and heard the language of hurry on
+the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words, formless sentences,
+potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by month things
+were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population still
+rose, but what was the quality of the men born? The particular
+millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place, and desired
+to erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he to stir so
+large a portion of the quivering jelly? He was not a fool--she
+had heard him expose Socialism--but true insight began just where
+his intelligence ended, and one gathered that this was the case
+with most millionaires. What right had such men-- But Margaret
+checked herself. That way lies madness. Thank goodness, she, too,
+had some money, and could purchase a new home.
+
+Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter
+vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious
+talk with him. Did he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby
+didn't know that he did know. Did he at all know what he wanted
+to do? He was equally uncertain, but when pressed remarked that
+he should prefer to be quite free of any profession. Margaret was
+not shocked, but went on sewing for a few minutes before she
+replied:
+
+"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly
+happy.
+
+"Ye--es."  said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious
+quiver, as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round,
+through, over, and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped
+him, and finally dismissed him as having no possible bearing on
+the Subject under discussion. That bleat of Tibby's infuriated
+Helen. But Helen was now down in the dining room preparing a
+speech about political economy. At times her voice could be heard
+declaiming through the floor.
+
+"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don't you think?
+Then there's Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides"--shifting
+to the general--"every one is the better for some regular work."
+
+Groans.
+
+"I shall stick to it," she continued, smiling. "I am not saying
+it to educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in
+the last century men have developed the desire for work, and they
+must not starve it. It's a new desire. It goes with a great deal
+that's bad, but in itself it's good, and I hope that for women,
+too, 'not to work' will soon become as shocking as 'not to be
+married' was a hundred years ago."
+
+"I have no experience of this profound desire to which you
+allude," enunciated Tibby.
+
+"Then we'll leave the subject till you do. I'm not going to
+rattle you round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of
+the men you like most, and see how they've arranged them."
+
+"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and leant so
+far back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from
+knees to throat.
+
+"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the
+traditional arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and
+so on--all of which are, for various reasons, cant." She sewed
+on. "I'm only your sister. I haven't any authority over you, and
+I don't want to have any. Just to put before you what I think the
+Truth. You see"--she shook off the pince-nez to which she had
+recently taken--" in a few years we shall be the same age
+practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men are so much
+nicer than women."
+
+"Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"
+
+"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."
+
+"Has nobody arst you?"
+
+"Only ninnies."
+
+"Do people ask Helen?"
+
+"Plentifully."
+
+"Tell me about them."
+
+"No."
+
+"Tell me about your ninnies, then."
+
+"They were men who had nothing better to do," said his sister,
+feeling that she was entitled to score this point. "So take
+warning; you must work, or else you must pretend to work, which
+is what I do. Work, work, work if you'd save your soul and your
+body. It is honestly a necessity, dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes,
+look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their defects of temper and
+understanding, such men give me more pleasure than many who are
+better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
+regularly and honestly."
+
+"Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.
+
+"I shall not. They are the right sort."
+
+"Oh, goodness me, Meg--!" he protested, suddenly sitting up,
+alert and angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine
+personality.
+
+"Well, they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."
+
+"No, no--oh, no!"
+
+"I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a
+ninny, but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out
+there again, Evie Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."
+
+"Duty" always elicited a groan.
+
+"He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though it is
+beastly work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget
+over fresh water and food... A nation that can produce men of
+that sort may well be proud. No wonder England has become an
+Empire.
+
+"EMPIRE!"
+
+"I can't bother over results," said Margaret, a little sadly.
+"They are too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An
+Empire bores me, so far, but I can appreciate the heroism that
+builds it up. London bores me, but what thousands of splendid
+people are labouring to make London--"
+
+"What it is," he sneered.
+
+"What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation.
+How paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in
+heaven."
+
+"And I" said Tibby, "want civilisation without activity, which, I
+expect, is what we shall find in the other place."
+
+"You needn't go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you
+want that. You can find it at Oxford."
+
+"Stupid--"
+
+"If I'm stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I'll even
+live in Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I'll live anywhere
+except Bournemouth, Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or
+Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge Wells and Surbiton and
+Bedford. There on no account."
+
+"London, then."
+
+"I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London.
+However, there's no reason we shouldn't have a house in the
+country and also a flat in town, provided we all stick together
+and contribute. Though of course-- Oh, how one does maunder on
+and tothink, to think of the people who are really poor. How do
+they live? Not to move about the world would kill me."
+
+As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a
+state of extreme excitement.
+
+"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess. A woman's
+been here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?" (Helen was fond
+of supplying her own surprise.) "Yes, for her husband, and it
+really is so."
+
+"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who had
+lately taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives
+and boots.
+
+"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer
+up, Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good woman;
+have a good look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the
+chimney, shake out the antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh, and
+she so magnificently dressed and tinkling like a chandelier."
+
+"Now, Helen, what did really happen?"
+
+"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens
+the door like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with
+my mouth open. Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my husband,
+what I have reason to believe is here.' No--how unjust one is.
+She said 'whom,' not 'what.' She got it perfectly. So I said,
+'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan, Miss,' and there we were.
+
+"Lan?"
+
+"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline. "
+
+"But what an extraordinary--"
+
+"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave
+misunderstanding here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more
+remarkable than my beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline
+rested his eyes on mine.'"
+
+"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.
+
+"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful experience.
+Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a husband as if he were
+an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and for a long
+time suffered no inconvenience. But all night, and all this
+morning her apprehensions grew. Breakfast didn't seem the
+same--no, no more did lunch, and so she strolled up to 2 Wickham
+Place as being the most likely place for the missing article."
+
+"But how on earth--"
+
+"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she kept
+repeating, not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked
+her what she did know. Some knew what others knew, and others
+didn't, and then others again had better be careful. Oh dear, she
+was incompetent! She had a face like a silkworm, and the
+dining-room reeks of orris-root. We chatted pleasantly a little
+about husbands, and I wondered where hers was too, and advised
+her to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed that Mr.
+Lanoline's a notty, notty man, and hasn't no business
+to go on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the
+last. Bags I writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg,
+remember--bags I."
+
+"Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down her work.
+I'm not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible
+volcano smoking somewhere, doesn't it?"
+
+"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind. The admirable
+creature isn't capable of tragedy."
+
+"Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to the
+window.
+
+"Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married
+Mrs. Lanoline."
+
+"Was she pretty?"
+
+"Her figure may have been good once."
+
+The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain
+between Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned
+sadly to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She
+feared, fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving
+into turmoil and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes
+as these.
+
+"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live next
+September," she said at last.
+
+"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do," retorted Helen;
+and that topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and
+after tea Helen went on preparing her speech, and Margaret
+prepared one, too, for they were going out to a discussion
+society on the morrow. But her thoughts were poisoned. Mrs.
+Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint smell, a
+goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had both
+decayed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day,
+just as they were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called.
+He was a clerk in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance
+Company. Thus much from his card. He had come "about the lady
+yesterday." Thus much from Annie, who had shown him into the
+dining-room.
+
+"Cheers, children!" cried Helen. "It's Mrs. Lanoline."
+
+Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not
+the gay dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless,
+who had already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that
+are so common in London, and that haunt some streets of the city
+like accusing presences. One guessed him as the third generation,
+grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had
+sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who have lost the
+life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit.
+Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of
+primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might
+have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened,
+wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a
+tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own
+case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it
+humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that
+stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many
+the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew
+this type very well--the vague aspirations, the mental
+dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew
+the very tones in which he would address her. She was only
+unprepared for an example of her own visiting-card.
+
+"You wouldn't remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?" said he,
+uneasily familiar.
+
+"No; I can't say I do."
+
+"Well, that was how it happened, you see."
+
+"Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don't remember."
+
+"It was a concert at the Queen's Hall. I think you will
+recollect," he added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it
+included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven."
+
+"We hear the Fifth practically every time it's done, so I'm not
+sure--do you remember, Helen?"
+
+"Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?"
+
+He thought not.
+
+"Then I don't remember. That's the only Beethoven I ever remember
+specially."
+
+"And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently
+of course."
+
+"Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even
+oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?"
+
+"Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel."
+
+"The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret.
+
+"Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake."
+
+"The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling
+too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him
+forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed
+unable to give one.
+
+"That's so, calling too--a mistake."
+
+"Then why--?" began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.
+
+"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs.
+Bast, "I have to pay a call on some friends,' and Mrs. Bast said
+to me, 'Do go.' While I was gone, however, she wanted me on
+important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the
+card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and
+hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently
+caused you."
+
+"No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don't understand."
+
+An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but
+was obviously lying, and Helen didn't see why he should get off.
+She had the cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister's pressure,
+she said, "I still don't understand. When did you say you paid
+this call?"
+
+"Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a
+foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream.
+
+"This afternoon call."
+
+"In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to
+see how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said,
+"Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?"
+
+"S--Saturday."
+
+"Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on Sunday, when
+your wife came here. A long visit."
+
+"I don't call that fair," said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and
+handsome. There was fight in his eyes. "I know what you mean,
+and it isn't so."
+
+"Oh, don't let us mind," said Margaret, distressed again by
+odours from the abyss.
+
+"It was something else," he asserted, his elaborate manner
+breaking down. "I was somewhere else to what you think, so
+there!"
+
+"It was good of you to come and explain," she said. "The rest is
+naturally no concern of ours."
+
+"Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of
+Richard Feverel?"
+
+Margaret nodded.
+
+"It's a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don't
+you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read
+Stevenson's Prince Otto?"
+
+Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
+
+"That's another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in
+that. I wanted--" He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists
+of his culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. "I walked all
+the Saturday night," said Leonard. "I walked." A thrill of
+approval ran through the sisters. But culture closed in again. He
+asked whether they had ever read E. V. Lucas's Open Road."
+
+Said Helen, "No doubt it's another beautiful book, but I'd rather
+hear about your road."
+
+"Oh, I walked."
+
+"How far?"
+
+"I don't know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my
+watch."
+
+"Were you walking alone, may I ask?"
+
+"Yes," he said, straightening himself; "but we'd been talking it
+over at the office. There's been a lot of talk at the office
+lately about these things. The fellows there said one steers by
+the Pole Star, and I looked it up in the celestial atlas, but
+once out of doors everything gets so mixed."
+
+"Don't talk to me about the Pole Star," interrupted Helen, who
+was becoming interested. "I know its little ways. It goes round
+and round, and you go round after it."
+
+"Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then
+the trees, and towards morning it got cloudy."
+
+Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room.
+He knew that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did
+not want to hear him trying.
+
+Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more
+than they knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm
+more easily.
+
+"Where did you start from?" cried Margaret. "Do tell us more."
+
+"I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the
+office I said to myself, 'I must have a walk once in a way. If I
+don't take this walk now, I shall never take it.' I had a bit of
+dinner at Wimbledon, and then--"
+
+"But not good country there, is it?"
+
+"It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and
+being out was the great thing. I did get into woods, too,
+presently."
+
+"Yes, go on," said Helen.
+
+"You've no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it's
+dark."
+
+"Did you actually go off the roads?"
+
+"Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it
+is that it's more difficult to find one's way.
+
+"Mr. Bast, you're a born adventurer," laughed Margaret. "No
+professional athlete would have attempted what you've done. It's
+a wonder your walk didn't end in a broken neck. Whatever did your
+wife say?"
+
+"Professional athletes never move without lanterns and
+compasses," said Helen. "Besides, they can't walk. It tires them.
+Go on."
+
+"I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus."
+
+"Yes, but the wood. This 'ere wood. How did you get out of it?"
+
+"I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a
+good bit uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the
+road went off into grass, and I got into another wood. That was
+awful, with gorse bushes. I did wish I'd never come, but suddenly
+it got light--just while I seemed going under one tree. Then I
+found a road down to a station, and took the first train I
+could back to London."
+
+"But was the dawn wonderful?" asked Helen.
+
+With unforgettable sincerity he replied, "No." The word flew
+again like a pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had
+seemed ignoble or literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R.
+L. S. and the "love of the earth" and his silk top-hat. In the
+presence of these women Leonard had arrived, and he spoke with a
+flow, an exultation, that he had seldom known.
+
+"The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention."
+
+"Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know."
+
+"--and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so
+cold too. I'm glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more
+than I can say. And besides--you can believe me or not as you
+choose--I was very hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon--I meant it
+to last me all night like other dinners. I never thought
+that walking would make such a difference. Why, when you're
+walking you want, as it were, a breakfast and luncheon and tea
+during the night as well, and I'd nothing but a packet of
+Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn't what you
+may call enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did
+stick. I--I was determined. Oh, hang it all! what's the good--I
+mean, the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on
+day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you
+forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way
+what's going on outside, if it's only nothing particular after
+all."
+
+"I should just think you ought," said Helen, sitting--on the
+edge of the table.
+
+The sound of a lady's voice recalled him from sincerity, and he
+said: "Curious it should all come about from reading something of
+Richard Jefferies."
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you're wrong there. It didn't. It came
+from something far greater."
+
+But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies--
+Borrow, Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and
+the outburst ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these
+great names. The fault is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use
+them for sign-posts we mistake the sign-post for the destination.
+And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the
+county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its
+cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this
+miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for himself.
+Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater
+than Jefferies' books--the spirit that led Jefferies to write
+them; and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was
+part of the eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.
+
+"Then you don't think I was foolish?" he asked becoming again the
+naive and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.
+
+"Heavens, no!" replied Margaret.
+
+"Heaven help us if we do!" replied Helen.
+
+"I'm very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand
+--not if I explained for days."
+
+"No, it wasn't foolish!" cried Helen, her eyes aflame. "You've
+pushed back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you."
+
+"You've not been content to dream as we have--"
+
+"Though we have walked, too--"
+
+"I must show you a picture upstairs--"
+
+Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to
+their evening party.
+
+"Oh, bother, not to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out;
+but do, do, come round again and have a talk." "Yes, you must--
+do," echoed Margaret.
+
+Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: "No, I shall not. It's
+better like this."
+
+"Why better?" asked Margaret.
+
+"No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always
+look back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my
+life. Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me
+real good, and there we had better leave it."
+
+"That's rather a sad view of life, surely."
+
+"Things so often get spoiled."
+
+"I know," flashed Helen, "but people don't."
+
+He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which
+mingled true imagination and false. What he said wasn't wrong,
+but it wasn't right, and a false note jarred. One little twist,
+they felt, and the instrument might be in tune. One little
+strain, and it might be silent for ever. He thanked the ladies
+very much, but he would not call again. There was a moment's
+awkwardness, and then Helen said: "Go, then; perhaps you know
+best; but never forget you're better than Jefferies." And he
+went. Their hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a
+waving of hands, and vanished with its accomplished load into the
+evening.
+
+London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night.
+Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares,
+gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green.
+The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not
+afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down
+Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned
+while it did not distract. She had never known the clear-cut
+armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted
+wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and
+to brighten it he had ruled off few corners for romance. The
+Miss Schlegels--or, to speak more accurately, his interview
+with them--were to fill such a corner, nor was it by any means
+the first time that he had talked intimately to strangers. The
+habit was analogous to a debauch, an outlet, though the worst of
+outlets, for instincts that would not be denied. Terrifying him,
+it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he was
+confiding secrets to people whom he had scarcely seen. It brought
+him many fears and some pleasant memories. Perhaps the keenest
+happiness he had ever known was during a railway journey to
+Cambridge, where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken
+to him. They had got into conversation, and gradually Leonard
+flung reticence aside, told some of his domestic troubles and
+hinted at the rest. The undergraduate, supposing they could start
+a friendship, asked him to "coffee after hall," which he
+accepted, but afterwards grew shy, and took care not to
+stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged. He did not want
+Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with Jacky,
+and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand
+this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an
+interesting creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they
+to him were denizens of Romance, who must keep to the corner he
+had assigned them, pictures that must not walk out of
+their frames.
+
+His behaviour over Margaret's visiting-card had been typical. His
+had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money
+and no inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He
+could not leave his wife, and he did not want to hit her.
+Petulance and squalor were enough. Here "that card" had come in.
+Leonard, though furtive, was untidy, and left it lying about.
+Jacky found it, and then began, "What's that card, eh?" "Yes,
+don't you wish you knew what that card was?" "Len, who's Miss
+Schlegel?" etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke, now
+as a grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It
+followed them when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It
+was submitted to third parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it
+became the battlefield on which the souls of Leonard and his
+wife contended. Why did he not say, "A lady took my umbrella,
+another gave me this that I might call for my umbrella"? Because
+Jacky would have disbelieved him? Partly, but chiefly because he
+was sentimental. No affection gathered round the card, but it
+symbolised the life of culture, that Jacky should never spoil.
+At night he would say to himself, "Well, at all events, she
+doesn't know about that card. Yah! done her there!"
+
+Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear.
+She drew her own conclusion--she was only capable of drawing one
+conclusion--and in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the
+Friday Leonard had refused to speak to her, and had spent the
+evening observing the stars. On the Saturday he went up, as
+usual, to town, but he came not back Saturday night, nor Sunday
+morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The inconvenience grew
+intolerable, and though she was now of  a retiring habit, and shy
+of women, she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned in her
+absence. The card, the fatal card, was gone from the pages of
+Ruskin, and he guessed what had happened.
+
+"Well?" he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter.
+"I know where you've been, but you don't know where I've been."
+
+Jacky sighed, said, "Len, I do think you might explain," and
+resumed domesticity.
+
+Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too
+silly--or it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt
+them. His reticence was not entirely the shoddy article that a
+business life promotes, the reticence that pretends that nothing
+is something, and hides behind the Daily Telegraph. The
+adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an adventure for a clerk
+to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh at him, you
+who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle beside
+you and all the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may
+laugh who think adventures silly. But do not be surprised if
+Leonard is shy whenever he meets you, and if the Schlegels rather
+than Jacky hear about the dawn.
+
+That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent
+joy. He was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as
+he journeyed home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of
+wealth had fallen, and there had been--he could not phrase it--a
+general assertion of the wonder of the world. "My conviction,"
+says the mystic, "gains infinitely the moment another soul will
+believe in it," and they had agreed that there was something
+beyond life's daily grey. He took off his top-hat and smoothed it
+thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed the unknown to be books,
+literature, clever conversation, culture. One raised oneself by
+study, and got upsides with the world. But in that quick
+interchange a new light dawned. Was that "something" walking in
+the dark among the suburban hills?
+
+He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street.
+London came back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but
+all whom he passed looked at him with a hostility that was the
+more impressive because it was unconscious. He put his hat on. It
+was too big; his head disappeared like a pudding into a basin,
+the ears bending outwards at the touch of the curly brim. He wore
+it a little backwards, and its effect was greatly to elongate the
+face and to bring out the distance between the eyes and the
+moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism. No one felt
+uneasy as he titupped along the pavements, the heart of a man
+ticking fast in his chest.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when
+they were both full of the same subject, there were few
+dinner-parties that could stand up against them. This particular
+one, which was all ladies, had more kick in it than most, but
+succumbed after a struggle. Helen at one part of the table,
+Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast and of no one else,
+and somewhere about the entree their monologues collided, fell
+ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all. The
+dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a
+paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the
+drawing-room, but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some
+topic of general interest. After the paper came a debate, and in
+this debate Mr. Bast also figured, appearing now as a bright spot
+in civilisation, now as a dark spot, according to the temperament
+of the speaker. The subject of the paper had been, "How ought I
+to dispose of my money?" the reader professing to be a
+millionaire on the point of death, inclined to bequeath her
+fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but open to
+conviction from other sources. The various parts had been
+assigned beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing. The
+hostess assumed the ungrateful role of "the millionaire's eldest
+son," and implored her expiring parent not to dislocate Society
+by allowing such vast sums to pass out of the family. Money was
+the fruit of self-denial, and the second generation had a right
+to profit by the self-denial of the first. What right had "Mr.
+Bast" to profit? The National Gallery was good enough for the
+likes of him. After property had had its say--a saying that is
+necessarily ungracious--the various philanthropists stepped
+forward. Something must be done for "Mr. Bast"; his conditions
+must be improved without impairing his independence; he must have
+a free library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid in
+such a way that he did not know it was being paid; it must be
+made worth his while to join the Territorials; he must be
+forcibly parted from his uninspiring wife, the money going to her
+as compensation; he must be assigned a Twin Star, some member of
+the leisured classes who would watch over him ceaselessly (groans
+from Helen); he must be given food but no clothes, clothes but no
+food, a third-return ticket to Venice, without either food or
+clothes when he arrived there. In short, he might be given
+anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.
+
+And here Margaret interrupted.
+
+"Order, order, Miss Schlegel!" said the reader of the paper. "You
+are here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the
+Society for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or
+Natural Beauty. I cannot have you speaking out of your role. It
+makes my poor head go round, and I think you forget that I am
+very ill."
+
+"Your head won't go round if only you'll listen to my argument,"
+said Margaret. "Why not give him the money itself? You're
+supposed to have about thirty thousand a year."
+
+"Have I? I thought I had a million."
+
+"Wasn't a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled
+that. Still, it doesn't matter. Whatever you've got, I order you
+to give as many poor men as you can three hundred a year each."
+
+"But that would be pauperising them," said an earnest girl, who
+liked the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at
+times.
+
+"Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise
+a man. It is these little driblets, distributed among too many,
+that do the harm. Money's educational. It's far more educational
+than the things it buys." There was a protest. "In a sense,"
+added Margaret, but the protest continued. "Well, isn't the most
+civilized thing going, the man who has learnt to wear his income
+properly?"
+
+"Exactly what your Mr. Basts won't do."
+
+"Give them a chance. Give them money. Don't dole them out
+poetry-books and railway-tickets like babies. Give them the
+wherewithal to buy these things. When your Socialism comes it may
+be different, and we may think in terms of commodities instead of
+cash. Till it comes give people cash, for it is the warp of
+civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The imagination ought to
+play upon money and realise it vividly, for it's the--the second
+most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over and
+hushed up, there is so little clear thinking--oh, political
+economy, of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own
+private incomes, and admit that independent thoughts are in nine
+cases out of ten the result of independent means. Money: give Mr.
+Bast money, and don't bother about his ideals. He'll pick up
+those for himself.
+
+She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began
+to misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in
+daily life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation,
+and Miss Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful
+things, and what it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole
+world and lost his own soul. She answered, "Nothing, but he would
+not gain his soul until he had gained a little of the world."
+Then they said, "No, we do not believe it," and she admitted that
+an overworked clerk may save his soul in the superterrestrial
+sense, where the effort will be taken for the deed, but she
+denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources of this
+world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to
+clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had
+attacked the fabric of Society--Property, Interest, etc.; she
+only fixed her eyes on a few human beings, to see how, under
+present conditions, they could be made happier. Doing good to
+humanity was useless: the many-coloured efforts thereto spreading
+over the vast area like films and resulting in an universal grey.
+To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was the utmost
+she dare hope for.
+
+Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had
+a bad time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her,
+and in keeping the administration of the millionaire's money in
+their own hands. The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of
+"personal supervision and mutual help," the effect of which was
+to alter poor people until they became exactly like people who
+were not so poor. The hostess pertinently remarked that she, as
+eldest son, might surely rank among the millionaire's legatees.
+Margaret weakly admitted the claim, and another claim was at once
+set up by Helen, who declared that she had been the millionaire's
+housemaid for over forty years, overfed and underpaid; was
+nothing to be done for her, so corpulent and poor? The
+millionaire then read out her last will and testament, in which
+she left the whole of her fortune to the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer. Then she died. The serious parts of the discussion had
+been of higher merit than the playful--in a men's debate is the
+reverse more general?--but the meeting broke up hilariously
+enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed to their homes.
+
+Helen and Margaret walked with the earnest girl as far as
+Battersea Bridge Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she
+had gone they were conscious of an alleviation, and of the great
+beauty of the evening. They turned back towards Oakley Street.
+The lamps and the plane-trees, following the line of the
+embankment, struck a note of dignity that is rare in English
+cities. The seats, almost deserted, were here and there occupied
+by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled out from the
+houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the rising
+tide. There is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It
+is an open space used rightly, a blessing more frequent in
+Germany than here. As Margaret and Helen sat down, the city
+behind them seemed to be a vast theatre, an opera-house in which
+some endless trilogy was performing, and they themselves a pair
+of satisfied subscribers, who did not mind losing a little of the
+second act.
+
+"Cold?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Tired?"
+
+"Doesn't matter."
+
+The earnest girl's train rumbled away over the bridge, "I say,
+Helen--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I think we won't."
+
+"As you like."
+
+"It's no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people.
+The discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough
+with him in a spirit of excitement, but think of rational
+intercourse. We mustn't play at friendship. No, it's no good."
+
+"There's Mrs. Lanoline, too," Helen yawned. "So dull."
+
+"Just so, and possibly worse than dull."
+
+"I should like to know how he got hold of your card."
+
+"But he said--something about a concert and an umbrella."
+
+"Then did the card see the wife--"
+
+"Helen, come to bed."
+
+"No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes;
+did you say money is the warp of the world?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then what's the woof?"
+
+"Very much what one chooses," said Margaret. "It's something that
+isn't money--one can't say more."
+
+"Walking at night?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+"For Tibby, Oxford?"
+
+"It seems so."
+
+"For you?"
+
+"Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it's
+that. For Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End."
+
+One's own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was
+sitting with friends many seats away, heard this, rose to his
+feet, and strolled along towards the speakers.
+
+"It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than
+people," continued Margaret.
+
+"Why, Meg? They're so much nicer generally. I'd rather think of
+that forester's house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr
+Forstmeister who lived in it."
+
+"I believe we shall come to care about people less and less,
+Helen. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace
+them. It's one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my
+life caring most for a place."
+
+Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had
+met.
+
+"How do you do?" he cried. "I thought I recognised your voices.
+Whatever are you both doing down here?"
+
+His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit
+out on Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented
+this, but Margaret accepted it as part of the good man's
+equipment.
+
+"What an age it is since I've seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in
+the Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son."
+
+"Paul?" said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting
+down between them. "Oh, Paul's all right. We had a line from Madeira.
+He'll be at work again by now."
+
+"Ugh--" said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"Isn't the climate of Nigeria too horrible?"
+
+"Some one's got to go," he said simply. England will never keep
+her trade overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices.
+Unless we get firm in West Africa, Ger--untold complications may
+follow. Now tell me all your news."
+
+"Oh, we've had a splendid evening," cried Helen, who always woke
+up at the advent of a visitor. "We belong to a kind of club that
+reads papers, Margaret and I--all women, but there is a
+discussion after. This evening it was on how one ought to leave
+one's money--whether to one's family, or to the poor, and if so
+how--oh, most interesting."
+
+The man of business smiled. Since his wife's death he had almost
+doubled his income. He was an important figure at last, a
+reassuring name on company prospectuses, and life had treated him
+very well. The world seemed in his grasp as he listened to the
+River Thames, which still flowed inland from the sea. So
+wonderful to the girls, it held no mysteries for him. He had
+helped to shorten its long tidal trough by taking shares in the
+lock at Teddington, and if he and other capitalists thought good,
+some day it could be shortened again. With a good dinner inside
+him and an amiable but academic woman on either flank, he felt
+that his hands were on all the ropes of life, and that what he
+did not know could not be worth knowing.
+
+"Sounds a most original entertainment!" he exclaimed, and laughed
+in his pleasant way. "I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing.
+But she hasn't the time. She's taken to breeding Aberdeen
+terriers--jolly little dogs."
+
+"I expect we'd better be doing the same, really."
+
+"We pretend we're improving ourselves, you see," said Helen a
+little sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that
+returns, and she had bitter memories of the days when a speech
+such as he had just made would have impressed her favourably. "We
+suppose it a good thing to waste an evening once a fortnight over
+a debate, but, as my sister says, it may be better to breed
+dogs."
+
+"Not at all. I don't agree with your sister. There's nothing like
+a debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for
+them when I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end."
+
+"Quickness--?"
+
+"Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I've missed scoring
+a point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I
+haven't. Oh, I believe in these discussions."
+
+The patronising tone, thought Margaret, came well enough from a
+man who was old enough to be their father. She had always
+maintained that Mr. Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or
+emotion his inadequacy had pained her, but it was pleasant to
+listen to him now, and to watch his thick brown moustache and
+high forehead confronting the stars. But Helen was nettled. The
+aim of their debates she implied was Truth.
+
+"Oh yes, it doesn't much matter what subject you take," said he.
+
+Margaret laughed and said, "But this is going to be far better
+than the debate itself." Helen recovered herself and laughed too.
+"No, I won't go on," she declared. "I'll just put our special
+case to Mr. Wilcox."
+
+"About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He'll be more lenient to a special
+case."
+
+"But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It's this.
+We've just come across a young fellow, who's evidently very poor,
+and who seems interest--"
+
+"What's his profession?"
+
+"Clerk."
+
+"What in?"
+
+"Do you remember, Margaret?"
+
+"Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company."
+
+"Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug. He
+seems interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could
+help him. He is married to a wife whom he doesn't seem to care
+for much. He likes books, and what one may roughly call
+adventure, and if he had a chance-- But he is so poor. He lives a
+life where all the money is apt to go on nonsense and clothes.
+One is so afraid that circumstances will be too strong for him
+and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our debate. He
+wasn't the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his point.
+Suppose a millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help
+such a man. How should he be helped? Should he be given three
+hundred pounds a year direct, which was Margaret's plan? Most of
+them thought this would pauperise him. Should he and those like
+him be given free libraries? I said 'No!' He doesn't want more
+books to read, but to read books rightly. My suggestion was he
+should be given something every year towards a summer holiday,
+but then there is his wife, and they said she would have to go
+too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think? Imagine
+that you were a millionaire, and wanted to help the poor. What
+would you do?"
+
+Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard
+indicated, laughed exuberantly. "My dear Miss Schlegel, I will
+not rush in where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not
+add another plan to the numerous excellent ones that have been
+already suggested. My only contribution is this: let your young
+friend clear out of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company with
+all possible speed."
+
+"Why?" said Margaret.
+
+He lowered his voice. "This is between friends. It'll be in the
+Receiver's hands before Christmas. It'll smash," he added,
+thinking that she had not understood.
+
+"Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he'll have to get another
+place!"
+
+"WILL have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get
+one now."
+
+"Rather than wait, to make sure?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+"Why's that?"
+
+Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. "Naturally the
+man who's in a situation when he applies stands a better chance,
+is in a stronger position, that the man who isn't. It looks as if
+he's worth something. I know by myself--(this is letting you into
+the State secrets)--it affects an employer greatly. Human nature,
+I'm afraid."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," murmured Margaret, while Helen said,
+"Our human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ
+people because they're unemployed. The boot man, for instance."
+
+"And how does he clean the boots?"
+
+"Not well," confessed Margaret.
+
+"There you are!"
+
+"Then do you really advise us to tell this youth--?"
+
+"I advise nothing," he interrupted, glancing up and down the
+Embankment, in case his indiscretion had been overheard. "I
+oughtn't to have spoken--but I happen to know, being more or less
+behind the scenes. The Porphyrion's a bad, bad concern-- Now,
+don't say I said so. It's outside the Tariff Ring."
+
+"Certainly I won't say. In fact, I don't know what that means."
+
+"I thought an insurance company never smashed," was Helen's
+contribution. "Don't the others always run in and save them?"
+
+"You're thinking of reinsurance," said Mr. Wilcox mildly. "It is
+exactly there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to
+undercut, has been badly hit by a long series of small fires, and
+it hasn't been able to reinsure. I'm afraid that public
+companies don't save one another for love."
+
+"'Human nature,' I suppose," quoted Helen, and he laughed and
+agreed that it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that
+clerks, like every one else, found it extremely difficult to get
+situations in these days, he replied, "Yes, extremely," and rose
+to rejoin his friends. He knew by his own office--seldom a vacant
+post, and hundreds of applicants for it; at present no vacant
+post.
+
+"And how's Howards End looking?" said Margaret, wishing to change
+the subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to
+think one wanted to get something out of him.
+
+"It's let."
+
+"Really. And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea? How
+strange are the ways of Fate!"
+
+"No; it's let unfurnished. We've moved."
+
+"Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie
+never told me."
+
+"I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn't settled. We only
+moved a week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place,
+and we held on for him to have his holiday there; but, really, it
+is impossibly small. Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you've
+been up to it?"
+
+"As far as the house, never."
+
+"Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don't
+really do, spend what you will on them. We messed away with a
+garage all among the wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a
+bit of the meadow and attempted a rockery. Evie got rather keen
+on Alpine plants. But it didn't do--no, it didn't do. You
+remember, your sister will remember, the farm with those
+abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old woman never
+would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the bottom. And,
+inside the house, the beams--and the staircase through a door--
+picturesque enough, but not a place to live in." He glanced over
+the parapet cheerfully. "Full tide. And the position wasn't
+right either. The neighbourhood's getting suburban. Either be in
+London or out of it, I say; so we've taken a house in Ducie
+Street, close to Sloane Street, and a place right down in
+Shropshire--Oniton Grange. Ever heard of Oniton? Do come and see
+us--right away from everywhere, up towards Wales."
+
+"What a change!" said Margaret. But the change was in her own
+voice, which had become most sad. "I can't imagine Howards End or
+Hilton without you."
+
+"Hilton isn't without us," he replied. "Charles is there still."
+
+"Still?" said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles's.
+"But I thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that
+Christmas--one Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire
+Mrs. Charles from our windows very often. Wasn't it Epsom?"
+
+"Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap"
+--his voice dropped--"thought I should be lonely. I didn't want
+him to move, but he would, and took a house at the other end of
+Hilton, down by the Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they
+all are, a very jolly party--he and she and the two
+grandchildren."
+
+"I manage other people's affairs so much better than they manage
+them themselves," said Margaret as they shook hands. "When you
+moved out of Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox
+into it. I should have kept so remarkable a place in the family."
+
+"So it is," he replied. "I haven't sold it, and don't mean to."
+
+"No; but none of you are there,"
+
+"Oh, we've got a splendid tenant--Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If
+Charles ever wanted it--but he won't. Dolly is so dependent on
+modern conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End.
+We like it in a way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing
+nor the other. One must have one thing or the other."
+
+"And some people are lucky enough to have both. You're doing
+yourself proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations."
+
+"And mine," said Helen.
+
+"Do remind Evie to come and see us--2 Wickham Place. We shan't be
+there very long, either."
+
+"You, too, on the move?"
+
+"Next September," Margaret sighed.
+
+"Every one moving! Good-bye."
+
+The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and
+watched it sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her
+lover; she herself was probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is
+it worth while attempting the past when there is this continual
+flux even in the hearts of men?
+
+Helen roused her by saying: "What a prosperous vulgarian Mr.
+Wilcox has grown! I have very little use for him in these days.
+However, he did tell us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr.
+Bast as soon as ever we get home, and tell him to clear out of it
+at once."
+
+"Do; yes, that's worth doing. Let us."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Leonard accepted the invitation to tea next Saturday. But he was
+right; the visit proved a conspicuous failure.
+
+"Sugar?" said Margaret.
+
+"Cake?" said Helen. "The big cake or the little deadlies? I'm
+afraid you thought my letter rather odd, but we'll explain--we
+aren't odd, really--nor affected, really. We're over-expressive--
+that's all."
+
+As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian,
+still less a Frenchman, in whose blood there runs the very spirit
+of persiflage and of gracious repartee. His wit was the
+Cockney's; it opened no doors into imagination, and Helen was
+drawn up short by "The more a lady has to say, the better,"
+administered waggishly.
+
+"Oh yes," she said.
+
+"Ladies brighten--"
+
+"Yes, I know. The darlings are regular sunbeams. Let me give you
+a plate."
+
+"How do you like your work?" interposed Margaret.
+
+He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying
+into his work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he
+had at last penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing
+upon its walls, and so were the very tea-cups, with their
+delicate borders of wild strawberries. But he would not let
+romance interfere with his life. There is the devil to pay then.
+
+"Oh, well enough," he answered.
+
+"Your company is the Porphyrion, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, that's so."--becoming rather offended. "It's funny how
+things get round."
+
+"Why funny?" asked Helen, who did not follow the workings of his
+mind. "It was written as large as life on your card, and
+considering we wrote to you there, and that you replied on the
+stamped paper--"
+
+"Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance
+Companies?" pursued Margaret.
+
+"It depends on what you call big."
+
+"I mean by big, a solid, well-established concern, that offers a
+reasonably good career to its employes."
+
+"I couldn't say--some would tell you one thing and others
+another," said the employe uneasily. "For my own part"--he shook
+his head--" I only believe half I hear. Not that even; it's
+safer. Those clever ones come to the worse grief, I've often
+noticed. Ah, you can't be too careful."
+
+He drank, and wiped his moustache, which was going to be one of
+those moustaches that always droop into tea-cups--more bother
+than they're worth, surely, and not fashionable either.
+
+"I quite agree, and that's why I was curious to know; is it a
+solid, well-established concern?"
+
+Leonard had no idea. He understood his own corner of the machine,
+but nothing beyond it. He desired to confess neither knowledge
+nor ignorance, and under these circumstances, another motion of
+the head seemed safest. To him, as to the British public, the
+Porphyrion was the Porphyrion of the advertisement--a giant, in
+the classical style, but draped sufficiently, who held in one
+hand a burning torch, and pointed with the other to St. Paul's
+and Windsor Castle. A large sum of money was inscribed below, and
+you drew your own conclusions. This giant caused Leonard to do
+arithmetic and write letters, to explain the regulations to new
+clients, and re-explain them to old ones. A giant was of an
+impulsive morality--one knew that much. He would pay for Mrs.
+Munt's hearthrug with ostentatious haste, a large claim he would
+repudiate quietly, and fight court by court. But his true
+fighting weight, his antecedents, his amours with other members
+of the commercial Pantheon--all these were as uncertain to
+ordinary mortals as were the escapades of Zeus. While the gods
+are powerful, we learn little about them. It is only in the days
+of their decadence that a strong light beats into heaven.
+
+"We were told the Porphyrion's no go," blurted Helen. "We wanted
+to tell you; that's why we wrote."
+
+"A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured,"
+said Margaret.
+
+Now Leonard had his clue.
+
+He must praise the Porphyrion. "You can tell your friend," he
+said, "that he's quite wrong."
+
+"Oh, good!"
+
+The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was
+fatal. The Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were
+genuinely glad that they had been misinformed. To them nothing
+was fatal but evil.
+
+"Wrong, so to speak," he added.
+
+"How 'so to speak'?"
+
+"I mean I wouldn't say he's right altogether."
+
+But this was a blunder. "Then he is right partly," said the elder
+woman, quick as lightning.
+
+Leonard replied that every one was right partly, if it came to
+that.
+
+"Mr. Bast, I don't understand business, and I dare say my
+questions are stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern
+'right' or 'wrong'?"
+
+Leonard sat back with a sigh.
+
+"Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said
+before Christmas--"
+
+"And advised you to clear out of it," concluded Helen. "But I
+don't see why he should know better than you do. "
+
+Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew
+nothing about the thing at all. But a commercial training was too
+strong for him. Nor could he say it was a bad thing, for this
+would be giving it away; nor yet that it was good, for this would
+be giving it away equally. He attempted to suggest that it was
+something between the two, with vast possibilities in either
+direction, but broke down under the gaze of four sincere eyes.
+And yet he scarcely distinguished between the two sisters. One
+was more beautiful and more lively, but "the Miss Schlegels"
+still remained a composite Indian god, whose waving arms and
+contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.
+
+"One can but see," he remarked, adding, "as Ibsen says, 'things
+happen.'" He was itching to talk about books and make the most of
+his romantic hour. Minute after minute slipped away, while the
+ladies, with imperfect skill, discussed the subject of
+reinsurance or praised their anonymous friend. Leonard grew
+annoyed--perhaps rightly. He made vague remarks about not being
+one of those who minded their affairs being talked over by
+others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have shown more
+tact. Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed here.
+They cannot see why we should shroud our incomes and our
+prospects in a veil. "How much exactly have you, and how much do
+you expect to have next June?" And these were women with a
+theory, who held that reticence about money matters is absurd,
+and that life would be truer if each would state the exact size
+of the golden island upon which he stands, the exact stretch of
+warp over which he throws the woof that is not money. How can we
+do justice to the pattern otherwise?
+
+And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came
+nearer. At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in,
+reciting the names of books feverishly. There was a moment of
+piercing joy when Margaret said, "So YOU like Carlyle" and then
+the door opened, and "Mr. Wilcox, Miss Wilcox" entered, preceded
+by two prancing puppies.
+
+"Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!" screamed
+Helen, falling on her hands and knees.
+
+"We brought the little fellows round," said Mr. Wilcox.
+
+"I bred 'em myself."
+
+"Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies."
+
+"I've got to be going now," said Leonard sourly.
+
+"But play with puppies a little first."
+
+"This is Ahab, that's Jezebel," said Evie, who was one of those
+who name animals after the less successful characters of Old
+Testament history.
+
+"I've got to be going."
+
+Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.
+
+"Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba-- Must you be really?
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+"Come again," said Helen from the floor.
+
+Then Leonard's gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was
+the good of it? He said roundly: "No, I shan't; I knew it would
+be a failure."
+
+Most people would have let him go. "A little mistake. We tried
+knowing another class--impossible."
+
+But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted
+friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted,
+"I call that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me
+like that for?" and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed to a
+vulgar row.
+
+"You ask me why I turn on you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you want to have me here for?'
+
+"To help you, you silly boy!" cried Helen. "And don't shout."
+
+"I don't want your patronage. I don't want your tea. I was quite
+happy. What do you want to unsettle me for?" He turned to Mr.
+Wilcox. "I put it to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have
+my brain picked?"
+
+Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength
+that he could so well command. "Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel?
+Can we be of any use, or shall we go?"
+
+But Margaret ignored him.
+
+"I'm connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive
+what I take to be an invitation from these--ladies" (he drawled
+the word). "I come, and it's to have my brain picked. I ask you,
+is it fair?"
+
+"Highly unfair," said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who
+knew that her father was becoming dangerous.
+
+"There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There!
+Not content with"--pointing at Margaret--"you can't deny it." His
+voice rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky.
+"But as soon as I'm useful it's a very different thing. 'Oh yes,
+send for him. Cross-question him. Pick his brains.' Oh yes. Now,
+take me on the whole, I'm a quiet fellow: I'm law-abiding, I
+don't wish any unpleasantness; but I--I--"
+
+"You," said Margaret--"you--you--"
+
+Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.
+
+"You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star."
+
+More laughter.
+
+"You saw the sunrise."
+
+Laughter.
+
+"You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all--
+away past books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a
+real home."
+
+"I fail to see the connection," said Leonard, hot with stupid
+anger.
+
+"So do I." There was a pause. "You were that last Sunday--you are
+this to-day. Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We
+wanted to help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did
+not have you here out of charity--which bores us--but because we
+hoped there would be a connection between last Sunday and other
+days. What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and
+the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? They have
+never entered into mine, but into yours, we thought-- Haven't we
+all to struggle against life's daily greyness, against pettiness,
+against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion? I struggle by
+remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering some
+place--some beloved place or tree--we thought you one of these."
+
+"Of course, if there's been any misunderstanding," mumbled
+Leonard, "all I can do is to go. But I beg to state--" He paused.
+Ahab and Jezebel danced at his boots and made him look
+ridiculous. "You were picking my brain for official information--
+I can prove it--I--" He blew his nose and left them.
+
+"Can I help you now?" said Mr. Wilcox, turning to Margaret. "May
+I have one quiet word with him in the hall?"
+
+"Helen, go after him--do anything--anything--to make the noodle
+understand."
+
+Helen hesitated.
+
+"But really--"said their visitor. "Ought she to?"
+
+At once she went.
+
+He resumed. "I would have chimed in, but I felt that you could
+polish him off for yourselves--I didn't interfere. You were
+splendid, Miss Schlegel--absolutely splendid. You can take my
+word for it, but there are very few women who could have managed
+him."
+
+"Oh yes," said Margaret distractedly.
+
+"Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me,"
+cried Evie.
+
+"Yes, indeed," chuckled her father; "all that part about
+'mechanical cheerfulness'--oh, fine!"
+
+"I'm very sorry," said Margaret, collecting herself. "He's a nice
+creature really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been
+most unpleasant for you."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mind." Then he changed his mood. He asked if he
+might speak as an old friend, and, permission given, said:
+"Oughtn't you really to be more careful?"
+
+Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen.
+"Do you realise that it's all your fault?" she said. "You're
+responsible."
+
+"I?"
+
+"This is the young man whom we were to warn against the
+Porphyrion. We warn him, and--look!"
+
+Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. "I hardly consider that a fair
+deduction," he said.
+
+"Obviously unfair," said Margaret. "I was only thinking how
+tangled things are. It's our fault mostly--neither yours nor
+his."
+
+"Not his?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Miss Schlegel, you are too kind."
+
+"Yes, indeed," nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.
+
+"You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you.
+I know the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered
+the room I saw you had not been treating him properly. You must
+keep that type at a distance. Otherwise they forget themselves.
+Sad, but true. They aren't our sort, and one must face the fact."
+
+"Ye--es."
+
+"Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
+gentleman. "
+
+"I admit it willingly," said Margaret, who was pacing up and down
+the room. "A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to
+himself."
+
+Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.
+
+"What did he suspect you of?"
+
+"Of wanting to make money out of him."
+
+"Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?"
+
+"Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One
+touch of thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just
+the senseless fear that does make men intolerable brutes."
+
+"I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful,
+Miss Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such
+people in."
+
+She turned to him frankly. "Let me explain exactly why we like
+this man, and want to see him again."
+
+"That's your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you
+like him."
+
+"I do. Firstly, because he cares for physical adventure, just as
+you do. Yes, you go motoring and shooting; he would like to go
+camping out. Secondly, he cares for something special IN
+adventure. It is quickest to call that special something
+poetry--"
+
+"Oh, he's one of that writer sort."
+
+"No--oh no! I mean he may be, but it would be loathsome stuff.
+His brain is filled with the husks of books, culture--horrible;
+we want him to wash out his brain and go to the real thing. We
+want to show him how he may get upsides with life. As I said,
+either friends or the country, some"--she hesitated--"either some
+very dear person or some very dear place seems necessary to
+relieve life's daily grey, and to show that it is grey. If
+possible, one should have both."
+
+Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox. He let them run past.
+Others he caught and criticised with admirable lucidity.
+
+"Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This
+young bounder has a life of his own. What right have you to
+conclude it is an unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, 'grey'?"
+
+"Because--"
+
+"One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own
+joys and interests--wife, children, snug little home. That's
+where we practical fellows" he smiled--"are more tolerant than
+you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things
+are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain
+man may be trusted to look after his own affairs. I quite grant--
+I look at the faces of the clerks in my own office, and observe
+them to be dull, but I don't know what's going on beneath. So, by
+the way, with London. I have heard you rail against London, Miss
+Schlegel, and it seems a funny thing to say but I was very angry
+with you. What do you know about London? You only see
+civilisation from the outside. I don't say in your case, but in
+too many cases that attitude leads to morbidity, discontent, and
+Socialism."
+
+She admitted the strength of his position, though it undermined
+imagination. As he spoke, some outposts of poetry and perhaps of
+sympathy fell ruining, and she retreated to what she called her
+"second line"--to the special facts of the case.
+
+"His wife is an old bore," she said simply. "He never came home
+last Saturday night because he wanted to be alone, and she
+thought he was with us."
+
+"With YOU?"
+
+"Yes." Evie tittered. "He hasn't got the cosy home that you
+assumed. He needs outside interests."
+
+"Naughty young man!" cried the girl.
+
+"Naughty?" said Margaret, who hated naughtiness more than sin.
+"When you're married Miss Wilcox, won't you want outside
+interests?"
+
+"He has apparently got them," put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.
+
+"Yes, indeed, father. "
+
+"He was tramping in Surrey, if you mean that," said Margaret,
+pacing away rather crossly.
+
+"Oh, I dare say!"
+
+"Miss Wilcox, he was!"
+
+"M--m--m--m!" from Mr. Wilcox, who thought the episode amusing,
+if risque. With most ladies he would not have discussed it, but
+he was trading on Margaret's reputation as an emancipated woman.
+
+"He said so, and about such a thing he wouldn't lie."
+
+They both began to laugh.
+
+"That's where I differ from you. Men lie about their positions
+and prospects, but not about a thing of that sort."
+
+He shook his head. "Miss Schlegel, excuse me, but I know the
+type."
+
+"I said before--he isn't a type. He cares about adventures
+rightly. He 's certain that our smug existence isn't all.  He's
+vulgar and hysterical and bookish, but don't think that sums him
+up. There's  manhood in him as well. Yes, that's what I'm trying
+to say. He's a real man."
+
+As she spoke their eyes met, and it was as if Mr. Wilcox's
+defences fell. She saw back to the real man in him. Unwittingly
+she had touched his emotions.
+
+A woman and two men--they had formed the magic triangle of sex,
+and the male was thrilled to jealousy, in case the female was
+attracted by another male. Love, say the ascetics, reveals our
+shameful kinship with the beasts. Be it so: one can bear that;
+jealousy is the real shame. It is jealousy, not love, that
+connects us with the farmyard intolerably, and calls up visions
+of two angry cocks and a complacent hen. Margaret crushed
+complacency down because she was civilised. Mr. Wilcox,
+uncivilised, continued to feel anger long after he had rebuilt
+his defences, and was again presenting a bastion to the world.
+
+"Miss Schlegel, you're a pair of dear creatures, but you really
+MUST be careful in this uncharitable world. What does your
+brother say?"
+
+"I forget."
+
+"Surely he has some opinion?"
+
+"He laughs, if I remember correctly."
+
+"He's very clever, isn't he?" said Evie, who had met and
+detested Tibby at Oxford.
+
+"Yes, pretty well--but I wonder what Helen's doing."
+
+"She is very young to undertake this sort of thing," said Mr.
+Wilcox.
+
+Margaret went out to the landing. She heard no sound, and Mr.
+Bast's topper was missing from the hall.
+
+"Helen!" she called.
+
+"Yes!" replied a voice from the library.
+
+"You in there?"
+
+"Yes--he's gone some time."
+
+Margaret went to her. "Why, you're all alone," she said.
+
+"Yes--it's all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature--"
+
+"Come back to the Wilcoxes and tell me later--Mr. W much
+concerned, and slightly titillated."
+
+"0h, I've no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast!
+he wanted to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a
+muddle of a man, and yet so worth pulling through. I like him
+extraordinarily."
+
+"Well done," said Margaret, kissing her, "but come into the
+drawing-room now, and don't talk about him to the Wilcoxes. Make
+light of the whole thing."
+
+Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that reassured their
+visitor--this hen at all events was fancy-free.
+
+"He's gone with my blessing," she cried, "and now for puppies."
+
+As they drove away, Mr. Wilcox said to his daughter:
+
+"I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as
+clever as you make 'em, but unpractical--God bless me! One of
+these days they'll go too far. Girls like that oughtn't to live
+alone in London. Until they marry, they ought to have some one
+to look after them. We must look in more often--we're better than
+no one. You like them, don't you, Evie?"
+
+Evie replied: "Helen's right enough, but I can't stand the toothy
+one. And I shouldn't have called either of them girls."
+
+Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth
+under sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the
+Wilcoxes could do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present,
+puppies and her father were the only things she loved, but the
+net of matrimony was being prepared for her, and a few days later
+she was attracted to a Mr. Percy Cahill, an uncle of Mrs.
+Charles's, and he was attracted to her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+The Age of Property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor.
+When a move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and
+Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth
+they and all their belongings would be deposited in September
+next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books, that had rumbled down to
+them through the generations, must rumble forward again like a
+slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push, and
+send toppling into the sea. But there were all their father's
+books--they never read them, but they were their father's, and
+must be kept. There was the marble-topped chiffonier--their
+mother had set store by it, they could not remember why. Round
+every knob and cushion in the house gathered a sentiment that was
+at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a
+prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.
+
+It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came
+to think of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The
+feudal ownership of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern
+ownership of movables is reducing us again to a nomadic horde.
+We are reverting to the civilisation of luggage, and historians
+of the future will note how the middle classes accreted
+possessions without taking root in the earth, and may find in this
+the secret of their imaginative poverty. The Schlegels were
+certainly the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It had helped
+to balance their lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is their
+ground-landlord spiritually the richer. He has built flats on its
+site, his motor-cars grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism
+more trenchant. But he has spilt the precious distillation of the
+years, and no chemistry of his can give it back to society again.
+
+Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house
+before they left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She
+enjoyed this visit, and wanted to have her mind at ease for it.
+Swanage, though dull, was stable, and this year she longed more
+than usual for its fresh air and for the magnificent downs that
+guard it on the north. But London thwarted her; in its atmosphere
+she could not concentrate. London only stimulates, it cannot
+sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface for a house
+without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying for
+many a thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break
+loose from culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it
+would be a sin to miss, and invitations which it would never do
+to refuse. At last she grew desperate; she resolved that she
+would go nowhere and be at home to no one until she found a
+house, and broke the resolution in half an hour.
+
+Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to
+Simpson's restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss
+Wilcox, asking her to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming
+and the three would have such a jolly chat, and perhaps end up at
+the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong regard for Evie, and no
+desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised that Helen, who
+had been far funnier about Simpson's, had not been asked instead.
+But the invitation touched her by its intimate tone. She must
+know Evie Wilcox better than she supposed, and declaring that she
+"simply must," she accepted.
+
+But when she saw Evie at the entrance of the restaurant, staring
+fiercely at nothing after the fashion of athletic women, her
+heart failed her anew. Miss Wilcox had changed perceptibly since
+her engagement. Her voice was gruffer, her manner more downright,
+and she was inclined to patronise the more foolish virgin.
+Margaret was silly enough to be pained at this. Depressed at her
+isolation, she saw not only houses and furniture, but the vessel
+of life itself slipping past her, with people like Evie and Mr.
+Cahill on board.
+
+There are moments when virtue and wisdom fail us, and one of them
+came to her at Simpson's in the Strand. As she trod the
+staircase, narrow, but carpeted thickly, as she entered the
+eating-room, where saddles of mutton were being trundled up to
+expectant clergymen, she had a strong, if erroneous, coviction of
+her own futility, and wished she had never come out of her
+backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature, and
+where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged.
+Then came a little surprise. "Father might be of the party--yes,
+father was." With a smile of pleasure she moved forward to greet
+him, and her feeling of loneliness vanished.
+
+"I thought I'd get round if I could," said he. "Evie told me of
+her little plan, so I just slipped in and secured a table. Always
+secure a table first. Evie, don't pretend you want to sit by your
+old father, because you don't. Miss Schlegel, come in my side,
+out of pity. My goodness, but you look tired! Been worrying round
+after your young clerks?"
+
+"No, after houses," said Margaret, edging past him into the box.
+"I'm hungry, not tired; I want to eat heaps."
+
+"That's good. What'll you have?"
+
+"Fish pie," said she, with a glance at the menu.
+
+"Fish pie! Fancy coming for fish pie to Simpson's. It's not a bit
+the thing to go for here."
+
+"Go for something for me, then," said Margaret, pulling off her
+gloves. Her spirits were rising, and his reference to Leonard
+Bast had warmed her curiously.
+
+"Saddle of mutton," said he after profound reflection; "and
+cider to drink. That's the type of thing. I like this place, for
+a joke, once in a way. It is so thoroughly Old English. Don't you
+agree?"
+
+"Yes," said Margaret, who didn't. The order was given, the joint
+rolled up, and the carver, under Mr. Wilcox's direction, cut the
+meat where it was succulent, and piled their plates high. Mr.
+Cahill insisted on sirloin, but admitted that he had made a
+mistake later on. He and Evie soon fell into a conversation of
+the "No, I didn't; yes, you did" type--conversation which, though
+fascinating to those who are engaged in it, neither desires nor
+deserves the attention of others.
+
+"It's a golden rule to tip the carver. Tip everywhere's my
+motto."
+
+"Perhaps it does make life more human."
+
+"Then the fellows know one again. Especially in the East, if you
+tip, they remember you from year's end to year's end."
+
+"Have you been in the East?"
+
+"Oh, Greece and the Levant. I used to go out for sport and
+business to Cyprus; some military society of a sort there. A few
+piastres, properly distributed, help to keep one's memory green.
+But you, of course, think this shockingly cynical. How's your
+discussion society getting on? Any new Utopias lately?"
+
+"No, I'm house-hunting, Mr. Wilcox, as I've already told you
+once. Do you know of any houses?"
+
+"Afraid I don't."
+
+"Well, what's the point of being practical if you can't find two
+distressed females a house? We merely want a small house with
+large rooms, and plenty of them."
+
+"Evie, I like that! Miss Schlegel expects me to turn house-agent
+for her!"
+
+"What's that, father?"
+
+"I want a new home in September, and some one must find it. I
+can't."
+
+"Percy, do you know of anything?"
+
+"I can't say I do," said Mr. Cahill.
+
+"How like you! You're never any good."
+
+"Never any good. Just listen to her! Never any good. Oh, come!"
+
+"Well, you aren't. Miss Schlegel, is he?"
+
+The torrent of their love, having splashed these drops at
+Margaret, swept away on its habitual course. She sympathised with
+it now, for a little comfort had restored her geniality. Speech
+and silence pleased her equally, and while Mr. Wilcox made some
+preliminary inquiries about cheese, her eyes surveyed the
+restaurant, and aired its well-calculated tributes to the
+solidity of our past. Though no more Old English than the works
+of Kipling, it had selected its reminiscences so adroitly that
+her criticism was lulled, and the guests whom it was nourishing
+for imperial purposes bore the outer semblance of Parson Adams or
+Tom Jones. Scraps of their talk jarred oddly on the ear. "Right
+you are! I'll cable out to Uganda this evening," came from the
+table behind. "Their Emperor wants war; well, let him have it,"
+was the opinion of a clergyman. She smiled at such incongruities.
+"Next time," she said to Mr. Wilcox, "you shall come to lunch
+with me at Mr. Eustace Miles's."
+
+"With pleasure."
+
+"No, you'd hate it," she said, pushing her glass towards him for
+some more cider. "It's all proteids and body buildings, and
+people come up to you and beg your pardon, but you have such a
+beautiful aura."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"Never heard of an aura? Oh, happy, happy man! I scrub at mine
+for hours. Nor of an astral plane?"
+
+He had heard of astral planes, and censured them.
+
+"Just so. Luckily it was Helen's aura, not mine, and she had to
+chaperone it and do the politenesses. I just sat with my
+handkerchief in my mouth till the man went."
+
+"Funny experiences seem to come to you two girls. No one's ever
+asked me about my--what d'ye call it? Perhaps I've not got one."
+
+"You're bound to have one, but it may be such a terrible colour
+that no one dares mention it."
+
+"Tell me, though, Miss Schlegel, do you really believe in the
+supernatural and all that?"
+
+"Too difficult a question."
+
+"Why's that? Gruyere or Stilton?"
+
+"Gruyere, please."
+
+"Better have Stilton.
+
+"Stilton. Because, though I don't believe in auras, and think
+Theosophy's only a halfway-house--"
+
+"--Yet there may be something in it all the same," he concluded,
+with a frown.
+
+"Not even that. It may be halfway in the wrong direction. I can't
+explain. I don't believe in all these fads, and yet I don't like
+saying that I don't believe in them."
+
+He seemed unsatisfied, and said: "So you wouldn't give me your
+word that you DON'T hold with astral bodies and all the rest of
+it?"
+
+"I could," said Margaret, surprised that the point was of any
+importance to him. "Indeed, I will. When I talked about scrubbing
+my aura, I was only trying to be funny. But why do you want this
+settled?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Now, Mr. Wilcox, you do know."
+
+"Yes, I am," "No, you're not," burst from the lovers opposite.
+Margaret was silent for a moment, and then changed the subject.
+
+"How's your house?"
+
+"Much the same as when you honoured it last week."
+
+"I don't mean Ducie Street. Howards End, of course."
+
+"Why 'of course'?"
+
+"Can't you turn out your tenant and let it to us? We're nearly
+demented. "
+
+"Let me think. I wish I could help you. But I thought you wanted
+to be in town. One bit of advice: fix your district, then fix
+your price, and then don't budge. That's how I got both Ducie
+Street and Oniton. I said to myself, 'I mean to be exactly here,'
+and I was, and Oniton's a place in a thousand."
+
+"But I do budge. Gentlemen seem to mesmerise houses--cow them
+with an eye, and up they come, trembling. Ladies can't. It's the
+houses that are mesmerising me. I've no control over the saucy
+things. Houses are alive. No?"
+
+"I'm out of my depth," he said, and added: "Didn't you talk
+rather like that to your office boy?"
+
+"Did I?--I mean I did, more or less. I talk the same way to every
+one--or try to."
+
+"Yes, I know. And how much of it do you suppose he understood?"
+
+"That's his lookout. I don't believe in suiting my conversation
+to my company. One can doubtless hit upon some medium of exchange
+that seems to do well enough, but it's no more like the real
+thing than money is like food. There's no nourishment in it. You
+pass it to the lower classes, and they pass it back to you, and
+this you call 'social intercourse' or 'mutual endeavour,' when
+it's mutual priggishness if it's anything. Our friends at Chelsea
+don't see this. They say one ought to be at all costs
+intelligible, and sacrifice--"
+
+"Lower classes," interrupted Mr. Wilcox, as it were thrusting his
+hand into her speech. "Well, you do admit that there are rich
+and poor. That's something."
+
+Margaret could not reply. Was he incredibly stupid, or did he
+understand her better than she understood herself?
+
+"You do admit that, if wealth was divided up equally, in a few
+years there would be rich and poor again just the same. The
+hard-working man would come to the top, the wastrel sink to the
+bottom."
+
+"Every one admits that."
+
+"Your Socialists don't."
+
+"My Socialists do. Yours mayn't; but I strongly suspect yours of
+being not Socialists, but ninepins, which you have constructed
+for your own amusement. I can't imagine any living creature who
+would bowl over quite so easily."
+
+He would have resented this had she not been a woman. But women
+may say anything--it was one of his holiest beliefs--and he only
+retorted, with a gay smile: "I don't care. You've made two
+damaging admissions, and I'm heartily with you in both."
+
+In time they finished lunch, and Margaret, who had excused
+herself from the Hippodrome, took her leave. Evie had scarcely
+addressed her, and she suspected that the entertainment had been
+planned by the father. He and she were advancing out of their
+respective families towards a more intimate acquaintance. It had
+begun long ago. She had been his wife's friend and, as such, he
+had given her that silver vinaigrette as a memento. It was pretty
+of him to have given that vinaigrette, and he had always
+preferred her to Helen--unlike most men. But the advance had been
+astonishing lately. They had done more in a week than in two
+years, and were really beginning to know each other.
+
+She did not forget his promise to sample Eustace Miles, and asked
+him as soon as she could secure Tibby as his chaperon. He came,
+and partook of body-building dishes with humility.
+
+Next morning the Schlegels left for Swanage. They had not
+succeeded in finding a new home.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+As they were seated at Aunt Juley's breakfast-table at The Bays,
+parrying her excessive hospitality and enjoying the view of the
+bay, a letter came for Margaret and threw her into perturbation.
+It was from Mr. Wilcox. It announced an "important change" in his
+plans. Owing to Evie's marriage, he had decided to give up his
+house in Ducie Street, and was willing to let it on a yearly
+tenancy. It was a businesslike letter, and stated frankly what he
+would do for them and what he would not do. Also the rent. If
+they approved, Margaret was to come up AT ONCE--the words were
+underlined, as is necessary when dealing with women--and to go
+over the house with him. If they disapproved, a wire would
+oblige, as he should put it into the hands of an agent.
+
+The letter perturbed, because she was not sure what it meant. If
+he liked her, if he had manoeuvred to get her to Simpson's, might
+this be a manoeuvre to get her to London, and result in an offer
+of marriage? She put it to herself as indelicately as possible,
+in the hope that her brain would cry, "Rubbish, you're a
+self-conscious fool!" But her brain only tingled a little and was
+silent, and for a time she sat gazing at the mincing waves, and
+wondering whether the news would seem strange to the others.
+
+As soon as she began speaking, the sound of her own voice
+reassured her. There could be nothing in it. The replies also
+were typical, and in the burr of conversation her fears vanished.
+
+"You needn't go though--"began her hostess.
+
+"I needn't, but hadn't I better? It's really getting rather
+serious. We let chance after chance slip, and the end of it is we
+shall be bundled out bag and baggage into the street. We don't
+know what we WANT, that's the mischief with us--"
+
+"No, we have no real ties," said Helen, helping herself to toast.
+
+"Shan't I go up to town to-day, take the house if it's the least
+possible, and then come down by the afternoon train to-morrow,
+and start enjoying myself. I shall be no fun to myself or to
+others until this business is off my mind.
+
+"But you won't do anything rash, Margaret?"
+
+"There's nothing rash to do."
+
+"Who ARE the Wilcoxes?" said Tibby, a question that sounds silly,
+but was really extremely subtle as his aunt found to her cost
+when she tried to answer it. "I don't MANAGE the Wilcoxes; I
+don't see where they come IN."
+
+"No more do I," agreed Helen. "It's funny that we just don't lose
+sight of them. Out of all our hotel acquaintances, Mr. Wilcox is
+the only one who has stuck. It is now over three years, and we
+have drifted away from far more interesting people in that time."
+
+"Interesting people don't get one houses."
+
+"Meg, if you start in your honest-English vein, I shall throw the
+treacle at you."
+
+"It's a better vein than the cosmopolitan," said Margaret,
+getting up. "Now, children, which is it to be? You know the Ducie
+Street house. Shall I say yes or shall I say no? Tibby love--
+which? I'm specially anxious to pin you both."
+
+"It all depends on what meaning you attach to the word
+'possible'"
+
+"It depends on nothing of the sort. Say 'yes.'"
+
+"Say 'no.'"
+
+Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. "I think," she said, "that
+our race is degenerating. We cannot settle even this little
+thing; what will it be like when we have to settle a big one?"
+
+"It will be as easy as eating," returned Helen.
+
+"I was thinking of father. How could he settle to leave Germany
+as he did, when he had fought for it as a young man, and all his
+feelings and friends were Prussian? How could he break loose with
+Patriotism and begin aiming at something else? It would have
+killed me. When he was nearly forty he could change countries and
+ideals--and we, at our age, can't change houses. It's
+humiliating."
+
+"Your father may have been able to change countries," said Mrs.
+Munt with asperity, "and that may or may not be a good thing. But
+he could change houses no better than you can, in fact, much
+worse. Never shall I forget what poor Emily suffered in the move
+from Manchester."
+
+"I knew it," cried Helen. "I told you so. It is the little things
+one bungles at. The big, real ones are nothing when they come."
+
+"Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect--in fact, you
+weren't there. But the furniture was actually in the vans and on
+the move before the lease for Wickham Place was signed, and Emily
+took train with baby--who was Margaret then--and the smaller
+luggage for London, without so much as knowing where her new home
+would be. Getting away from that house may be hard, but it is
+nothing to the misery that we all went through getting you into
+it."
+
+Helen, with her mouth full, cried:
+
+"And that's the man who beat the Austrians, and the Danes, and
+the French, and who beat the Germans that were inside himself.
+And we're like him."
+
+"Speak for yourself," said Tibby. "Remember that I am
+cosmopolitan, please."
+
+"Helen may be right."
+
+"Of course she's right," said Helen.
+
+Helen might be right, but she did not go up to London. Margaret
+did that. An interrupted holiday is the worst of the minor
+worries, and one may be pardoned for feeling morbid when a
+business letter snatches one away from the sea and friends. She
+could not believe that her father had ever felt the same. Her
+eyes had been troubling her lately, so that she could not read in
+the train and it bored her to look at the landscape, which she
+had seen but yesterday. At Southampton she "waved" to Frieda;
+Frieda was on her way down to join them at Swanage, and Mrs. Munt
+had calculated that their trains would cross. But Frieda was
+looking the other way, and Margaret travelled on to town feeling
+solitary and old-maidish. How like an old maid to fancy that Mr.
+Wilcox was courting her! She had once visited a spinster--poor,
+silly, and unattractive--whose mania it was that every man who
+approached her fell in love. How Margaret's heart had bled for
+the deluded thing! How she had lectured, reasoned, and in despair
+acquiesced! "I may have been deceived by the curate, my dear, but
+the young fellow who brings the midday post really is fond of me,
+and has, as a matter of fact--" It had always seemed to her the
+most hideous corner of old age, yet she might be driven into it
+herself by the mere pressure of virginity.
+
+Mr. Wilcox met her at Waterloo himself. She felt certain that he
+was not the same as usual; for one thing, he took offence at
+everything she said.
+
+"This is awfully kind of you," she began, "but I'm afraid it's
+not going to do. The house has not been built that suits the
+Schlegel family."
+
+"What! Have you come up determined not to deal?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Not exactly? In that case let's be starting."
+
+She lingered to admire the motor, which was new, and a fairer
+creature than the vermilion giant that had borne Aunt Juley to
+her doom three years before.
+
+"Presumably it's very beautiful," she said. "How do you like it,
+Crane?"
+
+"Come, let's be starting," repeated her host. "How on earth did
+you know that my chauffeur was called Crane?"
+
+"Why, I know Crane; I've been for a drive with Evie once. I know
+that you've got a parlourmaid called Milton. I know all sorts of
+things."
+
+"Evie!" he echoed in injured tones. "You won't see her. She's
+gone out with Cahill. It's no fun, I can tell you, being left so
+much alone. I've got my work all day--indeed, a great deal too
+much of it--but when I come home in the evening, I tell you, I
+can't stand the house."
+
+"In my absurd way, I'm lonely too," Margaret replied. "It's
+heart-breaking to leave one's old home. I scarcely remember
+anything before Wickham Place, and Helen and Tibby were born
+there. Helen says--"
+
+"You, too, feel lonely?"
+
+"Horribly. Hullo, Parliament's back!"
+
+Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously. The more
+important ropes of life lay elsewhere. "Yes, they are talking
+again," said he. "But you were going to say--"
+
+"Only some rubbish about furniture. Helen says it alone endures
+while men and houses perish, and that in the end the world will
+be a desert of chairs and sofas--just imagine it!--rolling through
+infinity with no one to sit upon them."
+
+"Your sister always likes her little joke."
+
+"She says 'Yes,' my brother says `No,' to Ducie Street. It's no
+fun helping us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you."
+
+"You are not as unpractical as you pretend. I shall never believe
+it."
+
+Margaret laughed. But she was--quite as unpractical. She could
+not concentrate on details. Parliament, the Thames, the
+irresponsive chauffeur, would flash into the field of
+house-hunting, and all demand some comment or response. It is
+impossible to see modern life steadily and see it whole, and she
+had chosen to see it whole. Mr. Wilcox saw steadily. He never
+bothered over the mysterious or the private. The Thames might run
+inland from the sea, the chauffeur might conceal all passion and
+philosophy beneath his unhealthy skin. They knew their own
+business, and he knew his.
+
+Yet she liked being with him. He was not a rebuke, but a
+stimulus, and banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior,
+he preserved a gift that she supposed herself to have already
+lost--not youth's creative power, but its self-confidence and
+optimism. He was so sure that it was a very pleasant world. His
+complexion was robust, his hair had receded but not thinned, the
+thick moustache and the eyes that Helen had compared to
+brandy-balls had an agreeable menace in them, whether they were
+turned towards the slums or towards the stars. Some day--in the
+millennium--there may be no need for his type. At present, homage
+is due to it from those who think themselves superior, and who
+possibly are.
+
+"At all events you responded to my telegram promptly," he
+remarked.
+
+"Oh, even I know a good thing when I see it."
+
+"I'm glad you don't despise the goods of this world."
+
+"Heavens, no! Only idiots and prigs do that."
+
+"I am glad, very glad," he repeated, suddenly softening and
+turning to her, as if the remark had pleased him. "There is so
+much cant talked in would-be intellectual circles. I am glad you
+don't share it. Self-denial is all very well as a means of
+strengthening the character. But I can't stand those people who
+run down comforts. They have usually some axe to grind. Can you?"
+
+"Comforts are of two kinds," said Margaret, who was keeping
+herself in hand--"those we can share with others, like fire,
+weather, or music; and those we can't--food, food, for instance.
+It depends."
+
+"I mean reasonable comforts, of course. I shouldn't like to think
+that you--" He bent nearer; the sentence died unfinished.
+Margaret's head turned very stupid, and the inside of it seemed
+to revolve like the beacon in a lighthouse. He did not kiss her,
+for the hour was half-past twelve, and the car was passing by the
+stables of Buckingham Palace. But the atmosphere was so charged
+with emotion that people only seemed to exist on her account, and
+she was surprised that Crane did not realise this, and turn
+round. Idiot though she might be, surely Mr. Wilcox was more--how
+should one put it?--more psychological than usual. Always a good
+judge of character for business purposes, he seemed this
+afternoon to enlarge his field, and to note qualities outside
+neatness, obedience, and decision.
+
+"I want to go over the whole house," she announced when they
+arrived. "As soon as I get back to Swanage, which will be
+to-morrow afternoon, I'll talk it over once more with Helen and
+Tibby, and wire you 'yes' or 'no.'"
+
+"Right. The dining-room." And they began their survey.
+
+The dining-room was big, but over-furnished. Chelsea would have
+moaned aloud. Mr. Wilcox had eschewed those decorative schemes
+that wince, and relent, and refrain, and achieve beauty by
+sacrificing comfort and pluck. After so much self-colour and
+self-denial, Margaret viewed with relief the sumptuous dado, the
+frieze, the gilded wall-paper, amid whose foliage parrots sang.
+It would never do with her own furniture, but those heavy chairs,
+that immense sideboard loaded with presentation plate, stood up
+against its pressure like men. The room suggested men, and
+Margaret, keen to derive the modern capitalist from the warriors
+and hunters of the past, saw it as an ancient guest-hall, where
+the lord sat at meat among his thanes. Even the Bible--the Dutch
+Bible that Charles had brought back from the Boer War--fell into
+position. Such a room admitted loot.
+
+"Now the entrance-hall."
+
+The entrance-hall was paved.
+
+"Here we fellows smoke."
+
+We fellows smoked in chairs of maroon leather. It was as if a
+motor-car had spawned. "Oh, jolly!" said Margaret, sinking into
+one of them.
+
+"You do like it?" he said, fixing his eyes on her upturned face,
+and surely betraying an almost intimate note. "It's all rubbish
+not making oneself comfortable. Isn't it?"
+
+"Ye--es. Semi-rubbish. Are those Cruikshanks?"
+
+"Gillrays. Shall we go on upstairs?"
+
+"Does all this furniture come from Howards End?"
+
+"The Howards End furniture has all gone to Oniton."
+
+"Does-- However, I'm concerned with the house, not the furniture.
+How big is this smoking-room?"
+
+"Thirty by fifteen. No, wait a minute. Fifteen and a half."
+
+"Ah, well. Mr. Wilcox, aren't you ever amused at the solemnity
+with which we middle classes approach the subject of houses?"
+
+They proceeded to the drawing-room. Chelsea managed better here.
+It was sallow and ineffective. One could visualise the ladies
+withdrawing to it, while their lords discussed life's realities
+below, to the accompaniment of cigars. Had Mrs. Wilcox's
+drawing-room at Howards End looked thus? Just as this thought
+entered Margaret's brain, Mr. Wilcox did ask her to be his wife,
+and the knowledge that she had been right so overcame her that
+she nearly fainted.
+
+But the proposal was not to rank among the world's great love
+scenes.
+
+"Miss Schlegel"--his voice was firm--"I have had you up on false
+pretences. I want to speak about a much more serious matter than
+a house."
+
+Margaret almost answered: "I know--"
+
+"Could you be induced to share my--is it probable--"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Wilcox!" she interrupted, taking hold of the piano and
+averting her eyes. "I see, I see. I will write to you afterwards
+if I may."
+
+He began to stammer. "Miss Schlegel--Margaret you don't
+understand."
+
+"Oh yes! Indeed, yes!" said Margaret.
+
+"I am asking you to be my wife."
+
+So deep already was her sympathy, that when he said, "I am asking
+you to be my wife," she made herself give a little start. She
+must show surprise if he expected it. An immense joy came over
+her. It was indescribable. It had nothing to do with humanity,
+and most resembled the all-pervading happiness of fine weather.
+Fine weather is due to the sun, but Margaret could think of no
+central radiance here. She stood in his drawing-room happy, and
+longing to give happiness. On leaving him she realised that the
+central radiance had been love.
+
+"You aren't offended, Miss Schlegel?"
+
+"How could I be offended?"
+
+There was a moment's pause. He was anxious to get rid of her, and
+she knew it. She had too much intuition to look at him as he
+struggled for possessions that money cannot buy. He desired
+comradeship and affection, but he feared them, and she, who had
+taught herself only to desire, and could have clothed the
+struggle with beauty, held back, and hesitated with him.
+
+"Good-bye," she continued. "You will have a letter from me--I am
+going back to Swanage to-morrow."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"Good-bye, and it's you I thank."
+
+"I may order the motor round, mayn't I?"
+
+"That would be most kind."
+
+"I wish I had written. Ought I to have written?"
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"There's just one question--"
+
+She shook her head. He looked a little bewildered as they parted.
+
+They parted without shaking hands; she had kept the interview,
+for his sake, in tints of the quietest grey. she thrilled with
+happiness ere she reached her house. Others had loved her in the
+past, if one apply to their brief desires so grave a word, but
+the others had been "ninnies"--young men who had nothing to do,
+old men who could find nobody better. And she had often 'loved,'
+too, but only so far as the facts of sex demanded: mere yearnings
+for the masculine sex to be dismissed for what they were worth,
+with a sigh. Never before had her personality been touched. She
+was not young or very rich, and it amazed her that a man of any
+standing should take her seriously as she sat, trying to do
+accounts in her empty house, amidst beautiful pictures and noble
+books, waves of emotion broke, as if a tide of passion was
+flowing through the night air. She shook her head, tried to
+concentrate her attention, and failed. In vain did she repeat:
+"But I've been through this sort of thing before." She had
+never been through it; the big machinery, as opposed to the
+little, had been set in motion, and the idea that Mr. Wilcox
+loved, obsessed her before she came to love him in return.
+
+She would come to no decision yet. "oh, sir, this is so sudden"--
+that prudish phrase exactly expressed her when her time came.
+Premonitions are not preparation. She must examine more closely
+her own nature and his; she must talk it over judicially with
+Helen. It had been a strange love-scene--the central radiance
+unacknowledged from first to last. She, in his place, would have
+said Ich liebe dich, but perhaps it was not his habit to open the
+heart. He might have done it if she had pressed him--as a matter
+of duty, perhaps; England expects every man to open his heart
+once; but the effort would have jarred him, and never, if she
+could avoid it, should he lose those defences that he had chosen
+to raise against the world. He must never be bothered with
+emotional talk, or with a display of sympathy. He was an elderly
+man now, and it would be futile and impudent to correct him.
+
+Mrs. Wilcox strayed in and out, ever a welcome ghost; surveying
+the scene, thought Margaret, without one hint of bitterness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+If one wanted to show a foreigner England, perhaps the wisest
+course would be to take him to the final section of the Purbeck
+Hills, and stand him on their summit, a few miles to the east of
+Corfe. Then system after system of our island would roll together
+under his feet. Beneath him is the valley of the Frome, and all
+the wild lands that come tossing down from Dorchester, black and
+gold, to mirror their gorse in the expanses of Poole. The valley
+of the Stour is beyond, unaccountable stream, dirty at Blandford,
+pure at Wimborne--the Stour, sliding out of fat fields, to marry
+the Avon beneath the tower of Christ church. The valley of the
+Avon--invisible, but far to the north the trained eye may see
+Clearbury Ring that guards it, and the imagination may leap
+beyond that on to Salisbury Plain itself, and beyond the Plain to
+all the glorious downs of Central England. Nor is Suburbia
+absent. Bournemouth's ignoble coast cowers to the right,
+heralding the pine-trees that mean, for all their beauty, red
+houses, and the Stock Exchange, and extend to the gates of London
+itself. So tremendous is the City's trail! But the cliffs of
+Freshwater it shall never touch, and the island will guard the
+Island's purity till the end of time. Seen from the west the
+Wight is beautiful beyond all laws of beauty. It is as if a
+fragment of England floated forward to greet the foreigner--chalk
+of our chalk, turf of our turf, epitome of what will follow. And
+behind the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the nations, and
+Portsmouth, a latent fire, and all around it, with double and
+treble collision of tides, swirls the sea. How many villages
+appear in this view! How many castles! How many churches,
+vanished or triumphant! How many ships, railways, and roads! What
+incredible variety of men working beneath that lucent sky to what
+final end! The reason fails, like a wave on the Swanage beach;
+the imagination swells, spreads, and deepens, until it becomes
+geographic and encircles England.
+
+So Frieda Mosebach, now Frau Architect Liesecke, and mother to
+her husband's baby, was brought up to these heights to be
+impressed, and, after a prolonged gaze, she said that the hills
+were more swelling here than in Pomerania, which was true, but
+did not seem to Mrs. Munt apposite. Poole Harbour was dry, which
+led her to praise the absence of muddy foreshore at Friedrich
+Wilhelms Bad, Rugen, where beech-trees hang over the tideless
+Baltic, and cows may contemplate the brine. Rather unhealthy Mrs.
+Munt thought this would be, water being safer when it moved
+about.
+
+"And your English lakes--Vindermere, Grasmere they, then,
+unhealthy?"
+
+"No, Frau Liesecke; but that is because they are fresh water, and
+different. Salt water ought to have tides, and go up and down a
+great deal, or else it smells. Look, for instance, at an
+aquarium."
+
+"An aquarium! Oh, MEESIS Munt, you mean to tell me that fresh
+aquariums stink less than salt? Why, then Victor, my
+brother-in-law, collected many tadpoles--" "You are not to say
+'stink,'" interrupted Helen; "at least, you may say it, but you
+must pretend you are being funny while you say it."
+
+"Then 'smell.' And the mud of your Pool down there--does it not
+smell, or may I say 'stink,' ha, ha?"
+
+"There always has been mud in Poole Harbour," said Mrs. Munt,
+with a slight frown. "The rivers bring it down, and a most
+valuable oyster-fishery depends upon it."
+
+"Yes, that is so," conceded Frieda; and another international
+incident was closed.
+
+"'Bournemouth is,'" resumed their hostess, quoting a local rhyme
+to which she was much attached--"'Bournemouth is, Poole was, and
+Swanage is to be the hmst important town of all and biggest of
+the three.' Now, Frau Liesecke, I have shown you Bournemouth, and
+I have shown you Poole, so let us walk backward a little, and
+look down again at Swanage."
+
+"Aunt Juley, wouldn't that be Meg's train?"
+
+A tiny puff of smoke had been circling the harbour, and now was
+bearing southwards towards them over the  black and the gold.
+
+"Oh, dearest Margaret, I do hope she won't be overtired."
+
+"Oh, I do wonder--I do wonder whether she's taken the house."
+
+"I hope she hasn't been hasty."
+
+"So do I--oh, SO do I."
+
+"Will it be as beautiful as Wickham Place?" Frieda asked.
+
+"I should think it would. Trust Mr. Wilcox for doing himself
+proud. All those Ducie Street houses are beautiful in their
+modern way, and I can't think why he doesn't keep on with it. But
+it's really for Evie that he went there, and now that Evie's
+going to be married--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"You've never seen Miss Wilcox, Frieda. How absurdly matrimonial
+you are!"
+
+"But sister to that Paul?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And to that Charles," said Mrs. Munt with feeling. "Oh, Helen,
+Helen, what a time that was!"
+
+Helen laughed. "Meg and I haven't got such tender hearts. If
+there's a chance of a cheap house, we go for it."
+
+"Now look, Frau Liesecke, at my niece's train. You see, it is
+coming towards us--coming, coming; and, when it gets to Corfe, it
+will actually go THROUGH the downs, on which we are standing, so
+that, if we walk over, as I suggested, and look down on Swanage,
+we shall see it coming on the other side. Shall we?"
+
+Frieda assented, and in a few minutes they had crossed the ridge
+and exchanged the greater view for the lesser. Rather a dull
+valley lay below, backed by the slope of the coastward downs.
+They were looking across the Isle of Purbeck and on to Swanage,
+soon to be the most important town of all, and ugliest of the
+three. Margaret's train reappeared as promised, and was greeted
+with approval by her aunt. It came to a standstill in the middle
+distance, and there it had been planned that Tibby should meet
+her, and drive her, and a tea-basket, up to join them.
+
+"You see," continued Helen to her cousin, "the Wilcoxes collect
+houses as your Victor collects tadpoles. They have, one, Ducie
+Street; two, Howards End, where my great rumpus was; three, a
+country seat in Shropshire; four, Charles has a house in Hilton;
+and five, another near Epsom; and six, Evie will have a house
+when she marries, and probably a pied-a-terre in the country--
+which makes seven. Oh yes, and Paul a hut in Africa makes eight.
+I wish we could get Howards End. That was something like a dear
+little house! Didn't you think so, Aunt Juley?"
+
+"I had too much to do, dear, to look at it," said Mrs. Munt, with
+a gracious dignity. "I had everything to settle and explain, and
+Charles Wilcox to keep in his place besides. It isn't likely I
+should remember much. I just remember having lunch in your
+bedroom."
+
+"Yes, so do I. But, oh dear, dear, how dreadful it all seems! And
+in the autumn there began that anti-Pauline movement--you, and
+Frieda, and Meg, and Mrs. Wilcox, all obsessed with the idea that
+I might yet marry Paul."
+
+"You yet may," said Frieda despondently.
+
+Helen shook her head. "The Great Wilcox Peril will never return.
+If I'm certain of anything it's of that."
+
+"One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions."
+
+The remark fell damply on the conversation. But Helen slipped her
+arm round her cousin, somehow liking her the better for making
+it. It was not an original remark, nor had Frieda appropriated it
+passionately, for she had a patriotic rather than a philosophic
+mind. Yet it betrayed that interest in the universal which the
+average Teuton possesses and the average Englishman does not. It
+was, however illogically, the good, the beautiful, the true, as
+opposed to the respectable, the pretty, the adequate. It was a
+landscape of Bocklin's beside a landscape of Leader's, strident
+and ill-considered, but quivering into supernatural life. It
+sharpened idealism, stirred the soul. It may have been a bad
+preparation for what followed.
+
+"Look!" cried Aunt Juley, hurrying away from generalities over
+the narrow summit of the down. "Stand where I stand, and you will
+see the pony-cart coming. I see the pony-cart coming."
+
+They stood and saw the pony-cart coming. Margaret and Tibby were
+presently seen coming in it. Leaving the outskirts of Swanage, it
+drove for a little through the budding lanes, and then began the
+ascent.
+
+"Have you got the house?" they shouted, long before she could
+possibly hear.
+
+Helen ran down to meet her. The highroad passed over a saddle,
+and a track went thence at right angles alone the ridge of the
+down.
+
+"Have you got the house?"
+
+Margaret shook her head.
+
+"Oh, what a nuisance! So we're as we were?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+She got out, looking tired.
+
+"Some mystery," said Tibby. "We are to be enlightened presently."
+
+Margaret came close up to her and whispered that she had had a
+proposal of marriage from Mr. Wilcox.
+
+Helen was amused. She opened the gate on to the downs so that her
+brother might lead the pony through. "It's just like a widower,"
+she remarked. "They've cheek enough for anything, and invariably
+select one of their first wife's friends."
+
+Margaret's face flashed despair.
+
+"That type--" She broke off with a cry. "Meg, not anything wrong
+with you?"
+
+"Wait one minute," said Margaret, whispering always.
+
+"But you've never conceivably--you've never--" She pulled herself
+together. "Tibby, hurry up through; I can't hold this gate
+indefinitely. Aunt Juley! I say, Aunt Juley, make the tea, will
+you, and Frieda; we've got to talk houses, and will come on
+afterwards." And then, turning her face to her sister's, she
+burst into tears.
+
+Margaret was stupefied. She heard herself saying, "Oh, really--"
+She felt herself touched with a hand that trembled.
+
+"Don't," sobbed Helen, "don't, don't, Meg, don't!" She seemed
+incapable of saying any other word. Margaret, trembling herself,
+led her forward up the road, till they strayed through another
+gate on to the down.
+
+"Don't, don't do such a thing! I tell you not to--don't! I know--
+don't!"
+
+"What do you know?"
+
+"Panic and emptiness," sobbed Helen. "Don't!"
+
+Then Margaret thought, "Helen is a little selfish. I have never
+behaved like this when there has seemed a chance of her
+marrying." She said: "But we would still see each other very--
+often, and you--"
+
+"It's not a thing like that," sobbed Helen. And she broke right
+away and wandered distractedly upwards, stretching her hands
+towards the view and crying.
+
+"What's happened to you?" called Margaret, following through the
+wind that gathers at sundown on the northern slopes of hills.
+"But it's stupid!" And suddenly stupidity seized her, and the
+immense landscape was blurred. But Helen turned back.
+
+"I don't know what's happened to either of us," said Margaret,
+wiping her eyes. "We must both have done mad." Then Helen wiped
+hers, and they even laughed a little.
+
+"Look here, sit down."
+
+"All right; I'll sit down if you'll sit down."
+
+"There. (One kiss.) Now, whatever, whatever is the matter?"
+
+"I do mean what I said. Don't; it wouldn't do."
+
+"Oh, Helen, stop saying 'don't'! It's ignorant. It's as if your
+head wasn't out of the slime. 'Don't' is probably what Mrs. Bast
+says all the day to Mr. Bast."
+
+Helen was silent.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Tell me about it first, and meanwhile perhaps I'll have got my
+head out of the slime."
+
+"That's better. Well, where shall I begin? When I arrived at
+Waterloo--no, I'll go back before that, because I'm anxious you
+should know everything from the first. The 'first' was about ten
+days ago. It was the day Mr. Bast came to tea and lost his
+temper. I was defending him, and Mr. Wilcox became jealous about
+me, however slightly. I thought it was the involuntary thing,
+which men can't help any more than we can. You know--at least, I
+know in my own case--when a man has said to me, 'So-and-so's a
+pretty girl,' I am seized with a momentary sourness against So-
+and-so, and long to tweak her ear. It's a tiresome feeling, but
+not an important one, and one easily manages it. But it wasn't
+only this in Mr. Wilcox's case, I gather now."
+
+"Then you love him?'
+
+Margaret considered. "It is wonderful knowing that a real man
+cares for you," she said. "The mere fact of that grows more
+tremendous. Remember, I've known and liked him steadily for
+nearly three years."
+
+"But loved him?"
+
+Margaret peered into her past. It is pleasant to analyse feelings
+while they are still only feelings, and unembodied in the social
+fabric. With her arm round Helen, and her eyes shifting over the
+view, as if this country or that could reveal the secret of her
+own heart, she meditated honestly, and said, "No."
+
+"But you will?"
+
+"Yes," said Margaret, "of that I'm pretty sure. Indeed, I began
+the moment he spoke to me."
+
+"And have settled to marry him?"
+
+"I had, but am wanting a long talk about it now. What is it
+against him, Helen? You must try and say."
+
+Helen, in her turn, looked outwards. "It is ever since Paul," she
+said finally.
+
+"But what has Mr. Wilcox to do with Paul?"
+
+"But he was there, they were all there that morning when I came
+down to breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened--the man who
+loved me frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I
+knew it was impossible, because personal relations are the
+important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of
+telegrams and anger."
+
+She poured the sentence forth in one breath, but her sister
+understood it, because it touched on thoughts that were familiar
+between them.
+
+"That's foolish. In the first place, I disagree about the outer
+life. Well, we've often argued that. The real point is that there
+is the widest gulf between my love-making and yours. Yours was
+romance; mine will be prose. I'm not running it down--a very good
+kind of prose, but well considered, well thought out. For
+instance, I know all Mr. Wilcox's faults. He's afraid of emotion.
+He cares too much about success, too little about the past. His
+sympathy lacks poetry, and so isn't sympathy really. I'd even say
+"--she looked at the shining lagoons--"that, spiritually, he's
+not as honest as I am. Doesn't that satisfy you?"
+
+"No, it doesn't," said Helen. "It makes me feel worse and worse.
+You must be mad."
+
+Margaret made a movement of irritation.
+
+"I don't intend him, or any man or any woman, to be all my life--
+good heavens, no! There are heaps of things in me that he
+doesn't, and shall never, understand."
+
+Thus she spoke before the wedding ceremony and the physical
+union, before the astonishing glass shade had fallen that
+interposes between married couples and the world. She was to keep
+her independence more than do most women as yet. Marriage was to
+alter her fortunes rather than her character, and she was not far
+wrong in boasting that she understood her future husband. Yet he
+did alter her character--a little. There was an unforeseen
+surprise, a cessation of the winds and odours of life, a social
+pressure that would have her think conjugally.
+
+"So with him," she continued. "There are heaps of things in him--
+more especially things that he does that will always be hidden
+from me. He has all those public qualities which you so despise
+and which enable all this--" She waved her hand at the landscape,
+which confirmed anything. "If Wilcoxes hadn't worked and died in
+England for thousands of years, you and I couldn't sit here
+without having our throats cut. There would be no trains, no
+ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even. Just
+savagery. No--perhaps not even that. Without their spirit life
+might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I
+refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it.
+There are times when it seems to me--"
+
+"And to me, and to all women. So one kissed Paul."
+
+"That's brutal." said 'Margaret. "Mine is an absolutely different
+case. I've thought things out."
+
+"It makes no difference thinking things out. They come to the
+same."
+
+"Rubbish!"
+
+There was a long silence, during which the tide returned into
+Poole Harbour. "One would lose something," murmured Helen,
+apparently to herself. The water crept over the mud-flats towards
+the gorse and the blackened heather. Branksea Island lost its
+immense foreshores, and became a sombre episode of trees. Frome
+was forced inward towards Dorchester, Stour against Wimborne,
+Avon towards Salisbury, and over the immense displacement the sun
+presided, leading it to triumph ere he sank to rest. England was
+alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy
+through the mouths of all her gulls, and the north wind, with
+contrary motion, blew stronger against her rising seas. What did
+it mean? For what end are her fair complexities, her changes of
+soil, her sinuous coast? Does she belong to those who have
+moulded her and made her feared by other lands, or to those who
+have added nothing to her power, but have somehow seen her, seen
+the whole island at once, lying as a jewel in a silver sea,
+sailing as a ship of souls, with all the brave world's fleet
+accompanying her towards eternity?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place
+in the world's waters, when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble,
+slips in. Whom does Love concern beyond the beloved and the
+lover? Yet his impact deluges a hundred shores. No doubt the
+disturbance is really the spirit of the generations, welcoming
+the new generation, and chafing against the ultimate Fate, who
+holds all the seas in the palm of her hand. But Love cannot
+understand this. He cannot comprehend another's infinity; he is
+conscious only of his own--flying sunbeam, falling rose, pebble
+that asks for one quiet plunge below the fretting interplay of
+space and time. He knows that he will survive at the end of
+things, and be gathered by Fate as a jewel from the slime, and be
+handed with admiration round the assembly of the gods. "Men did
+produce this" they will say, and, saying, they will give men
+immortality. But meanwhile--what agitations meanwhile! The
+foundations of Property and Propriety are laid bare, twin rocks;
+Family Pride flounders to the surface, puffing and blowing and
+refusing to be comforted; Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a
+nasty ground swell. Then the lawyers are aroused--cold brood--and
+creep out of their holes. They do what they can; they tidy up
+Property and Propriety, reassure Theology and Family Pride.
+Half-guineas are poured on the troubled waters, the lawyers creep
+back, and, if all has gone well, Love joins one man and woman
+together in Matrimony.
+
+Margaret had expected the disturbance, and was not irritated by
+it. For a sensitive woman she had steady nerves, and could bear
+with the incongruous and the grotesque; and, besides, there was
+nothing excessive about her love-affair. Good-humour was the
+dominant note of her relations with Mr. Wilcox, or, as I must now
+call him, Henry. Henry did not encourage romance, and she was no
+girl to fidget for it. An acquaintance had become a lover, might
+become a husband, but would retain all that she had noted in the
+acquaintance; and love must confirm an old relation rather than
+reveal a new one.
+
+In this spirit she promised to marry him.
+
+He was in Swanage on the morrow bearing the engagement ring.
+
+They greeted one another with a hearty cordiality that impressed
+Aunt Juley. Henry dined at The Bays, but had engaged a bedroom in
+the principal hotel; he was one of those men who know the
+principal hotel by instinct. After dinner he asked Margaret if
+she wouldn't care for a turn on the Parade. She accepted, and
+could not repress a little tremor; it would be her first real
+love scene. But as she put on her hat she burst out laughing.
+Love was so unlike the article served up in books; the joy,
+though genuine was different; the mystery an unexpected mystery.
+For one thing, Mr. Wilcox still seemed a stranger.
+
+For a time they talked about the ring; then she said: "Do you
+remember the Embankment at Chelsea? It can't be ten days ago."
+
+"Yes," he said, laughing. "And you and your sister were head and
+ears deep in some Quixotic scheme. Ah well!"
+
+"I little thought then, certainly. Did you?"
+
+"I don't know about that; I shouldn't like to say."
+
+"Why, was it earlier?" she cried. "Did you think of me this way
+earlier! How extraordinarily interesting, Henry! Tell me."
+
+But Henry had no intention of telling. Perhaps he could not have
+told, for his mental states became obscure as soon as he had
+passed through them. He misliked the very word "interesting,"
+connoting it with wasted energy and even with morbidity. Hard
+facts were enough for him.
+
+"I didn't think of it," she pursued. "No; when you spoke to me in
+the drawing-room, that was practically the first. It was all so
+different from what it's supposed to be. On the stage, or in
+books, a proposal is--how shall I put it?--a full-blown affair, a
+hind of bouquet; it loses its literal meaning. But in life a
+proposal really is a proposal--"
+
+"By the way--"
+
+"Oh, very well."
+
+"I am so glad," she answered, a little surprised. "What did you
+talk about? Me, presumably."
+
+"About Greece too."
+
+"Greece was a very good card, Henry. Tibby's only a boy still,
+and one has to pick and choose subjects a little. Well done."
+
+"I was telling him I have shares in a currant-farm near
+Calamata."
+
+"What a delightful thing to have shares in! Can't we go there for
+our honeymoon?"
+
+"What to do?"
+
+"To eat the currants. And isn't there marvellous scenery?"
+
+"Moderately, but it's not the kind of place one could possibly go
+to with a lady."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"No hotels."
+
+"Some ladies do without hotels. Are you aware that Helen and I
+have walked alone over the Apennines, with our luggage on our
+backs?"
+
+"I wasn't aware, and, if I can manage it, you will never do such
+a thing again."
+
+She said more gravely: "You haven't found time for a talk with
+Helen yet, I suppose?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Do, before you go. I am so anxious you two should be friends."
+
+"Your sister and I have always hit it off," he said negligently.
+"But we're drifting away from our business. Let me begin at the
+beginning. You know that Evie is going to marry Percy Cahill."
+
+"Dolly's uncle."
+
+"Exactly. The girl's madly in love with him. A very good sort of
+fellow, but he demands--and rightly--a suitable provision with
+her. And in the second place you will naturally understand, there
+is Charles. Before leaving town, I wrote Charles a very careful
+letter. You see, he has an increasing family and increasing
+expenses, and the I. and W. A. is nothing particular just now,
+though capable of development."
+
+"Poor fellow!" murmured Margaret, looking out to sea, and not
+understanding.
+
+"Charles being the elder son, some day Charles will have Howards
+End; but I am anxious, in my own happiness, not to be unjust to
+others."
+
+"Of course not," she began, and then gave a little cry. "you mean
+money. How stupid I am! Of course not!"
+
+Oddly enough, he winced a little at the word. "Yes, Money, since
+you put it so frankly. I am determined to be just to all--just to
+you, just to them. I am determined that my children shall have
+me."
+
+"Be generous to them," she said sharply. "Bother justice!"
+
+"I am determined--and have already written to Charles to that
+effect--"
+
+"But how much have you got?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"How much have you a year? I've six hundred."
+
+"My income?"
+
+"Yes. We must begin with how much you have, before we can settle
+how much you can give Charles. Justice, and even generosity,
+depend on that."
+
+"I must say you're a downright young woman," he observed, patting
+her arm and laughing a little. "What a question to spring on a
+fellow!"
+
+"Don't you know your income? Or don't you want to tell it me?"
+
+"I--"
+
+"That's all right"--now she patted him--"don't tell me. I don't
+want to know. I can do the sum just as well by proportion. Divide
+your income into ten parts. How many parts would you give to
+Evie, how many to Charles, how many to Paul?"
+
+"The fact is, my dear, I hadn't any intention of bothering you
+with details. I only wanted to let you know that--well, that
+something must be done for the others, and you've understood me
+perfectly, so let's pass on to the next point."
+
+"Yes, we've settled that," said Margaret, undisturbed by his
+strategic blunderings. "Go ahead; give away all you can, bearing
+in mind that I've a clear six hundred. What a mercy it is to have
+all this money about one."
+
+"We've none too much, I assure you; you're marrying a poor man."
+
+"Helen wouldn't agree with me here," she continued. "Helen
+daren't slang the rich, being rich herself, but she would like
+to. There's an odd notion, that I haven't yet got hold of,
+running about at the back of her brain, that poverty is somehow
+'real.' She dislikes all organisation, and probably confuses
+wealth with the technique of wealth. Sovereigns in a stocking
+wouldn't bother her; cheques do. Helen is too relentless. One
+can't deal in her high-handed manner with the world."
+
+"There's this other point, and then I must go back to
+my hotel and write some letters. What's to be done now about the
+house in Ducie Street?"
+
+"Keep it on--at least, it depends. When do you want to marry me?"
+
+She raised her voice, as too often, and some youths, who were
+also taking the evening air, overheard her. "Getting a bit hot,
+eh?" said one. Mr. Wilcox turned on them, and said sharply, "I
+say!" There was silence. "Take care I don't report you to the
+police." They moved away quietly enough, but were only biding
+their time, and the rest of the conversation was punctuated by
+peals of ungovernable laughter.
+
+Lowering his voice and infusing a hint of reproof into it, he
+said: "Evie will probably be married in September. We could
+scarcely think of anything before then."
+
+"The earlier the nicer, Henry. Females are not supposed to say
+such things, but the earlier the nicer."
+
+"How about September for us too?" he asked, rather dryly.
+
+"Right. Shall we go into Ducie Street ourselves in September? Or
+shall we try to bounce Helen and Tibby into it? That's rather an
+idea. They are so unbusinesslike, we could make them do anything
+by judicious management. Look here--yes. We'll do that. And we
+ourselves could live at Howards End or Shropshire."
+
+He blew out his cheeks. "Heavens! how you women do fly round! My
+head's in a whirl. Point by point, Margaret. Howards End's
+impossible. I let it to Hamar Bryce on a three years' agreement
+last March. Don't you remember? Oniton. Well, that is much, much
+too far away to rely on entirely. You will be able to be down
+there entertaining a certain amount, but we must have a house
+within easy reach of Town. Only Ducie Street has huge drawbacks.
+There's a mews behind."
+
+Margaret could not help laughing. It was the first she had heard
+of the mews behind Ducie Street. When she was a possible tenant
+it had suppressed itself, not consciously, but automatically. The
+breezy Wilcox manner, though genuine, lacked the clearness of
+vision that is imperative for truth. When Henry lived in Ducie
+Street he remembered the mews; when he tried to let he forgot it;
+and if any one had remarked that the mews must be either there or
+not, he would have felt annoyed, and afterwards have found some
+opportunity of stigmatising the speaker as academic. So does my
+grocer stigmatise me when I complain of the quality of his
+sultanas, and he answers in one breath that they are the best
+sultanas, and how can I expect the best sultanas at that price?
+It is a flaw inherent in the business mind, and Margaret may do
+well to be tender to it, considering all that the business mind
+has done for England.
+
+"Yes, in summer especially, the mews is a serious nuisance. The
+smoking-room, too, is an abominable little den. The house
+opposite has been taken by operatic people. Ducie Street's going
+down, it's my private opinion."
+
+"How sad! It's only a few years since they built those pretty
+houses."
+
+"Shows things are moving. Good for trade."
+
+"I hate this continual flux of London. It is an epitome of us at
+our worst--eternal formlessness; all the qualities, good, bad,
+and indifferent, streaming away--streaming, streaming for ever.
+That's why I dread it so. I mistrust rivers, even in scenery.
+Now, the sea--"
+
+"High tide, yes."
+
+"Hoy toid"--from the promenading youths.
+
+"And these are the men to whom we give the vote," observed Mr.
+Wilcox, omitting to add that they were also the men to whom he
+gave work as clerks--work that scarcely encouraged them to grow
+into other men. "However, they have their own lives and
+interests. Let's get on."
+
+He turned as he spoke, and prepared to see her back to The Bays.
+The business was over. His hotel was in the opposite direction,
+and if he accompanied her his letters would be late for the post.
+She implored him not to come, but he was obdurate.
+
+"A nice beginning, if your aunt saw you slip in alone!"
+
+"But I always do go about alone. Considering I've walked over the
+Apennines, it's common sense. You will make me so angry. I don't
+the least take it as a compliment."
+
+He laughed, and lit a cigar. "It isn't meant as a compliment, my
+dear. I just won't have you going about in the dark. Such people
+about too! It's dangerous."
+
+"Can't I look after myself? I do wish--"
+
+"Come along, Margaret; no wheedling."
+
+A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but
+Margaret had too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in
+her own way, as masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain
+peak, whom all might tread, but whom the snows made nightly
+virginal. Disdaining the heroic outfit, excitable in her methods,
+garrulous, episodical, shrill, she misled her lover much as she
+had misled her aunt. He mistook her fertility for Weakness. He
+supposed her "as clever as they make them," but no more, not
+realising that she was penetrating to the depths of his soul, and
+approving of what she found there.
+
+And if insight were sufficient, if the inner life were the whole
+of life, their happiness had been assured.
+
+They walked ahead briskly. The parade and the road after it were
+well lighted, but it was darker in Aunt Juley's garden. As they
+were going up by the side-paths, through some rhododendrons, Mr.
+Wilcox, who was in front, said "Margaret" rather huskily, turned,
+dropped his cigar, and took her in his arms.
+
+She was startled, and nearly screamed, but recovered herself at
+once, and kissed with genuine love the lips that were pressed
+against her own. It was their first kiss, and when it was over he
+saw her safely to the door and rang the bell for her but
+disappeared into the night before the maid answered it. On
+looking back, the incident displeased her. It was so isolated.
+Nothing in their previous conversation had heralded it, and,
+worse still, no tenderness had ensued. If a man cannot lead up to
+passion he can at all events lead down from it, and she had
+hoped, after her complaisance, for some interchange of gentle
+words. But he had hurried away as if ashamed, and for an instant
+she was reminded of Helen and Paul.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Charles had just been scolding his Dolly. She deserved the
+scolding, and had bent before it, but her head, though bloody was
+unsubdued and her began to mingle with his retreating thunder.
+
+"You've waked the baby. I knew you would. (Rum-ti-foo, Rackety-
+tackety-Tompkin!) I'm not responsible for what Uncle Percy does,
+nor for anybody else or anything, so there!"
+
+"Who asked him while I was away? Who asked my sister down to meet
+him? Who sent them out in the motor day after day?"
+
+"Charles, that reminds me of some poem."
+
+"Does it indeed? We shall all be dancing to a very different
+music presently. Miss Schlegel has fairly got us on toast."
+
+"I could simply scratch that woman's eyes out, and to say it's my
+fault is most unfair. "
+
+"It's your fault, and five months ago you admitted it."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"You did."
+
+"Tootle, tootle, playing on the pootle!" exclaimed Dolly,
+suddenly devoting herself to the child.
+
+"It's all very well to turn the conversation, but father would
+never have dreamt of marrying as long as Evie was there to make
+him comfortable. But you must needs start match-making. Besides,
+Cahill's too old."
+
+"Of course, if you're going to be rude to Uncle Percy."
+
+"Miss Schlegel always meant to get hold of Howards End, and,
+thanks to you, she's got it."
+
+"I call the way you twist things round and make them hang
+together most unfair. You couldn't have been nastier if you'd
+caught me flirting. Could he, diddums?"
+
+"We're in a bad hole, and must make the best of it. I shall
+answer the pater's letter civilly. He's evidently anxious to do
+the decent thing. But I do not intend to forget these Schlegcls
+in a hurry. As long as they're on their best behaviour--Do11y,
+are you listening?--we'll behave, too. But if I find them giving
+themselves airs or monopolising my father, or at all ill-treating
+him, or worrying him with their artistic beastliness, I intend to
+put my foot down, yes, firmly. Taking my mother's place! Heaven
+knows what poor old Paul will say when the news reaches him."
+
+The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles's garden at
+Hilton. He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor
+is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A
+short-frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly; a
+perambulator edition is squeaking; a third edition is expected
+shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode,
+so that they may inherit the earth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow.
+Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the
+building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in
+us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments,
+half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never
+joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the
+highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire.
+Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these
+outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his
+friends shall find easy-going.
+
+It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox's soul. From boyhood
+he had neglected them. "I am not a fellow who bothers about my
+own inside." Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but
+within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled
+at all, by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or
+widower, he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is
+bad, a belief that is desirable only when held passionately.
+Religion had confirmed him. The words that were read aloud on
+Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the words that
+had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St. Francis into
+a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints
+and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a
+little ashamed of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it
+was here that Margaret hoped to help him.
+
+It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of
+her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent
+in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That
+was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the
+passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at
+its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the
+beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to
+either, will die.
+
+Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form
+of a good "talking." By quiet indications the bridge would be
+built and span their lives with beauty.
+
+But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she
+was never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his
+obtuseness. He simply did not notice things, and there was no
+more to be said. He never noticed that Helen and Frieda were
+hostile, or that Tibby was not interested in currant plantations;
+he never noticed the lights and shades that exist in the greyest
+conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones, the collisions,
+the illimitable views. Once--on another occasion--she scolded him
+about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: "My motto is
+Concentrate. I've no intention of frittering away my strength on
+that sort of thing." "It isn't frittering away the strength," she
+protested. "It's enlarging the space in which you may be
+strong." He answered: "You're a clever little woman, but my
+motto's Concentrate." And this morning he concentrated with a
+vengeance.
+
+They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the
+bushes were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning
+sun. She was with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the
+affair was settled. "Here we all are!" she cried, and took him by
+one hand, retaining her sister's in the other.
+
+"Here we are. Good-morning, Helen."
+
+Helen replied, "Good-morning, Mr. Wilcox."
+
+"Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy.
+Do you remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his
+head was young."
+
+"I have had a letter too. Not a nice one--I want to talk it over
+with you"; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had
+given him her word; the triangle of sex was broken for ever.
+
+"Thanks to your hint, he's clearing out of the Porphyrion."
+
+"Not a bad business that Porphyrion," he said absently, as he
+took his own letter out of his pocket.
+
+"Not a BAD--"she exclaimed, dropping his hand. "Surely, on
+Chelsea Embankment--"
+
+"Here's our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons.
+Good-morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in
+England, don't we?"
+
+"Not a BAD business?"
+
+"No. My letter's about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered
+abroad, and wants to sublet it--I am far from sure that I shall
+give him permission. There was no clause in the agreement. In my
+opinion, subletting is a mistake. If he can find me another
+tenant, whom I consider suitable, I may cancel the agreement.
+Morning, Schlegel. Don't you think that's better than
+subletting?"
+
+Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the
+whole party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was
+the bourgeois little bay, which must have yearned all through the
+centuries for just such a watering-place as Swanage to be built
+on its margin.
+
+The waves were colourless, and the Bournemouth steamer gave a
+further touch of insipidity, drawn up against the pier and
+hooting wildly for excursionists.
+
+"When there is a sublet I find that damage--"
+
+"Do excuse me, but about the Porphyrion. I don't feel easy--might
+I just bother you, Henry?"
+
+Her manner was so serious that he stopped, and asked her a little
+sharply what she wanted.
+
+"You said on Chelsea Embankment, surely, that it was a bad
+concern, so we advised this clerk to clear out. He writes this
+morning that he's taken our advice, and now you say it's not a
+bad concern."
+
+"A clerk who clears out of any concern, good or bad, without
+securing a berth somewhere else first, is a fool, and I've no
+pity for him."
+
+"He has not done that. He's going into a bank in Camden Town, he
+says. The salary's much lower, but he hopes to manage--a branch
+of Dempster's Bank. Is that all right?"
+
+"Dempster! Why goodness me, yes."
+
+"More right than the Porphyrion?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes; safe as houses--safer."
+
+"Very many thanks. I'm sorry--if you sublet--?"
+
+"If he sublets, I shan't have the same control. In theory there
+should be no more damage done at Howards End; in practice there
+will be. Things may be done for which no money can compensate.
+For instance, I shouldn't want that fine wych-elm spoilt. It
+hangs--Margaret, we must go and see the old place some time.
+It's pretty in its way. We'll motor down and have lunch with
+Charles."
+
+"I should enjoy that," said Margaret bravely.
+
+"What about next Wednesday?"
+
+"Wednesday? No, I couldn't well do that. Aunt Juley expects us to
+stop here another week at least."
+
+"But you can give that up now."
+
+"Er--no," said Margaret, after a moment's thought.
+
+"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll speak to her."
+
+"This visit is a high solemnity. My aunt counts on it year after
+year. She turns the house upside down for us; she invites our
+special friends--she scarcely knows Frieda, and we can't leave
+her on her hands. I missed one day, and she would be so hurt if I
+didn't stay the full ten. "
+
+"But I'll say a word to her. Don't you bother."
+
+"Henry, I won't go. Don't bully me."
+
+"You want to see the house, though?"
+
+"Very much--I've heard so much about it, one way or the other.
+Aren't there pigs' teeth in the wych-elm?"
+
+"PIGS TEETH?"
+
+"And you chew the bark for toothache."
+
+"What a rum notion! Of course not!"
+
+"Perhaps I have confused it with some other tree. There are still
+a great number of sacred trees in England, it seems."
+
+But he left her to intercept Mrs. Munt, whose voice could be
+heard in the distance; to be intercepted himself by Helen.
+
+"Oh. Mr. Wilcox, about the Porphyrion--"she began and went
+scarlet all over her face.
+
+"It's all right," called Margaret, catching them up. "Dempster's
+Bank's better."
+
+"But I think you told us the Porphyrion was bad, and would smash
+before Christmas."
+
+"Did I? It was still outside the Tariff Ring, and had to take
+rotten policies. Lately it came in--safe as houses now."
+
+"In other words, Mr. Bast need never have left it."
+
+"No, the fellow needn't."
+
+"--and needn't have started life elsewhere at a greatly reduced
+salary."
+
+"He only says 'reduced,'" corrected Margaret, seeing trouble
+ahead.
+
+"With a man so poor, every reduction must be great. I consider it
+a deplorable misfortune."
+
+Mr. Wilcox, intent on his business with Mrs. Munt, was going
+steadily on, but the last remark made him say: "What? What's
+that? Do you mean that I'm responsible?"
+
+"You're ridiculous, Helen."
+
+"You seem to think--" He looked at his watch. "Let me explain the
+point to you. It is like this. You seem to assume, when a
+business concern is conducting a delicate negotiation, it ought
+to keep the public informed stage by stage. The Porphyrion,
+according to you, was bound to say, 'I am trying all I can to get
+into the Tariff Ring. I am not sure that I shall succeed, but it
+is the only thing that will save me from insolvency, and I am
+trying.' My dear Helen--"
+
+"Is that your point? A man who had little money has less--that's
+mine."
+
+"I am grieved for your clerk. But it is all in the days work.
+It's part of the battle of life."
+
+"A man who had little money--, "she repeated, "has less, owing to
+us. Under these circumstances I consider 'the battle of life' a
+happy expression.
+
+"Oh come, come!" he protested pleasantly. 'you're not to blame.
+No one's to blame."
+
+"Is no one to blame for anything?"
+
+"I wouldn't say that, but you're taking it far too seriously.
+Who is this fellow?"
+
+"We have told you about the fellow twice already," said Helen.
+"You have even met the fellow. He is very poor and his wife is an
+extravagant imbecile. He is capable of better things. We--we, the
+upper classes--thought we would help him from the height of our
+superior knowledge--and here's the result!"
+
+He raised his finger. "Now, a word of advice."
+
+"I require no more advice."
+
+"A word of advice. Don't take up that sentimental attitude over
+the poor. See that she doesn't, Margaret. The poor are poor, and
+one's sorry for them, but there it is. As civilisation moves
+forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it's absurd
+to pretend that any one is responsible personally. Neither you,
+nor I, nor my informant, nor the man who informed him, nor the
+directors of the Porphyrion, are to blame for this clerk's loss
+of salary. It's just the shoe pinching--no one can help it; and
+it might easily have been worse."
+
+Helen quivered with indignation.
+
+"By all means subscribe to charities--subscribe to them largely--
+but don't get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I
+see a good deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me
+that there is no Social Question--except for a few journalists
+who try to get a living out of the phrase. There are just rich
+and poor, as there always have been and always will be. Point me
+out a time when men have been equal--"
+
+"I didn't say--"
+
+"Point me out a time when desire for equality has made them
+happier. No, no. You can't. There always have been rich and poor.
+I'm no fatalist. Heaven forbid! But our civilisation is moulded
+by great impersonal forces" (his voice grew complacent; it
+always did when he eliminated the personal), "and there always
+will be rich and poor. You can't deny it" (and now it was a
+respectful voice)--"and you can't deny that, in spite of all, the
+tendency of civilisation has on the whole been upward."
+
+"Owing to God, I suppose," flashed Helen.
+
+He stared at her.
+
+"You grab the dollars. God does the rest."
+
+It was no good instructing the girl if she was going to talk
+about God in that neurotic modern way. Fraternal to the last, he
+left her for the quieter company of Mrs. Munt. He thought, "She
+rather reminds me of Dolly."
+
+Helen looked out at the sea.
+
+"Don't ever discuss political economy with Henry," advised her
+sister. "It'll only end in a cry."
+
+"But he must be one of those men who have reconciled science with
+religion," said Helen slowly. "I don't like those men. They are
+scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest,
+and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the
+independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they
+believe that somehow good--it is always that sloppy 'somehow'
+will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts
+of the future will benefit because the Mr. Brits of today are in
+pain."
+
+"He is such a man in theory. But oh, Helen, in theory!"
+
+"But oh, Meg, what a theory!"
+
+"Why should you put things so bitterly, dearie?"
+
+"Because I'm an old maid," said Helen, biting her lip. "I can't
+think why I go on like this myself." She shook off her sister's
+hand and went into the house. Margaret, distressed at the day's
+beginning, followed the Bournemouth steamer with her eyes. She
+saw that Helen's nerves were exasperated by the unlucky Bast
+business beyond the bounds of politeness. There might at any
+minute be a real explosion, which even Henry would notice. Henry
+must be removed.
+
+"Margaret!" her aunt called. "Magsy! It isn't true, surely,
+what Mr. Wilcox says, that you want to go away early next week?"
+
+"Not 'want,'" was Margaret's prompt reply; "but there is so much
+to be settled, and I do want to see the Charles's."
+
+"But going away without taking the Weymouth trip, or even the
+Lulworth?" said Mrs. Munt, coming nearer. "Without going once
+more up Nine Barrows Down?"
+
+"I'm afraid so."
+
+Mr. Wilcox rejoined her with, "Good! I did the breaking of the
+ice."
+
+A wave of tenderness came over her. She put a hand on either
+shoulder, and looked deeply into the black, bright eyes. What was
+behind their competent stare? She knew, but was not disquieted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Margaret had no intention of letting things slide, and the
+evening before she left Swanage she gave her sister a thorough
+scolding. She censured her, not for disapproving of the
+engagement, but for throwing over her disapproval a veil of
+mystery. Helen was equally frank. "Yes," she said, with the air
+of one looking inwards, "there is a mystery. I can't help it.
+It's not my fault. It's the way life has been made." Helen in
+those days was over-interested in the subconscious self. She
+exaggerated the Punch and Judy aspect of life, and spoke of
+mankind as puppets, whom an invisible showman twitches into love
+and war. Margaret pointed out that if she dwelt on this she, too,
+would eliminate the personal. Helen was silent for a minute, and
+then burst into a queer speech, which cleared the air. "Go on
+and marry him. I think you're splendid; and if any one can pull
+it off, you will." Margaret denied that there was anything to
+"pull off," but she continued: "Yes, there is, and I wasn't up
+to it with Paul. I can do only what's easy. I can only entice
+and be enticed. I can't, and won't, attempt difficult relations.
+If I marry, it will either be a man who's strong enough to boss
+me or whom I'm strong enough to boss. So I shan't ever marry, for
+there aren't such men. And Heaven help any one whom I do marry,
+for I shall certainly run away from him before you can say 'Jack
+Robinson.' There! Because I'm uneducated. But you, you're
+different; you're a heroine."
+
+"Oh, Helen! Am I? Will it be as dreadful for poor Henry as all
+that?"
+
+"You mean to keep proportion, and that's heroic, it's Greek, and
+I don't see why it shouldn't succeed with you. Go on and fight
+with him and help him. Don't ask me for help, or even for
+sympathy. Henceforward I'm going my own way. I mean to be
+thorough, because thoroughness is easy. I mean to dislike your
+husband, and to tell him so. I mean to make no concessions to
+Tibby. If Tibby wants to live with me, he must lump me. I mean to
+love you more than ever. Yes, I do. You and I have built up
+something real, because it is purely spiritual. There's no veil
+of mystery over us. Unreality and mystery begin as soon as one
+touches the body. The popular view is, as usual, exactly the
+wrong one. Our bothers are over tangible things--money, husbands,
+house-hunting. But Heaven will work of itself."
+
+Margaret was grateful for this expression of affection, and
+answered, "Perhaps." All vistas close in the unseen--no one
+doubts it--but Helen closed them rather too quickly for her
+taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with reality
+and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics,
+perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there
+was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily
+shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life
+is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing,
+fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see,
+dear; it's about half-way between," Aunt Juicy had hazarded in
+earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not half-way between
+anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into
+either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to
+espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility.
+
+Helen, agreeing here, disagreeing there, would have talked till
+midnight, but Margaret, with her packing to do, focussed the
+conversation on Henry. She might abuse Henry behind his back, but
+please would she always be civil to him in company? "I definitely
+dislike him, but I'll do what I can," promised Helen. "Do what
+you can with my friends in return."
+
+This conversation made Margaret easier. Their inner life was so
+safe that they could bargain over externals in a way that would
+have been incredible to Aunt Juley, and impossible for Tibby or
+Charles. There are moments when the inner life actually "pays,"
+when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive,
+are suddenly of practical use. Such moments are still rare in the
+West; that they come at all promises a fairer future. Margaret,
+though unable to understand her sister, was assured against
+estrangement, and returned to London with a more peaceful mind.
+
+The following morning, at eleven o'clock, she presented herself
+at the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber Company.
+She was glad to go there, for Henry had implied his business
+rather than described it, and the formlessness and vagueness that
+one associates with Africa itself had hitherto brooded over the
+main sources of his wealth. Not that a visit to the office cleared
+things up. There was just the ordinary surface scum of ledgers
+and polished counters and brass bars that began and stopped for
+no possible reason, of electric-light globes blossoming in
+triplets, of little rabbit-hutches faced with glass or wire, of
+little rabbits. And even when she penetrated to the inner depths,
+she found only the ordinary table and Turkey carpet, and though
+the map over the fireplace did depict a helping of West Africa,
+it was a very ordinary map. Another map hung opposite, on which
+the whole continent appeared, looking like a whale marked out
+for a blubber, and by its side was a door, shut, but Henry's
+voice came through it, dictating a "strong" letter. She might
+have been at the Porphyrion, or Dempster's Bank, or her own
+wine-merchant's. Everything seems just alike in these days. But
+perhaps she was seeing the Imperial side of the company rather
+than its West African, and Imperialism always had been one of
+her difficulties.
+
+"One minute!" called Mr. Wilcox on receiving her name. He touched
+a bell, the effect of which was to produce Charles.
+
+Charles had written his father an adequate letter--more adequate
+than Evie's, through which a girlish indignation throbbed. And he
+greeted his future stepmother with propriety.
+
+"I hope that my wife--how do you do?--will give you a decent
+lunch," was his opening. "I left instructions, but we live in a
+rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to tea, too, after you
+have had a look at Howards End. I wonder what you'll think of the
+place. I wouldn't touch it with tongs myself. Do sit down! It's a
+measly little place."
+
+"I shall enjoy seeing it," said Margaret, feeling, for the first
+time, shy.
+
+"You'll see it at its worst, for Bryce decamped abroad last
+Monday without even arranging for a charwoman to clear up after
+him. I never saw such a disgraceful mess. It's unbelievable. He
+wasn't in the house a month."
+
+"I've more than a little bone to pick with Bryce," called Henry
+from the inner chamber.
+
+"Why did he go so suddenly?"
+
+"Invalid type; couldn't sleep."
+
+"Poor fellow!"
+
+"Poor fiddlesticks!" said Mr. Wilcox, joining them. "He had the
+impudence to put up notice-boards without as much as saying with
+your leave or by your leave. Charles flung them down."
+
+"Yes, I flung them down," said Charles modestly.
+
+"I've sent a telegram after him, and a pretty sharp one, too.
+He, and he in person, is responsible for the upkeep of that house
+for the next three years."
+
+"The keys are at the farm; we wouldn't have the keys."
+
+"Quite right."
+
+"Dolly would have taken them, but I was in, fortunately."
+
+"What's Mr. Bryce like?" asked Margaret.
+
+But nobody cared. Mr. Bryce was the tenant, who had no right to
+sublet; to have defined him further was a waste of time. On his
+misdeeds they descanted profusely, until the girl who had been
+typing the strong letter game out with it. Mr. Wilcox added his
+signature. "Now we'll be off," said he.
+
+A motor-drive, a form of felicity detested by Margaret,
+awaited her. Charles saw them in, civil to the last, and in a
+moment the offices of the Imperial and West African Rubber
+Company faded away. But it was not an impressive drive. Perhaps
+the weather was to blame, being grey and banked high with weary
+clouds. Perhaps Hertfordshire is scarcely intended for motorists.
+Did not a gentleman once motor so quickly through Westmoreland
+that he missed it? and if Westmoreland can be missed, it will
+fare ill with a county whose delicate structure particularly
+needs the attentive eye. Hertfordshire is England at its
+quietest, with little emphasis of river and hill; it is England
+meditative. If Drayton were with us again to write a new edition
+of his incomparable poem, he would sing the nymphs of
+Hertfordshire as indeterminate of feature, with hair obfuscated
+by the London smoke. Their eyes would be sad, and averted from
+their fate towards the Northern flats, their leader not Isis or
+Sabrina, but the slowly flowing Lea. No glory of raiment would be
+theirs, no urgency of dance; but they would be real nymphs.
+
+The chauffeur could not travel as quickly as he had hoped, for
+the Great North Road was full of Easter traffic. But he went
+quite quick enough for Margaret, a poor-spirited creature, who
+had chickens and children on the brain.
+
+"They're all right," said Mr. Wilcox. "They'll learn--like the
+swallows and the telegraph-wires."
+
+"Yes, but, while they're learning--"
+
+"The motor's come to stay," he answered. "One must get about.
+There's a pretty church--oh, you aren't sharp enough. Well, look
+out, if the road worries you--right outward at the scenery."
+
+She looked at the scenery. It heaved and merged like porridge.
+Presently it congealed. They had arrived.
+
+Charles's house on the left; on the right the swelling forms of
+the Six Hills. Their appearance in such a neighbourhood surprised
+her. They interrupted the stream of residences that was
+thickening up towards Hilton. Beyond them she saw meadows and a
+wood, and beneath them she settled that soldiers of the best kind
+lay buried. She hated war and liked soldiers--it was one of her
+amiable inconsistencies.
+
+But here was Dolly, dressed up to the nines, standing at the door
+to greet them, and here were the first drops of the rain. They
+ran in gaily, and after a long wait in the drawing-room, sat down
+to the rough-and-ready lunch, every dish of which concealed or
+exuded cream. Mr. Bryce was the chief topic of conversation.
+Dolly described his visit with the key, while her father-in-law
+gave satisfaction by chaffing her and contradicting all she said.
+It was evidently the custom to laugh at Dolly. He chaffed
+Margaret too, and Margaret roused from a grave meditation was
+pleased and chaffed him back. Dolly seemed surprised and eyed her
+curiously. After lunch the two children came down. Margaret
+disliked babies, but hit it off better with the two-year-old, and
+sent Dolly into fits of laughter by talking sense to him. "Kiss
+them now, and come away," said Mr. Wilcox. She came, but refused
+to kiss them; it was such hard luck on the little things, she
+said, and though Dolly proffered Chorly-worly and Porgly-woggles
+in turn, she was obdurate.
+
+By this time it was raining steadily. The car came round with the
+hood up, and again she lost all sense of space. In a few minutes
+they stopped, and Crane opened the door of the car.
+
+"What's happened?" asked Margaret.
+
+"What do you suppose?" said Henry.
+
+A little porch was close up against her face.
+
+"Are we there already?"
+
+"We are."
+
+"Well, I never! In years ago it seemed so far away."
+
+Smiling, but somehow disillusioned, she jumped out, and her
+impetus carried her to the front-door. She was about to open it,
+when Henry said: "That's no good; it's locked. Who's got the
+key?"
+
+As he had himself forgotten to call for the key at the farm, no
+one replied. He also wanted to know who had left the front gate
+open, since a cow had strayed in from the road, and was spoiling
+the croquet lawn. Then he said rather crossly: "Margaret, you
+wait in the dry. I'll go down for the key. It isn't a hundred
+yards."
+
+"Mayn't I come too?"
+
+"No; I shall be back before I'm gone."
+
+Then the car turned away, and it was as if a curtain had risen.
+For the second time that day she saw the appearance of the earth.
+
+There were the greengage-trees that Helen had once described,
+there the tennis lawn, there the hedge that would be glorious
+with dog-roses in June, but the vision now was of black and
+palest green. Down by the dell-hole more vivid colours were
+awakening, and Lent lilies stood sentinel on its margin, or
+advanced in battalions over the grass. Tulips were a tray of
+jewels. She could not see the wych-elm tree, but a branch of the
+celebrated vine, studded with velvet knobs had covered the perch.
+She was struck by the fertility of the soil; she had seldom been
+in a garden where the flowers looked so well, and even the weeds
+she was idly plucking out of the porch were intensely green. Why
+had poor Mr. Bryce fled from all this beauty? For she had already
+decided that the place was beautiful.
+
+"Naughty cow! Go away!" cried Margaret to the cow, but without
+indignation.
+
+Harder came the rain, pouring out of a windless sky, and
+spattering up from the notice-boards of the house-agents, which
+lay in a row on the lawn where Charles had hurled them. She must
+have interviewed Charles in another world--where one did have
+interviews. How Helen would revel in such a notion! Charles dead,
+all people dead, nothing alive but houses and gardens. The
+obvious dead, the intangible alive, and no connection at all
+between them! Margaret smiled. Would that her own fancies were as
+clear-cut! Would that she could deal as high-handedly with the
+world! Smiling and sighing, she laid her hand upon the door. It
+opened. The house was not locked up at all.
+
+She hesitated. Ought she to wait for Henry? He felt strongly
+about property, and might prefer to show her over himself. On the
+other hand, he had told her to keep in the dry, and the porch was
+beginning to drip. So she went in, and the draught from inside
+slammed the door behind.
+
+Desolation greeted her. Dirty finger-prints were on the
+hall-windows, flue and rubbish on its unwashed boards. The
+civilisation of luggage had been here for a month, and then
+decamped. Dining-room and drawing-room--right and left--were
+guessed only by their wallpapers. They were just rooms where one
+could shelter from the rain. Across the ceiling of each ran a
+great beam. The dining-room and hall revealed theirs openly, but
+the drawing-room's was match-boarded--because the facts of life
+must be concealed from ladies? Drawing-room, dining-room, and
+hall--how petty the names sounded! Here were simply three rooms
+where children could play and friends shelter from the rain. Yes,
+and they were beautiful.
+
+Then she opened one of the doors opposite--there were two--and
+exchanged wall-papers for whitewash. It was the servants' part,
+though she scarcely realised that: just rooms again, where
+friends might shelter. The garden at the back was full of
+flowering cherries and plums. Farther on were hints of the meadow
+and a black cliff of pines. Yes, the meadow was beautiful.
+
+Penned in by the desolate weather, she recaptured the sense of
+space which the motor had tried to rob from her. She remembered
+again that ten square miles are not ten times as wonderful as one
+square mile, that a thousand square miles are not practically the
+same as heaven. The phantom of bigness, which London encourages,
+was laid for ever when she paced from the hall at Howards End to
+its kitchen and heard the rain run this way and that where the
+watershed of the roof divided it.
+
+Now Helen came to her mind, scrutinising half Wessex from the
+ridge of the Purbeck Downs, and saying: "You will have to lose
+something." She was not so sure. For instance she would double
+her kingdom by opening the door that concealed the stairs.
+
+Now she thought of the map of Africa; of empires; of her father;
+of the two supreme nations, streams of whose life warmed her
+blood, but, mingling, had cooled her brain. She paced back into
+the hall, and as she did so the house reverberated.
+
+"Is that you, Henry?" she called.
+
+There was no answer, but the house reverberated again.
+
+"Henry, have you got in?"
+
+But it was the heart of the house beating, faintly at first, then
+loudly, martially. It dominated the rain.
+
+It is the starved imagination, not the well-nourished, that is
+afraid. Margaret flung open the door to the stairs. A noise as of
+drums seemed to deafen her. A woman, an old woman, was
+descending, with figure erect, with face impassive, with lips
+that parted and said dryly:
+
+"Oh! Well, I took you for Ruth Wilcox."
+
+Margaret stammered: "I--Mrs. Wilcox--I?"
+
+"In fancy, of course--in fancy. You had her way of walking.
+Good-day." And the old woman passed out into the rain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"It gave her quite a turn," said Mr. Wilcox, when retailing the
+incident to Dolly at tea-time. "None of you girls have any
+nerves, really. Of course, a word from me put it all right, but
+silly old Miss Avery--she frightened you, didn't she, Margaret?
+There you stood clutching a bunch of weeds. She might have said
+something, instead of coming down the stairs with that alarming
+bonnet on. I passed her as I came in. Enough to make the car shy.
+I believe Miss Avery goes in for being a character; some old
+maids do." He lit a cigarette. "It is their last resource. Heaven
+knows what she was doing in the place; but that's Bryce's
+business, not mine."
+
+"I wasn't as foolish as you suggest," said Margaret "She only
+startled me, for the house had been silent so long."
+
+"Did you take her for a spook?" asked Dolly, for whom "spooks"'
+and "going to church" summarised the unseen.
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"She really did frighten you," said Henry, who was far from
+discouraging timidity in females. "Poor Margaret! And very
+naturally. Uneducated classes are so stupid."
+
+"Is Miss Avery uneducated classes?" Margaret asked, and found
+herself looking at the decoration scheme of Dolly's drawing-room.
+
+"She's just one of the crew at the farm. People like that always
+assume things. She assumed you'd know who she was. She left all
+the Howards End keys in the front lobby, and assumed that you'd
+seen them as you came in, that you'd lock up the house when you'd
+done, and would bring them on down to her. And there was her
+niece hunting for them down at the farm. Lack of education makes
+people very casual. Hilton was full of women like Miss Avery
+once."
+
+"I shouldn't have disliked it, perhaps."
+
+"Or Miss Avery giving me a wedding present," said Dolly.
+
+Which was illogical but interesting. Through Dolly, Margaret was
+destined to learn a good deal.
+
+"But Charles said I must try not to mind, because she had known
+his grandmother."
+
+"As usual, you've got the story wrong, my good Dorothea."
+
+"I meant great-grandmother--the one who left Mrs. Wilcox the
+house. Weren't both of them and Miss Avery friends when Howards
+End, too, was a farm?"
+
+Her father-in-law blew out a shaft of smoke. His attitude to his
+dead wife was curious. He would allude to her, and hear her
+discussed, but never mentioned her by name. Nor was he interested
+in the dim, bucolic past. Dolly was--for the following reason.
+
+"Then hadn't Mrs. Wilcox a brother--or  was it an uncle? Anyhow,
+he popped the question, and Miss Avery, she said `No.' Just
+imagine, if she'd said 'Yes,' she would have been Charles's aunt.
+(Oh, I say, that's rather good! 'Charlie's Aunt'! I must chaff
+him about that this evening.) And the man went out and was
+killed. Yes, I 'm certain I've got it right now. Tom Howard--he
+was the last of them."
+
+"I believe so," said Mr. Wilcox negligently.
+
+"I say! Howards End--Howards Ended!" Dolly. "I'm rather on the
+spot this evening, eh?"
+
+"I wish you'd ask whether Crane's ended."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Wilcox, how can you?"
+
+"Because, if he has had enough tea, we ought to go--Dolly's a
+good little woman," he continued, "but a little of her goes a
+long way. I couldn't live near her if you paid me."
+
+Margaret smiled. Though presenting a firm front to outsiders, no
+Wilcox could live near, or near the possessions of, any other
+Wilcox. They had the colonial spirit, and were always making for
+some spot where the white man might carry his burden unobserved.
+Of course, Howards End was impossible, so long as the younger
+couple were established in Hilton. His objections to the house
+were plain as daylight now.
+
+Crane had had enough tea, and was sent to the garage, where their
+car had been trickling muddy water over Charles's. The downpour
+had surely penetrated the Six Hills by now, bringing news of our
+restless civilisation. "Curious mounds," said Henry, "but in with
+you now; another time." He had to be up in London by seven--if
+possible, by six-thirty. Once more she lost the sense of space;
+once more trees, houses, people, animals, hills, merged and
+heaved into one dirtiness, and she was at Wickham Place.
+
+Her evening was pleasant. The sense of flux which had haunted her
+all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and
+the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect
+so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis
+of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she
+attempted to realise England. She failed--visions do not come
+when we try, though they may come through trying. But an
+unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on this
+side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable.
+Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was
+groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this
+afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss
+Avery. Through them: the notion of "through" persisted; her mind
+trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into
+words. Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks,
+flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of spring.
+
+Henry, after allaying her agitation, had taken her over his
+property, and had explained to her the use and dimensions of the
+various rooms. He had sketched the history of the little estate.
+"It is so unlucky," ran the monologue, "that money wasn't put
+into it about fifty years ago. Then it had four--five--times the
+land--thirty acres at least. One could have made something out of
+it then--a small park, or at all events shrubberies, and rebuilt
+the house farther away from the road. What's the good of taking
+it in hand now? Nothing but the meadow left, and even that was
+heavily mortgaged when I first had to do with things--yes, and
+the house too. Oh, it was no joke." She saw two women as he
+spoke, one old, the other young, watching their inheritance melt
+away. She saw them greet him as a deliverer. "Mismanagement did
+it--besides, the days for small farms are over. It doesn't pay--
+except with intensive cultivation. Small holdings, back to the
+land--ah! philanthropic bunkum. Take it as a rule that nothing
+pays on a small scale. Most of the land you see (they were
+standing at an upper window, the only one which faced west)
+belongs to the people at the Park--they made their pile over
+copper--good chaps. Avery's Farm, Sishe's--what they call the
+Common, where you see that ruined oak--one after the other fell
+in, and so did this, as near as is no matter." But Henry had
+saved it; without fine feelings or deep insight, but he had saved
+it, and she loved him for the deed. "When I had more control I
+did what I could--sold off the two and a half animals, and the
+mangy pony, and the superannuated tools; pulled down the
+outhouses; drained; thinned out I don't know how many
+guelder-roses and elder-trees; and inside the house I turned the
+old kitchen into a hall, and made a kitchen behind where the
+dairy was. Garage and so on came later. But one could still tell
+it's been an old farm. And yet it isn't the place that would
+fetch one of your artistic crew." No, it wasn't; and if he did
+not quite understand it, the artistic crew would still less; it
+was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an
+English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory.
+It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these
+roles do the English excel. It was a comrade bending over the
+house, strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost
+fingers tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not
+have spanned, became in the end evanescent, till pale bud
+clusters seemed to float in the air. It was a comrade. House and
+tree transcended any similes of sex. Margaret thought of them
+now, and was to think of them through many a windy night and
+London day, but to compare either to man, to woman, always
+dwarfed the vision. Yet they kept within limits of the human.
+Their message was not of eternity, but of hope on this side of
+the grave. As she stood in the one, gazing at the other, truer
+relationship had gleamed.
+
+Another touch, and the account of her day is finished. They
+entered the garden for a minute, and to Mr. Wilcox's surprise she
+was right. Teeth, pigs' teeth, could be seen in the bark of the
+wych-elm tree--just the white tips of them showing. "Extraordinary!"
+he cried. "Who told you?"
+
+"I heard of it one winter in London," was her answer, for she,
+too, avoided mentioning Mrs. Wilcox by name.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Evie heard of her father's engagement when she was in for a
+tennis tournament, and her play went simply to pot. That she
+should marry and leave him had seemed natural enough; that he,
+left alone, should do the same was deceitful; and now Charles and
+Dolly said that it was all her fault. "But I never dreamt of such
+a thing," she grumbled. "Dad took me to call now and then, and
+made me ask her to Simpson's. Well, I'm altogether off dad." It
+was also an insult to their mother's memory; there they were
+agreed, and Evie had the idea of returning Mrs. Wilcox's lace and
+jewellery "as a protest." Against what it would protest she was
+not clear; but being only eighteen, the idea of renunciation
+appealed to her, the more as she did not care for jewellery or
+lace. Dolly then suggested that she and Uncle Percy should
+pretend to break off their engagement, and then perhaps Mr.
+Wilcox would quarrel with Miss Schlegel, and break off his; or
+Paul might be cabled for. But at this point Charles told them not
+to talk nonsense. So Evie settled to marry as soon as possible;
+it was no good hanging about with these Schlegels eyeing her. The
+date of her wedding was consequently put forward from September
+to August, and in the intoxication of presents she recovered much
+of her good-humour.
+
+Margaret found that she was expected to figure at this function,
+and to figure largely; it would be such an opportunity, said
+Henry, for her to get to know his set. Sir James Bidder would be
+there, and all the Cahills and the Fussells, and his
+sister-in-law, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox, had fortunately got back
+from her tour round the world. Henry she loved, but his set
+promised to be another matter. He had not the knack of
+surrounding himself with nice people--indeed, for a man of
+ability and virtue his choice had been singularly unfortunate; he
+had no guiding principle beyond a certain preference for
+mediocrity; he was content to settle one of the greatest things
+in life haphazard, and so, while his investments went right, his
+friends generally went wrong. She would be told, "Oh, So-and-so's
+a good sort--a thundering good sort," and find, on meeting him,
+that he was a brute or a bore. If Henry had shown real affection,
+she would have understood, for affection explains everything. But
+he seemed without sentiment. The "thundering good sort" might at
+any moment become "a fellow for whom I never did have much use,
+and have less now," and be shaken off cheerily into oblivion.
+Margaret had done the same as a schoolgirl. Now she never forgot
+any one for whom she had once cared; she connected, though the
+connection might be bitter, and she hoped that some day Henry
+would do the same.
+
+Evie was not to be married from Ducie Street. She had a fancy for
+something rural, and, besides, no one would be in London then, so
+she left her boxes for a few weeks at Oniton Grange, and her
+banns were duly published in the parish church, and for a couple
+of days the little town, dreaming between the ruddy hills, was
+roused by the clang of our civilisation, and drew up by the
+roadside to let the motors pass. Oniton had been a discovery of
+Mr. Wilcox's--a discovery of which he was not altogether proud.
+It was up towards the Welsh border, and so difficult of access
+that he had concluded it must be something special. A ruined
+castle stood in the grounds. But having got there, what was one
+to do? The shooting was bad, the fishing indifferent, and
+womenfolk reported the scenery as nothing much. The place turned
+out to be in the wrong part of Shropshire, and though he never
+ran down his own property to others, he was only waiting to get
+it off his hands, and then to let fly. Evie's marriage was its
+last appearance in public. As soon as a tenant was found, it
+became a house for which he never had had much use, and had less
+now, and, like Howards End, faded into Limbo.
+
+But on Margaret Oniton was destined to make a lasting impression.
+She regarded it as her future home, and was anxious to start
+straight with the clergy, etc., and, if possible, to see
+something of the local life. It was a market-town--as tiny a one
+as England possesses--and had for ages served that lonely valley,
+and guarded our marches against the Celt. In spite of the
+occasion, in spite of the numbing hilarity that greeted her as
+soon as she got into the reserved saloon at Paddington, her
+senses were awake and watching, and though Oniton was to prove
+one of her innumerable false starts, she never forgot it, or the
+things that happened there.
+
+The London party only numbered eight--the Fussells, father and
+son, two Anglo-Indian ladies named Mrs. Plynlimmon and Lady
+Edser, Mrs. Warrington Wilcox and her daughter, and, lastly, the
+little girl, very smart and quiet, who figures at so many
+weddings, and who kept a watchful eye on Margaret, the
+bride-elect. Dolly was absent--a domestic event detained her at
+Hilton; Paul had cabled a humorous message; Charles was to meet
+them with a trio of motors at Shrewsbury; Helen had refused her
+invitation; Tibby had never answered his. The management was
+excellent, as was to be expected with anything that Henry
+undertook; one was conscious of his sensible and generous brain
+in the background. They were his guests as soon as they reached
+the train; a special label for their luggage; a courier; a
+special lunch; they had only to look pleasant and, where
+possible, pretty. Margaret thought with dismay of her own
+nuptials--presumably under the management of Tibby. "Mr. Theobald
+Schlegel and Miss Helen Schlegel request the pleasure of Mrs.
+Plynlimmon's company on the occasion of the marriage of their
+sister Margaret." The formula was incredible, but it must soon be
+printed and sent, and though Wickham Place need not compete with
+Oniton, it must feed its guests properly, and provide them with
+sufficient chairs. Her wedding would either be ramshackly or
+bourgeois--she hoped the latter. Such an affair as the present,
+staged with a deftness that was almost beautiful, lay beyond her
+powers and those of her friends.
+
+The low rich purr of a Great Western express is not the worst
+background for conversation, and the journey passed pleasantly
+enough. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness of the two men.
+They raised windows for some ladies, and lowered them for others,
+they rang the bell for the servant, they identified the colleges
+as the train slipped past Oxford, they caught books or bag-purses
+in the act of tumbling on to the floor. Yet there was nothing
+finicking about their politeness--it had the public-school touch,
+and, though sedulous, was virile. More battles than Waterloo have
+been won on our playing-fields, and Margaret bowed to a charm of
+which she did not wholly approve, and said nothing when the
+Oxford colleges were identified wrongly. "Male and female created
+He them"; the journey to Shrewsbury confirmed this questionable
+statement, and the long glass saloon, that moved so easily and
+felt so comfortable, became a forcing-house for the idea of sex.
+
+At Shrewsbury came fresh air. Margaret was all for sight-seeing,
+and while the others were finishing their tea at the Raven, she
+annexed a motor and hurried over the astonishing city. Her
+chauffeur was not the faithful Crane, but an Italian, who dearly
+loved making her late. Charles, watch in hand, though with a
+level brow, was standing in front of the hotel when they
+returned. It was perfectly all right, he told her; she was by no
+means the last. And then he dived into the coffee-room, and she
+heard him say, "For God's sake, hurry the women up; we shall
+never be off," and Albert Fussell reply, "Not I; I've done my
+share," and Colonel Fussell opine that the ladies were getting
+themselves up to kill. Presently Myra (Mrs. Warrington's
+daughter) appeared, and as she was his cousin, Charles blew her
+up a little; she had been changing her smart travelling hat for a
+smart motor hat. Then Mrs. Warrington herself, leading the quiet
+child; the two Anglo-Indian ladies were always last. Maids,
+courier, heavy luggage, had already gone on by a branch-line to a
+station nearer Oniton, but there were five hat-boxes and four
+dressing-bags to be packed, and five dust-cloaks to be put on,
+and to be put off at the last moment, because Charles declared
+them not necessary. The men presided over everything with
+unfailing good-humour. By half-past five the party was ready, and
+went out of Shrewsbury by the Welsh Bridge.
+
+Shropshire had not the reticence of Hertfordshire. Though robbed
+of half its magic by swift movement, it still conveyed the sense
+of hills. They were nearing the buttresses that force the Severn
+eastward and make it an English stream, and the sun, sinking over
+the Sentinels of Wales, was straight in their eyes. Having picked
+up another guest, they turned southward, avoiding the greater
+mountains, but conscious of an occasional summit, rounded and
+mild, whose colouring differed in quality from that of the lower
+earth, and whose contours altered more slowly. Quiet mysteries
+were in progress behind those tossing horizons: the West, as
+ever, was retreating with some secret which may not be worth the
+discovery, but which no practical man will ever discover.
+
+They spoke of Tariff Reform.
+
+Mrs. Warrington was just back from the Colonies. Like many other
+critics of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she
+could only exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been
+received, and warn the Mother Country against trifling with young
+Titans. "They threaten to cut the painter," she cried, "and where
+shall we be then? Miss Schlegel, you'll undertake to keep Henry
+sound about Tariff Reform? It is our last hope."
+
+Margaret playfully confessed herself on the other side, and they
+began to quote from their respective handbooks while the motor
+carried them deep into the hills. Curious these were rather than
+impressive, for their outlines lacked beauty, and the pink fields
+on their summits suggested the handkerchiefs of a giant spread
+out to dry. An occasional outcrop of rock, an occasional wood, an
+occasional "forest," treeless and brown, all hinted at wildness
+to follow, but the main colour was an agricultural green. The air
+grew cooler; they had surmounted the last gradient, and Oniton
+lay below them with its church, its radiating houses, its castle,
+its river-girt peninsula. Close to the castle was a grey mansion
+unintellectual but kindly, stretching with its grounds across the
+peninsula's neck--the sort of mansion that was built all over
+England in the beginning of the last century, while architecture
+was still an expression of the national character. That was the
+Grange, remarked Albert, over his shoulder, and then he jammed
+the brake on, and the motor slowed down and stopped. "I'm sorry,"
+said he, turning round. "Do you mind getting out--by the door on
+the right. Steady on."
+
+"What's happened?" asked Mrs. Warrington.
+
+Then the car behind them drew up, and the voice of Charles was
+heard saying: "Get the women out at once." There was a concourse
+of males, and Margaret and her companions were hustled out and
+received into the second car. What had happened? As it started
+off again, the door of a cottage opened, and a girl screamed
+wildly at them.
+
+"What is it?" the ladies cried.
+
+Charles drove them a hundred yards without speaking. Then he
+said: "It's all right. Your car just touched a dog."
+
+"But stop!" cried Margaret, horrified.
+
+"It didn't hurt him."
+
+"Didn't really hurt him?" asked Myra.
+
+"No."
+
+"Do PLEASE stop!" said Margaret, leaning forward. She was
+standing up in the car, the other occupants holding her knees to
+steady her. "I want to go back, please."
+
+Charles took no notice.
+
+"We've left Mr. Fussell behind," said another; "and Angelo, and
+Crane."
+
+"Yes, but no woman."
+
+"I expect a little of "--Mrs. Warrington scratched her palm--
+"will be more to the point than one of us!"
+
+"The insurance company see to that," remarked Charles, "and
+Albert will do the talking."
+
+"I want to go back, though, I say!" repeated Margaret, getting
+angry.
+
+Charles took no notice. The motor, loaded with refugees,
+continued to travel very slowly down the hill. "The men are
+there," chorused the others. "They will see to it."
+
+"The men CAN'T see to it. Oh, this is ridiculous! Charles, I ask
+you to stop."
+
+"Stopping's no good," drawled Charles.
+
+"Isn't it?" said Margaret, and jumped straight out of the car.
+She fell on her knees, cut her gloves, shook her hat over her
+ear. Cries of alarm followed her. "You've hurt yourself,"
+exclaimed Charles, jumping after her.
+
+"Of course I've hurt myself!" she retorted.
+
+"May I ask what--"
+
+"There's nothing to ask," said Margaret.
+
+"Your hand's bleeding."
+
+"I know."
+
+"I'm in for a frightful row from the pater."
+
+"You should have thought of that sooner, Charles."
+
+Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman
+in revolt who was hobbling away from him--and the sight was too
+strange to leave any room for anger. He recovered himself when
+the others caught them up: their sort he understood. He commanded
+them to go back.
+
+Albert Fussell was seen walking towards them.
+
+"It's all right!" he called. "It was a cat."
+
+"There!" exclaimed Charles triumphantly. "It's only a rotten
+cat."
+
+"Got room in your car for a little un? I cut as soon as I saw it
+wasn't a dog; the chauffeurs are tackling the girl." But Margaret
+walked forward steadily. Why should the chauffeurs tackle the
+girl? Ladies sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind
+servants--the whole system's wrong, and she must challenge it.
+
+"Miss Schlegel! 'Pon my word, you've hurt your hand."
+
+"I'm just going to see," said Margaret. "Don't you wait, Mr.
+Fussell."
+
+The second motor came round the corner. "It is all right, madam,"
+said Crane in his turn. He had taken to calling her madam.
+
+"What's all right? The cat?"
+
+"Yes, madam. The girl will receive compensation for it."
+
+"She was a very ruda girla," said Angelo from the third motor
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Wouldn't you have been rude?"
+
+The Italian spread out his hands, implying that he had not
+thought of rudeness, but would produce it if it pleased her. The
+situation became absurd. The gentlemen were again buzzing round
+Miss Schlegel with offers of assistance, and Lady Edser began to
+bind up her hand. She yielded, apologising slightly, and was led
+back to the car, and soon the landscape resumed its motion, the
+lonely cottage disappeared, the castle swelled on its cushion of
+turf, and they had arrived. No doubt she had disgraced herself.
+But she felt their whole journey from London had been unreal.
+They had no part with the earth and its emotions. They were dust,
+and a stink, and cosmopolitan chatter, and the girl whose cat had
+been killed had lived more deeply than they.
+
+"Oh, Henry," she exclaimed, "I have been so naughty," for she had
+decided to take up this line. "We ran over a cat. Charles told me
+not to jump out, but I would, and look!" She held out her
+bandaged hand. "Your poor Meg went such a flop."
+
+Mr. Wilcox looked bewildered. In evening dress, he was standing
+to welcome his guests in the hall.
+
+"Thinking it was a dog." added Mrs. Warrington.
+
+"Ah, a dog's a companion!" said Colonel Fussell "A dog'll
+remember you."
+
+"Have you hurt yourself, Margaret?"
+
+"Not to speak about; and it's my left hand."
+
+"Well, hurry up and change."
+
+She obeyed, as did the others. Mr. Wilcox then turned to his son.
+
+"Now, Charles, what's happened?'
+
+Charles was absolutely honest. He described what he believed to
+have happened. Albert had flattened out a cat, and Miss Schlegel
+had lost her nerve, as any woman might. She had been got safely
+into the other car, but when it was in motion had leapt out
+again, in spite of all that they could say. After walking a
+little on the road, she had calmed down and had said that she was
+sorry. His father accepted this explanation, and neither knew
+that Margaret had artfully prepared the way for it. It fitted in
+too well with their view of feminine nature. In the smoking-room,
+after dinner, the Colonel put forward the view that Miss Schlegel
+had jumped it out of devilry. Well he remembered as a young man,
+in the harbour of Gibraltar once, how a girl--a handsome girl,
+too--had jumped overboard for a bet. He could see her now, and
+all the lads overboard after her. But Charles and Mr. Wilcox
+agreed it was much more probably nerves in Miss Schlegel's case.
+Charles was depressed. That woman had a tongue. She would bring
+worse disgrace on his father before she had done with them. He
+strolled out on to the castle mound to think the matter over. The
+evening was exquisite. On three sides of him a little river
+whispered, full of messages from the West; above his head the
+ruins made patterns against the sky. He carefully reviewed their
+dealings with this family, until he fitted Helen, and Margaret,
+and Aunt Juley into an orderly conspiracy. Paternity had made him
+suspicious. He had two children to look after, and more coming,
+and day by day they seemed less likely to grow up rich men. "It
+is all very well," he reflected, "the pater's saying that he will
+be just to all, but one can't be just indefinitely. Money isn't
+elastic. What's to happen if Evie has a family? And, come to
+that, so may the pater. There'll not be enough to go round, for
+there's none coming in, either through Dolly or Percy. It's
+damnable!" He looked enviously at the Grange, whose windows
+poured light and laughter. First and last, this wedding would
+cost a pretty penny. Two ladies were strolling up and down the
+garden terrace, and as the syllables "Imperialism" were wafted to
+his ears, he guessed that one of them was his aunt. She might
+have helped him, if she too had not had a family to provide for.
+"Every one for himself," he repeated--a maxim which had cheered
+him in the past, but which rang grimly enough among the ruins of
+Oniton. He lacked his father's ability in business, and so had an
+ever higher regard for money; unless he could inherit plenty, he
+feared to leave his children poor.
+
+As he sat thinking, one of the ladies left the terrace and walked
+into the meadow; he recognised her as Margaret by the white
+bandage that gleamed on her arm, and put out his cigar, lest the
+gleam should betray him. She climbed up the mound in zigzags, and
+at times stooped down, as if she was stroking the turf. It sounds
+absolutely incredible, but for a moment Charles thought that she
+was in love with him, and had come out to tempt him. Charles
+believed in temptresses, who are indeed the strong man's
+necessary complement, and having no sense of humour, he could not
+purge himself of the thought by a smile. Margaret, who was
+engaged to his father, and his sister's wedding-guest, kept on
+her way without noticing him, and he admitted that he had wronged
+her on this point. But what was she doing? Why was she stumbling
+about amongst the rubble and catching her dress in brambles and
+burrs? As she edged round the keep, she must have got to windward
+and smelt his cigar-smoke, for she exclaimed, "Hullo! Who's
+that?"
+
+Charles made no answer.
+
+"Saxon or Celt?" she continued, laughing in the darkness. "But it
+doesn't matter. Whichever you are, you will have to listen to me.
+I love this place. I love Shropshire. I hate London. I am glad
+that this will be my home. Ah, dear"--she was now moving back
+towards the house--"what a comfort to have arrived!"
+
+"That woman means mischief," thought Charles, and compressed his
+lips. In a few minutes he followed her indoors, as the ground was
+getting damp. Mists were rising from the river, and presently it
+became invisible, though it whispered more loudly. There had been
+a heavy downpour in the Welsh hills.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula. The weather
+promised well, and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer
+each moment that Margaret watched it. Presently she saw the keep,
+and the sun painted the rubble gold, and charged the white sky
+with blue. The shadow of the house gathered itself together, and
+fell over the garden. A cat looked up at her window and mewed.
+Lastly the river appeared, still holding the mists between its
+banks and its overhanging alders, and only visible as far as a
+hill, which cut off its upper reaches.
+
+Margaret was fascinated by Oniton. She had said that she loved
+it, but it was rather its romantic tension that held her. The
+rounded Druids of whom she had caught glimpses in her drive, the
+rivers hurrying down from them to England, the carelessly
+modelled masses of the lower hills, thrilled her with poetry. The
+house was insignificant, but the prospect from it would be an
+eternal joy, and she thought of all the friends she would have to
+stop in it, and of the conversion of Henry himself to a rural
+life. Society, too, promised favourably. The rector of the parish
+had dined with them last night, and she found that he was a
+friend of her father's, and so knew what to find in her. She
+liked him. He would introduce her to the town. While, on her
+other side, Sir James Bidder sat, repeating that she only had to
+give the word, and he would whip up the county families for
+twenty miles round. Whether Sir James, who was Garden Seeds, had
+promised what he could perform, she doubted, but so long as Henry
+mistook them for the county families when they did call, she was
+content.
+
+Charles Wilcox and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn. They were
+going for a morning dip, and a servant followed them with their
+bathing-suits. She had meant to take a stroll herself before
+breakfast, but saw that the day was still sacred to men, and
+amused herself by watching their contretemps. In the first place
+the key of the bathing-shed could not be found. Charles stood by
+the riverside with folded hands, tragical, while the servant
+shouted, and was misunderstood by another servant in the garden.
+Then came a difficulty about a springboard, and soon three people
+were running backwards and forwards over the meadow, with orders
+and counter orders and recriminations and apologies. If Margaret
+wanted to jump from a motor-car, she jumped; if Tibby thought
+paddling would benefit his ankles, he paddled; if a clerk desired
+adventure, he took a walk in the dark. But these athletes seemed
+paralysed. They could not bathe without their appliances, though
+the morning sun was calling and the last mists were rising from
+the dimpling stream. Had they found the life of the body after
+all? Could not the men whom they despised as milksops beat them,
+even on their own ground?
+
+She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her
+day--no worrying of servants, no appliances, beyond good sense.
+Her reflections were disturbed by the quiet child, who had come
+out to speak to the cat, but was now watching her watch the men.
+She called, "Good-morning, dear," a little sharply. Her voice
+spread consternation. Charles looked round, and though completely
+attired in indigo blue, vanished into the shed, and was seen no
+more.
+
+"Miss Wilcox is up--" the child whispered, and then became
+unintelligible.
+
+"What is that?" it sounded like, "--cut-yoke--sack-back--"
+
+"I can't hear."
+
+"--On the bed--tissue-paper--"
+
+Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view, and that a visit
+would be seemly, she went to Evie's room. All was hilarity here.
+Evie, in a petticoat, was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian
+ladies, while the other was adoring yards of white satin. They
+screamed, they laughed, they sang, and the dog barked.
+
+Margaret screamed a little too, but without conviction. She could
+not feel that a wedding was so funny. Perhaps something was
+missing in her equipment.
+
+Evie gasped: "Dolly is a rotter not to be here! Oh, we would rag
+just then!" Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
+
+Henry was already installed; he ate slowly and spoke little, and
+was, in Margaret's eyes, the only member of their party who
+dodged emotion successfully. She could not suppose him
+indifferent either to the loss of his daughter or to the presence
+of his future wife. Yet he dwelt intact, only issuing orders
+occasionally--orders that promoted the comfort of his guests. He
+inquired after her hand; he set her to pour out the coffee and
+Mrs. Warrington to pour out the tea. When Evie came down there
+was a moment's awkwardness, and both ladies rose to vacate their
+places. "Burton," called Henry, "serve tea and coffee from the
+sideboard!" It wasn't genuine tact, but it was tact, of a sort--
+the sort that is as useful as the genuine, and saves even more
+situations at Board meetings. Henry treated a marriage like a
+funeral, item by item, never raising his eyes to the whole, and
+"Death, where is thy sting? Love, where is thy victory?" one
+would exclaim at the close.
+
+After breakfast Margaret claimed a few words with him. It was
+always best to approach him formally. She asked for the
+interview, because he was going on to shoot grouse to-morrow, and
+she was returning to Helen in town.
+
+"Certainly, dear," said he. "Of course, I have the time. What do
+you want?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"I was afraid something had gone wrong."
+
+"No; I have nothing to say, but you may talk."
+
+Glancing at his watch, he talked of the nasty curve at the
+lych-gate. She heard him with interest. Her surface could always
+respond to his without contempt, though all her deeper being
+might be yearning to help him. She had abandoned any plan of
+action. Love is the best, and the more she let herself love him,
+the more chance was there that he would set his soul in order.
+Such a moment as this, when they sat under fair weather by the
+walks of their future home, was so sweet to her that its
+sweetness would surely pierce to him. Each lift of his eyes, each
+parting of the thatched lip from the clean-shaven, must prelude
+the tenderness that kills the Monk and the Beast at a single
+blow. Disappointed a hundred times, she still hoped. She loved
+him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness. Whether he
+droned trivialities, as to-day, or sprang kisses on her in the
+twilight, she could pardon him, she could respond.
+
+"If there is this nasty curve," she suggested, "couldn't we walk
+to the church? Not, of course, you and Evie; but the rest of us
+might very well go on first, and that would mean fewer
+carriages."
+
+"One can't have ladies walking through the Market Square. The
+Fussells wouldn't like it; they were awfully particular at
+Charles's wedding. My--she--our party was anxious to walk, and
+certainly the church was just round the corner, and I shouldn't
+have minded; but the Colonel made a great point of it."
+
+"You men shouldn't be so chivalrous," said Margaret thoughtfully.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+She knew why not, but said that she did not know. He then
+announced that, unless she had anything special to say, he must
+visit the wine-cellar, and they went off together in search of
+Burton. Though clumsy and a little inconvenient, Oniton was a
+genuine country-house. They clattered down flagged passages,
+looking into room after room, and scaring unknown maids from the
+performance of obscure duties. The wedding-breakfast must be in
+readiness when they come back from church, and tea would be
+served in the garden. The sight of so many agitated and serious
+people made Margaret smile, but she reflected that they were paid
+to be serious, and enjoyed being agitated. Here were the lower
+wheels of the machine that was tossing Evie up into nuptial
+glory. A little boy blocked their way with pig-pails. His mind
+could not grasp their greatness, and he said: "By your leave; let
+me pass, please." Henry asked him where Burton was. But the
+servants were so new that they did not know one another's names.
+In the still-room sat the band, who had stipulated for champagne
+as part of their fee, and who were already drinking beer. Scents
+of Araby came from the kitchen, mingled with cries. Margaret knew
+what had happened there, for it happened at Wickham Place. One of
+the wedding dishes had boiled over, and the cook was throwing
+cedar-shavings to hide the smell. At last they came upon the
+butler. Henry gave him the keys, and handed Margaret down the
+cellar-stairs. Two doors were unlocked. She, who kept all her
+wine at the bottom of the linen-cupboard, was astonished at the
+sight. "We shall never get through it!" she cried, and the two
+men were suddenly drawn into brotherhood, and exchanged smiles.
+She felt as if she had again jumped out of the car while it was
+moving.
+
+Certainly Oniton would take some digesting. It would be no small
+business to remain herself, and yet to assimilate such an
+establishment. She must remain herself, for his sake as well as
+her own, since a shadowy wife degrades the husband whom she
+accompanies; and she must assimilate for reasons of common
+honesty, since she had no right to marry a man and make him
+uncomfortable. Her only ally was the power of Home. The loss of
+Wickham Place had taught her more than its possession. Howards
+End had repeated the lesson. She was determined to create new
+sanctities among these hills.
+
+After visiting the wine-cellar, she dressed, and then came the
+wedding, which seemed a small affair when compared with the
+preparations for it. Everything went like one o'clock. Mr. Cahill
+materialised out of space, and was waiting for his bride at the
+church door. No one dropped the ring or mispronounced the
+responses, or trod on Evie's train, or cried. In a few minutes
+the clergymen performed their duty, the register was signed, and
+they were back in their carriages, negotiating the dangerous
+curve by the lych-gate. Margaret was convinced that they had not
+been married at all, and that the Norman church had been intent
+all the time on other business.
+
+There were more documents to sign at the house, and the breakfast
+to eat, and then a few more people dropped in for the garden
+party. There had been a great many refusals, and after all it was
+not a very big affair--not as big as Margaret's would be. She
+noted the dishes and the strips of red carpet, that outwardly she
+might give Henry what was proper. But inwardly she hoped for
+something better than this blend of Sunday church and
+fox-hunting. If only some one had been upset! But this wedding
+had gone off so particularly well--"quite like a durbar" in the
+opinion of Lady Edser, and she thoroughly agreed with her.
+
+So the wasted day lumbered forward, the bride and bridegroom
+drove off, yelling with laughter, and for the second time the sun
+retreated towards the hills of Wales. Henry, who was more tired
+than he owned, came up to her in the castle meadow, and, in tones
+of unusual softness, said that he was pleased. Everything had
+gone off so well. She felt that he was praising her, too, and
+blushed; certainly she had done all she could with his
+intractable friends, and had made a special point of kotowing to
+the men. They were breaking camp this evening; only the
+Warringtons and quiet child would stay the night, and the others
+were already moving towards the house to finish their packing. "I
+think it did go off well," she agreed. "Since I had to jump out
+of the motor, I'm thankful I lighted on my left hand. I am so
+very glad about it, Henry dear; I only hope that the guests at
+ours may be half as comfortable. You must all remember that we
+have no practical person among us, except my aunt, and she is not
+used to entertainments on a large scale."
+
+"I know," he said gravely. "Under the circumstances, it would be
+better to put everything into the hands of Harrods or Whiteley's,
+or even to go to some hotel."
+
+"You desire a hotel?"
+
+"Yes, because--well, I mustn't interfere with you. No doubt you
+want to be married from your old home."
+
+"My old home's falling into pieces, Henry. I only want my new.
+Isn't it a perfect evening--"
+
+"The Alexandrina isn't bad--"
+
+"The Alexandrina," she echoed, more occupied with the threads of
+smoke that were issuing from their chimneys, and ruling the
+sunlit slopes with parallels of grey.
+
+"It's off Curzon Street."
+
+"Is it? Let's be married from off Curzon Street."
+
+Then she turned westward, to gaze at the swirling gold. Just
+where the river rounded the hill the sun caught it. Fairyland
+must lie above the bend, and its precious liquid was pouring
+towards them past Charles's bathing-shed. She gazed so long that
+her eyes were dazzled, and when they moved back to the house, she
+could not recognise the faces of people who were coming out of
+it. A parlour-maid was preceding them.
+
+"Who are those people?" she asked.
+
+"They're callers!" exclaimed Henry. "It's too late for callers."
+
+"Perhaps they're town people who want to see the wedding
+presents."
+
+"I'm not at home yet to townees."
+
+"Well, hide among the ruins, and if I can stop them, I will."
+
+He thanked her.
+
+Margaret went forward, smiling socially. She supposed that these
+were unpunctual guests, who would have to be content with
+vicarious civility, since Evie and Charles were gone, Henry
+tired, and the others in their rooms. She assumed the airs of a
+hostess; not for long. For one of the group was Helen--Helen in
+her oldest clothes, and dominated by that tense, wounding
+excitement that had made her a terror in their nursery days.
+
+"What is it?" she called. "Oh, what's wrong? Is Tibby ill?"
+
+Helen spoke to her two companions, who fell back. Then she bore
+forward furiously.
+
+"They're starving!" she shouted. "I found them starving!"
+
+"Who? Why have you come?"
+
+"The Basts."
+
+"Oh, Helen!" moaned Margaret. "Whatever have you done now?"
+
+"He has lost his place. He has been turned out of his bank. Yes,
+he's done for. We upper classes have ruined him, and I suppose
+you'll tell me it's the battle of life. Starving. His wife is
+ill. Starving. She fainted in the train."
+
+"Helen, are you mad?"
+
+"Perhaps. Yes. If you like, I'm mad. But I've brought them. I'll
+stand injustice no longer. I'll show up the wretchedness that
+lies under this luxury, this talk of impersonal forces, this cant
+about God doing what we're too slack to do ourselves."
+
+"Have you actually brought two starving people from London to
+Shropshire, Helen?"
+
+Helen was checked. She had not thought of this, and her hysteria
+abated. "There was a restaurant car on the train," she said.
+
+"Don't be absurd. They aren't starving, and you know it. Now,
+begin from the beginning. I won't have such theatrical nonsense.
+How dare you! Yes, how dare you!" she repeated, as anger filled
+her, "bursting in to Evie's wedding in this heartless way. My
+goodness! but you've a perverted notion of philanthropy. Look"--
+she indicated the house--"servants, people out of the windows.
+They think it's some vulgar scandal, and I must explain, 'Oh no,
+it's only my sister screaming, and only two hangers-on of ours,
+whom she has brought here for no conceivable reason.'"
+
+"Kindly take back that word 'hangers-on,'" said Helen, ominously
+calm.
+
+"Very well," conceded Margaret, who for all her wrath was
+determined to avoid a real quarrel. "I, too, am sorry about them,
+but it beats me why you've brought them here, or why you're here
+yourself."
+
+"It's our last chance of seeing Mr. Wilcox."
+
+Margaret moved towards the house at this. She was determined not
+to worry Henry.
+
+"He's going to Scotland. I know he is. I insist on seeing him."
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"I knew it was our last chance."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Bast?" said Margaret, trying to control her
+voice. "This is an odd business. What view do you take of it?"
+
+"There is Mrs. Bast, too," prompted Helen.
+
+Jacky also shook hands. She, like her husband, was shy, and,
+furthermore, ill, and furthermore, so bestially stupid that she
+could not grasp what was happening. She only knew that the lady
+had swept down like a whirlwind last night, had paid the rent,
+redeemed the furniture, provided them with a dinner and a
+breakfast, and ordered them to meet her at Paddington next
+morning. Leonard had feebly protested, and when the morning came,
+had suggested that they shouldn't go. But she, half mesmerised,
+had obeyed. The lady had told them to, and they must, and their
+bed-sitting-room had accordingly changed into Paddington, and
+Paddington into a railway carriage, that shook, and grew hot, and
+grew cold, and vanished entirely, and reappeared amid torrents of
+expensive scent. "You have fainted," said the lady in an
+awe-struck voice. "Perhaps the air will do you good." And perhaps
+it had, for here she was, feeling rather better among a lot of
+flowers.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want to intrude," began Leonard, in answer to
+Margaret's question. "But you have been so kind to me in the past
+in warning me about the Porphyrion that I wondered--why, I
+wondered whether--"
+
+"Whether we could get him back into the Porphyrion again,"
+supplied Helen. "Meg, this has been a cheerful business. A
+bright evening's work that was on Chelsea Embankment."
+
+Margaret shook her head and returned to Mr. Bast.
+
+"I don't understand. You left the Porphyrion because we suggested
+it was a bad concern, didn't you?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"And went into a bank instead?"
+
+"I told you all that," said Helen; "and they reduced their staff
+after he had been in a month, and now he's penniless, and I
+consider that we and our informant are directly to blame."
+
+"I hate all this," Leonard muttered.
+
+"I hope you do, Mr. Bast. But it's no good mincing matters. You
+have done yourself no good by coming here. If you intend to
+confront Mr. Wilcox, and to call him to account for a chance
+remark, you will make a very great mistake."
+
+"I brought them. I did it all," cried Helen.
+
+"I can only advise you to go at once. My sister has put you in a
+false position, and it is kindest to tell you so. It's too late
+to get to town, but you'll find a comfortable hotel in Oniton,
+where Mrs. Bast can rest, and I hope you'll be my guests there."
+
+"That isn't what I want, Miss Schlegel," said Leonard. "You're
+very kind, and no doubt it's a false position, but you make me
+miserable. I seem no good at all."
+
+"It's work he wants," interpreted Helen. "Can't you see?"
+
+Then he said: "Jacky, let's go. We're more bother than we're
+worth. We're costing these ladies pounds and pounds already to
+get work for us, and they never will. There's nothing we're good
+enough to do."
+
+"We would like to find you work," said Margaret rather
+conventionally. "We want to--I, like my sister. You're only down
+in your luck. Go to the hotel, have a good night's rest, and some
+day you shall pay me back the bill, if you prefer it."
+
+But Leonard was near the abyss, and at such moments men see
+clearly. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said. "I
+shall never get work now. If rich people fail at one profession,
+they can try another. Not I. I had my groove, and I've got out of
+it. I could do one particular branch of insurance in one
+particular office well enough to command a salary, but that's
+all. Poetry's nothing, Miss Schlegel. One's thoughts about this
+and that are nothing. Your money, too, is nothing, if you'll
+understand me. I mean if a man over twenty once loses his own
+particular job, it's all over with him. I have seen it happen to
+others. Their friends gave them money for a little, but in the
+end they fall over the edge. It's no good. It's the whole world
+pulling. There always will be rich and poor."
+
+He ceased. "Won't you have something to eat?" said Margaret. "I
+don't know what to do. It isn't my house, and though Mr. Wilcox
+would have been glad to see you at any other time--as I say, I
+don't know what to do, but I undertake to do what I can for you.
+Helen, offer them something. Do try a sandwich, Mrs. Bast."
+
+They moved to a long table behind which a servant was still
+standing. Iced cakes, sandwiches innumerable, coffee, claret-cup,
+champagne, remained almost intact; their overfed guests could do
+no more. Leonard refused. Jacky thought she could manage a
+little. Margaret left them whispering together, and had a few
+more words with Helen.
+
+She said: "Helen, I like Mr. Bast. I agree that he's worth
+helping. I agree that we are directly responsible."
+
+"No, indirectly. Via Mr. Wilcox."
+
+"Let me tell you once for all that if you take up that attitude,
+I'll do nothing. No doubt you're right logically, and are
+entitled to say a great many scathing things about Henry. Only, I
+won't have it. So choose."
+
+Helen looked at the sunset.
+
+"If you promise to take them quietly to the George I will speak
+to Henry about them--in my own way, mind; there is to be none of
+this absurd screaming about justice. I have no use for justice.
+If it was only a question of money, we could do it ourselves. But
+he wants work, and that we can't give him, but possibly Henry
+can."
+
+"It's his duty to," grumbled Helen.
+
+"Nor am I concerned with duty. I'm concerned with the characters
+of various people whom we know, and how, things being as they
+are, things may be made a little better. Mr. Wilcox hates being
+asked favours; all business men do. But I am going to ask him, at
+the risk of a rebuff, because I want to make things a little
+better."
+
+"Very well. I promise. You take it very calmly."
+
+"Take them off to the George, then, and I'll try. Poor creatures!
+but they look tired." As they parted, she added: "I haven't
+nearly done with you, though, Helen. You have been most
+self-indulgent. I can't get over it. You have less restraint
+rather than more as you grow older. Think it over and alter
+yourself, or we shan't have happy lives."
+
+She rejoined Henry. Fortunately he had been sitting down: these
+physical matters were important. "Was it townees?" he asked,
+greeting her with a pleasant smile.
+
+"You'll never believe me," said Margaret, sitting down beside
+him. "It's all right now, but it was my sister."
+
+"Helen here?" he cried, preparing to rise. "But she refused the
+invitation. I thought hated weddings."
+
+"Don't get up. She has not come to the wedding. I've bundled her
+off to the George."
+
+Inherently hospitable, he protested.
+
+"No; she has two of her proteges with her and must keep with
+them."
+
+"Let 'em all come."
+
+"My dear Henry, did you see them?"
+
+"I did catch sight of a brown bunch of a woman, certainly."
+
+"The brown bunch was Helen, but did you catch sight of a
+sea-green and salmon bunch?"
+
+"What! are they out bean-feasting?"
+
+"No; business. They wanted to see me, and later on I want to talk
+to you about them."
+
+She was ashamed of her own diplomacy. In dealing with a Wilcox,
+how tempting it was to lapse from comradeship, and to give him
+the kind of woman that he desired! Henry took the hint at once,
+and said: "Why later on? Tell me now. No time like the present."
+
+"Shall I?"
+
+"If it isn't a long story."
+
+"Oh, not five minutes; but there's a sting at the end of it, for
+I want you to find the man some work in your office."
+
+"What are his qualifications?"
+
+"I don't know. He's a clerk."
+
+"How old?"
+
+"Twenty-five, perhaps."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Bast," said Margaret, and was about to remind him that they had
+met at Wickham Place, but stopped herself. It had not been a
+successful meeting.
+
+"Where was he before?"
+
+"Dempster's Bank."
+
+"Why did he leave?" he asked, still remembering nothing.
+
+"They reduced their staff."
+
+"All right; I'll see him."
+
+It was the reward of her tact and devotion through the day. Now
+she understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs.
+Plynlimmon, when condemning suffragettes, had said: "The woman
+who can't influence her husband to vote the way she wants ought
+to be ashamed of herself." Margaret had winced, but she was
+influencing Henry now, and though pleased at her little victory,
+she knew that she had won it by the methods of the harem.
+
+"I should be glad if you took him," she said, "but I don't know
+whether he's qualified."
+
+"I'll do what I can. But, Margaret, this mustn't be taken as a
+precedent."
+
+"No, of course--of course--"
+
+"I can't fit in your proteges every day. Business would suffer."
+
+"I can promise you he's the last. He--he's rather a special
+case."
+
+"Proteges always are."
+
+She let it stand at that. He rose with a little extra touch of
+complacency, and held out his hand to help her up. How wide the
+gulf between Henry as he was and Henry as Helen thought he ought
+to be! And she herself--hovering as usual between the two, now
+accepting men as they are, now yearning with her sister for
+Truth. Love and Truth--their warfare seems eternal perhaps the
+whole visible world rests on it, and if they were one, life
+itself, like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled to his
+brother, might vanish into air, into thin air.
+
+"Your protege has made us late," said he. "The Fussells--will
+just be starting."
+
+On the whole she sided with men as they are. Henry would save the
+Basts as he had saved Howards End, while Helen and her friends
+were discussing the ethics of salvation. His was a slap-dash
+method, but the world has been built slap-dash, and the beauty of
+mountain and river and sunset may be but the varnish with which
+the unskilled artificer hides his joins. Oniton, like herself,
+was imperfect. Its apple-trees were stunted, its castle ruinous.
+It, too, had suffered in the border warfare between the
+Anglo-Saxon and the Celt, between things as they are and as they
+ought to be. Once more the west was retreating, once again the
+orderly stars were dotting the eastern sky. There is certainly no
+rest for us on the earth. But there is happiness, and as Margaret
+descended the mound on her lover's arm, she felt that she was
+having her share.
+
+To her annoyance, Mrs. Bast was still in the garden; the husband
+and Helen had left her there to finish her meal while they went
+to engage rooms. Margaret found this woman repellent. She had
+felt, when shaking her hand, an overpowering shame. She
+remembered the motive of her call at Wickham Place, and smelt
+again odours from the abyss--odours the more disturbing because
+they were involuntary. For there was no malice in Jacky. There
+she sat, a piece of cake in one hand, an empty champagne glass in
+the other, doing no harm to anybody.
+
+"She's overtired," Margaret whispered.
+
+"She's something else," said Henry. "This won't do. I can't have
+her in my garden in this state."
+
+"Is she--" Margaret hesitated to add "drunk." Now that she was
+going to marry him, he had grown particular. He discountenanced
+risque conversations now.
+
+Henry went up to the woman. She raised her face, which gleamed in
+the twilight like a puff-ball.
+
+"Madam, you will be more comfortable at the hotel," he said
+sharply.
+
+Jacky replied: "If it isn't Hen!"
+
+"Ne crois pas que le mari lui ressemble," apologised Margaret.
+"Il est tout a fait different."
+
+"Henry!" she repeated, quite distinctly.
+
+Mr. Wilcox was much annoyed. "I congratulate you on your
+proteges," he remarked.
+
+"Hen, don't go. You do love me, dear, don't you?"
+
+"Bless us, what a person!" sighed Margaret, gathering up her
+skirts.
+
+Jacky pointed with her cake. "You're a nice boy, you are." She
+yawned. "There now, I love you."
+
+"Henry, I am awfully sorry."
+
+"And pray why?" he asked, and looked at her so sternly that she
+feared he was ill. He seemed more scandalised than the facts
+demanded.
+
+"To have brought this down on you."
+
+"Pray don't apologise."
+
+The voice continued.
+
+"Why does she call you 'Hen'?" said Margaret innocently. "Has she
+ever seen you before?"
+
+"Seen Hen before!" said Jacky. "Who hasn't seen Hen? He's serving
+you like me, my boys! You wait-- Still we love 'em."
+
+"Are you now satisfied?" Henry asked.
+
+Margaret began to grow frightened. "I don't know what it is all
+about," she said. "Let's come in."
+
+But he thought she was acting. He thought he was trapped. He saw
+his whole life crumbling. "Don't you indeed?" he said bitingly.
+"I do. Allow me to congratulate you on the success of your plan."
+
+"This is Helen's plan, not mine."
+
+"I now understand your interest in the Basts. Very well thought
+out. I am amused at your caution, Margaret. You are quite right--
+it was necessary. I am a man, and have lived a man's past. I have
+the honour to release you from your engagement."
+
+Still she could not understand. She knew of life's seamy side as
+a theory; she could not grasp it as a fact. More words from Jacky
+were necessary--words unequivocal, undenied.
+
+"So that--" burst from her, and she went indoors. She stopped
+herself from saying more.
+
+"So what?" asked Colonel Fussell, who was getting ready to start
+in the hall.
+
+"We were saying--Henry and I were just having the fiercest
+argument, my point being--" Seizing his fur coat from a footman,
+she offered to help him on. He protested, and there was a playful
+little scene.
+
+"No, let me do that," said Henry, following.
+
+"Thanks so much! You see--he has forgiven me!"
+
+The Colonel said gallantly: "I don't expect there's much to
+forgive."
+
+He got into the car. The ladies followed him after an interval.
+Maids, courier, and heavier luggage had been sent on earlier by
+the branch-line. Still chattering, still thanking their host and
+patronising their future hostess, the guests were borne away.
+
+Then Margaret continued: "So that woman has been your mistress?"
+
+"You put it with your usual delicacy," he replied.
+
+"When, please?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"When, please?"
+
+"Ten years ago."
+
+She left him without a word. For it was not her tragedy; it was
+Mrs. Wilcox's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Helen began to wonder why she had spent a matter of eight pounds
+in making some people ill and others angry. Now that the wave of
+excitement was ebbing, and had left her, Mr. Bast, and Mrs. Bast
+stranded for the night in a Shropshire hotel, she asked herself
+what forces had made the wave flow. At all events, no harm was
+done. Margaret would play the game properly now, and though Helen
+disapproved of her sister's methods, she knew that the Basts
+would benefit by them in the long-run.
+
+"Mr. Wilcox is so illogical," she explained to Leonard, who had
+put his wife to bed, and was sitting with her in the empty
+coffee-room. "If we told him it was his duty to take you on, he
+might refuse to do it. The fact is, he isn't properly educated. I
+don't want to set you against him, but you'll find him a trial."
+
+"I can never thank you sufficiently, Miss Schlegel," was all that
+Leonard felt equal to.
+
+"I believe in personal responsibility. Don't you? And in personal
+everything. I hate--I suppose I oughtn't to say that--but the
+Wilcoxes are on the wrong tack surely. Or perhaps it isn't their
+fault. Perhaps the little thing that says 'I' is missing out of
+the middle  of their heads, and then it's a waste of time to
+blame them. There's a nightmare of a theory that says a special
+race is being born which will rule the rest of us in the future
+just because it lacks the little thing that says 'I.' Had you
+heard that?"
+
+"I get no time for reading."
+
+"Had you thought it, then? That there are two kinds of people--our
+kind, who live straight from the middle of their heads, and the
+other kind who can't, because their heads have no middle? They
+can't say 'I.' They AREN'T in fact, and so they're supermen.
+Pierpont Morgan has never said 'I' in his life."
+
+Leonard roused himself. If his benefactress wanted intellectual
+conversation, she must have it. She was more important than his
+ruined past. "I never got on to Nietzsche," he said. "But I
+always understood that those supermen were rather what you may
+call egoists."
+
+"Oh no, that's wrong," replied Helen. "No superman ever said 'I
+want,' because 'I want' must lead to the question, 'Who am I?'
+and so to Pity and to Justice. He only says 'want.' 'Want
+Europe,' if he's Napoleon; 'want wives,' if he's Bluebeard;
+'want Botticelli,' if he's Pierpont Morgan. Never the 'I'; and
+if you could pierce through the superman, you'd find panic and
+emptiness in the middle."
+
+Leonard was silent for a moment. Then he said: "May I take it,
+Miss Schlegel, that you and I are both the sort that say 'I'?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"And your sister, too?"
+
+"Of course," repeated Helen, a little sharply. She was annoyed
+with Margaret, but did not want her discussed. "All presentable
+people say 'I.'"
+
+"But Mr. Wilcox--he is not perhaps--"
+
+"I don't know that it's any good discussing Mr. Wilcox either."
+
+"Quite so, quite so," he agreed. Helen asked herself why she had
+snubbed him. Once or twice during the day she had encouraged him
+to criticise, and then had pulled him up short. Was she afraid of
+him presuming? If so, it was disgusting of her.
+
+But he was thinking the snub quite natural. Everything she did
+was natural, and incapable of causing offence. While the Miss
+Schlegels were together he had felt them scarcely human--a sort of
+admonitory whirligig. But a Miss Schlegel alone was different.
+She was in Helen's case unmarried, in Margaret's about to be
+married, in neither case an echo of her sister. A light had
+fallen at last into this rich upper world, and he saw that it was
+full of men and women, some of whom were more friendly to him
+than others. Helen had become "his" Miss Schlegel, who scolded
+him and corresponded with him, and had swept down yesterday with
+grateful vehemence. Margaret, though not unkind, was severe and
+remote. He would not presume to help her, for instance. He had
+never liked her, and began to think that his original impression
+was true, and that her sister did not like her either. Helen was
+certainly lonely. She, who gave away so much, was receiving too
+little. Leonard was pleased to think that he could spare her
+vexation by holding his tongue and concealing what he knew about
+Mr. Wilcox. Jacky had announced her discovery when he fetched her
+from the lawn. After the first shock, he did not mind for
+himself. By now he had no illusions about his wife, and this was
+only one new stain on the face of a love that had never been
+pure. To keep perfection perfect, that should be his ideal, if
+the future gave him time to have ideals. Helen, and Margaret for
+Helen's sake, must not know.
+
+Helen disconcerted him by turning the conversation to his wife.
+"Mrs. Bast--does she ever say 'I'?" she asked, half
+mischievously, and then, "Is she very tired?"
+
+"It's better she stops in her room," said Leonard.
+
+"Shall I sit up with her?"
+
+"No, thank you; she does not need company."
+
+"Mr. Bast, what kind of woman is your wife?"
+
+Leonard blushed up to his eyes.
+
+"You ought to know my ways by now. Does that question offend
+you?"
+
+"No, oh no, Miss Schlegel, no."
+
+"Because I love honesty. Don't pretend your marriage has been a
+happy one. You and she can have nothing in common."
+
+He did not deny it, but said shyly: "I suppose that's pretty
+obvious; but Jacky never meant to do anybody any harm. When
+things went wrong, or I heard things, I used to think it was her
+fault, but, looking back, it's more mine. I needn't have married
+her, but as I have I must stick to her and keep her."
+
+"How long have you been married?"
+
+"Nearly three years."
+
+"What did your people say?"
+
+"They will not have anything to do with us. They had a sort of
+family council when they heard I was married, and cut us off
+altogether."
+
+Helen began to pace up and down the room. "My good boy, what a
+mess!" she said gently. "Who are your people?"
+
+He could answer this. His parents, who were dead, had been in
+trade; his sisters had married commercial travellers; his brother
+was a lay-reader.
+
+"And your grandparents?"
+
+Leonard told her a secret that he had held shameful up to now.
+"They were just nothing at all," he said "agricultural labourers
+and that sort."
+
+"So! From which part?"
+
+"Lincolnshire mostly, but my mother's father--he, oddly enough,
+came from these parts round here."
+
+"From this very Shropshire. Yes, that is odd. My mother's people
+were Lancashire. But why do your brother and your sisters object
+to Mrs. Bast?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know."
+
+"Excuse me, you do know. I am not a baby. I can bear anything you
+tell me, and the more you tell the more I shall be able to help.
+Have they heard anything against her?"
+
+He was silent.
+
+"I think I have guessed now," said Helen very gravely.
+
+"I don't think so, Miss Schlegel; I hope not."
+
+"We must be honest, even over these things. I have guessed. I am
+frightfully, dreadfully sorry, but it does not make the least
+difference to me. I shall feel just the same to both of you. I
+blame, not your wife for these things, but men."
+
+Leonard left it at that--so long as she did not guess the man.
+She stood at the window and slowly pulled up the blinds. The
+hotel looked over a dark square. The mists had begun. When she
+turned back to him her eyes were shining. "Don't you worry," he
+pleaded. "I can't bear that. We shall be all right if I get work.
+If I could only get work--something regular to do. Then it
+wouldn't be so bad again. I don't trouble after books as I used.
+I can imagine that with regular work we should settle down again.
+It stops one thinking."
+
+"Settle down to what?"
+
+"Oh, just settle down."
+
+"And that's to be life!" said Helen, with a catch in her throat.
+"How can you, with all the beautiful things to see and do--with
+music--with walking at night--"
+
+"Walking is well enough when a man's in work," he answered. "Oh,
+I did talk a lot of nonsense once, but there's nothing like a
+bailiff in the house to drive it out of you. When I saw him
+fingering my Ruskins and Stevensons, I seemed to see life
+straight and real, and it isn't a pretty sight. My books are back
+again, thanks to you, but they'll never be the same to me again,
+and I shan't ever again think night in the woods is wonderful."
+
+"Why not?" asked Helen, throwing up the window. "Because I see
+one must have money."
+
+"Well, you're wrong."
+
+"I wish I was wrong, but--the clergyman--he has money of his own,
+or else he's paid; the poet or the musician--just the same; the
+tramp--he's no different. The tramp goes to the workhouse in the
+end, and is paid for with other people's money. Miss Schlegel the
+real thing's money, and all the rest is a dream."
+
+"You're still wrong. You've forgotten Death."
+
+Leonard could not understand.
+
+"If we lived forever, what you say would be true. But we have to
+die, we have to leave life presently. Injustice and greed would
+be the real thing if we lived for ever. As it is, we must hold to
+other things, because Death is coming. I love Death--not
+morbidly, but because He explains. He shows me the emptiness of
+Money. Death and Money are the eternal foes. Not Death and Life.
+Never mind what lies behind Death, Mr. Bast, but be sure that the
+poet and the musician and the tramp will be happier in it than
+the man who has never learnt to say, 'I am I.'"
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"We are all in a mist--I know, but I can help you this far--men
+like the Wilcoxes are deeper in the mist than any. Sane, sound
+Englishmen! building up empires, levelling all the world into
+what they call common sense. But mention Death to them and
+they're offended, because Death's really Imperial, and He cries
+out against them for ever."
+
+"I am as afraid of Death as any one."
+
+"But not of the idea of Death."
+
+"But what is the difference?"
+
+"Infinite difference," said Helen, more gravely than before.
+
+Leonard looked at her wondering, and had the sense of great
+things sweeping out of the shrouded night. But he could not
+receive them, because his heart was still full of little things.
+As the lost umbrella had spoilt the concert at Queen's Hall, so
+the lost situation was obscuring the diviner harmonies now.
+Death, Life, and Materialism were fine words, but would Mr.
+Wilcox take him on as a clerk? Talk as one would, Mr. Wilcox was
+king of this world, the superman, with his own morality, whose
+head remained in the clouds.
+
+"I must be stupid," he said apologetically.
+
+While to Helen the paradox became clearer and clearer. "Death
+destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him." Behind the coffins
+and the skeletons that stay the vulgar mind lies something so
+immense that all that is great in us responds to it. Men of the
+world may recoil from the charnel-house that they will one day
+enter, but Love knows better. Death is his foe, but his peer, and
+in their age-long struggle the thews of Love have been
+strengthened, and his vision cleared, until there is no one who
+can stand against him.
+
+"So never give in," continued the girl, and restated again and
+again the vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges
+against the Visible. Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the
+rope that fastened Leonard to the earth. Woven of bitter
+experience, it resisted her. Presently the waitress entered and
+gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note, addressed to
+Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the murmurings
+of the river.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+For many hours Margaret did nothing; then she controlled herself,
+and wrote some letters. She was too bruised to speak to Henry;
+she could pity him, and even determine to marry him, but as yet
+all lay too deep in her heart for speech. On the surface the
+sense of his degradation was too strong. She could not command
+voice or look, and the gentle words that she forced out through
+her pen seemed to proceed from some other person.
+
+"My dearest boy," she began, "this is not to part us. It is
+everything or nothing, and I mean it to be nothing. It happened
+long before we ever met, and even if it had happened since, I
+should be writing the same, I hope. I do understand."
+
+But she crossed out "I do understand"; it struck a false note.
+Henry could not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, "It
+is everything or nothing." Henry would resent so strong a grasp
+of the situation. She must not comment; comment is unfeminine.
+
+"I think that'll about do," she thought.
+
+Then the sense of his degradation choked her. Was he worth all
+this bother? To have yielded to a woman of that sort was
+everything, yes, it was, and she could not be his wife. She tried
+to translate  his temptation into her own language, and her brain
+reeled. Men must be different even to want to yield to such a
+temptation. Her belief in comradeship was stifled, and she saw
+life as from that glass saloon on the Great Western which
+sheltered male and female alike from the fresh air. Are the sexes
+really races, each with its own code of morality, and their
+mutual love a mere device of Nature to keep things going? Strip
+human intercourse of the proprieties, and is it reduced to this?
+Her judgment told her no. She knew that out of Nature's device we
+have built a magic that will win us immortality. Far more
+mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the tenderness that we
+throw into that call; far wider is the gulf between us and the
+farmyard than between the farmyard and the garbage that nourishes
+it. We are evolving, in ways that Science cannot measure, to ends
+that Theology dares not contemplate. "Men did produce one jewel,"
+the gods will say, and, saying, will give us immortality.
+Margaret knew all this, but for the moment she could not feel it,
+and transformed the marriage of Evie and Mr. Cahill into a
+carnival of fools, and her own marriage--too miserable to think
+of that, she tore up the letter, and then wrote another:
+
+DEAR MR. BAST,
+
+"I have spoken to Mr. Wilcox about you, as I promised, and
+am sorry to say that he has no vacancy for you.
+
+                                            Yours truly,
+
+                                             "M. J. SCHLEGEL."
+
+She enclosed this in a note to Helen, over which she took less
+trouble than she might have done; but her head was aching, and
+she could not stop to pick her words:
+
+"DEAR HELEN,
+
+"Give him this. The Basts are no good. Henry found the
+woman drunk on the lawn. I am having a room got ready for
+you here, and will you please come round at once on getting
+this? The Basts are not at all the type we should trouble
+about. I may go round to them myself in the morning, and do
+anything that is fair.
+                                                  "M."
+
+
+In writing this, Margaret felt that she was being practical.
+Something might be arranged for the Basts later on, but they must
+be silenced for the moment. She hoped to avoid a conversation
+between the woman and Helen. She rang the bell for a servant, but
+no one answered it; Mr. Wilcox and the Warringtons were gone to
+bed, and the kitchen was abandoned to Saturnalia. Consequently
+she went over to the George herself. She did not enter the hotel,
+for discussion would have been perilous, and, saying that the
+letter was important, she gave it to the waitress. As she
+recrossed the square she saw Helen and Mr. Bast looking out of
+the window of the coffee-room, and feared she was already too
+late. Her task was not yet over; she ought to tell Henry what she
+had done.
+
+This came easily, for she saw him in the hall. The night wind had
+been rattling the pictures against the wall, and the noise had
+disturbed him.
+
+"Who's there?" he called, quite the householder.
+
+Margaret walked in and past him.
+
+"I have asked Helen to sleep," she said. "She is best here; so
+don't lock the front-door."
+
+"I thought some one had got in," said Henry.
+
+"At the same time I told the man that we could do nothing for
+him. I don't know about later, but now the Basts must clearly
+go."
+
+"Did you say that your sister is sleeping here, after all?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+"Is she to be shown up to your room?"
+
+"I have naturally nothing to say to her; I am going to bed. Will
+you tell the servants about Helen? Could some one go to carry her
+bag?"
+
+He tapped a little gong, which had been bought to summon the
+servants.
+
+"You must make more noise than that if you want them to hear."
+
+Henry opened a door, and down the corridor came shouts of
+laughter. "Far too much screaming there," he said, and strode
+towards it. Margaret went upstairs, uncertain whether to be glad
+that they had met, or sorry. They had behaved as if nothing had
+happened, and her deepest instincts told her that this was wrong.
+For his own sake, some explanation was due.
+
+And yet--what could an explanation tell her? A date, a place, a
+few details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that
+the first shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to
+premise a Mrs. Bast. Henry's inner life had long laid open to
+her--his intellectual confusion, his obtuseness to personal
+influence, his strong but furtive passions. Should she refuse him
+because his outer life corresponded? Perhaps. Perhaps, if the
+dishonour had been done to her, but it was done long before her
+day. She struggled against the feeling. She told herself that
+Mrs. Wilcox's wrong was her own. But she was not a barren
+theorist. As she undressed, her anger, her regard for the dead,
+her desire for a scene, all grew weak. Henry must have it as he
+liked, for she loved him, and some day she would use her love to
+make him a better man.
+
+Pity was at the bottom of her actions all through this crisis.
+Pity, if one may generalise, is at the bottom of woman. When men
+like us, it is for our better qualities, and however tender their
+liking, we dare not be unworthy of it, or they will quietly let
+us go. But unworthiness stimulates woman. It brings out her
+deeper nature, for good or for evil.
+
+Here was the core of the question. Henry must be forgiven, and
+made better by love; nothing else mattered. Mrs. Wilcox, that
+unquiet yet kindly ghost, must be left to her own wrong. To her
+everything was in proportion now, and she, too, would pity the
+man who was blundering up and down their lives. Had Mrs. Wilcox
+known of his trespass? An interesting question, but Margaret
+fell asleep, tethered by affection, and lulled by the murmurs of
+the river that descended all the night from Wales. She felt
+herself at one with her future home, colouring it and coloured by
+it, and awoke to see, for the second time, Oniton Castle
+conquering the morning mists.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"Henry dear--" was her greeting.
+
+He had finished his breakfast, and was beginning the Times. His
+sister-in-law was packing. Margaret knelt by him and took the
+paper from him, feeling that it was unusually heavy and thick.
+Then, putting her face where it had been, she looked up in his
+eyes.
+
+"Henry dear, look at me. No, I won't have you shirking. Look at
+me. There. That's all."
+
+"You're referring to last evening," he said huskily. "I have
+released you from your engagement. I could find excuses, but I
+won't. No, I won't. A thousand times no. I'm a bad lot, and must
+be left at that."
+
+Expelled from his old fortress, Mr. Wilcox was building a new
+one. He could no longer appear respectable to her, so he defended
+himself instead in a lurid past. It was not true repentance.
+
+"Leave it where you will, boy. It's not going to trouble us; I
+know what I'm talking about, and it will make no difference."
+
+"No difference?" he inquired. "No difference, when you find that
+I am not the fellow you thought?" He was annoyed with Miss
+Schlegel here. He would have preferred her to be prostrated by
+the blow, or even to rage. Against the tide of his sin flowed the
+feeling that she was not altogether womanly. Her eyes gazed too
+straight; they had read books that are suitable for men only. And
+though he had dreaded a scene, and though she had determined
+against one, there was a scene, all the same. It was somehow
+imperative.
+
+"I am unworthy of you," he began. "Had I been worthy, I should
+not have released you from your engagement. I know what I am
+talking about. I can't bear to talk of such things. We had better
+leave it."
+
+She kissed his hand. He jerked it from her, and, rising to his
+feet, went on: "You, with your sheltered life, and refined
+pursuits, and friends, and books, you and your sister, and women
+like you--I say, how can you guess the temptations that lie round
+a man?"
+
+"It is difficult for us," said Margaret; "but if we are worth
+marrying, we do guess."
+
+"Cut off from decent society and family ties, what do you suppose
+happens to thousands of young fellows overseas? Isolated. No one
+near. I know by bitter experience, and yet you say it makes 'no
+difference.'"
+
+"Not to me."
+
+He laughed bitterly. Margaret went to the sideboard and helped
+herself to one of the breakfast dishes. Being the last down, she
+turned out the spirit-lamp that kept them warm. She was tender,
+but grave. She knew that Henry was not so much confessing his
+soul as pointing out the gulf between the male soul and the
+female, and she did not desire to hear him on this point.
+
+"Did Helen come?" she asked.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"But that won't do at all, at all! We don't want her gossiping
+with Mrs. Bast."
+
+"Good God! no!" he exclaimed, suddenly natural. Then he caught
+himself up. "Let them gossip, my game's up, though I thank you
+for your unselfishness--little as my thanks are worth."
+
+"Didn't she send me a message or anything?"
+
+"I heard of none."
+
+"Would you ring the bell, please?"
+
+"What to do?"
+
+"Why, to inquire."
+
+He swaggered up to it tragically, and sounded a peal. Margaret
+poured herself out some coffee. The butler came, and said that
+Miss Schlegel had slept at the George, so far as he had heard.
+Should he go round to the George?
+
+"I'll go, thank you," said Margaret, and dismissed him.
+
+"It is no good," said Henry. "Those things leak out; you cannot
+stop a story once it has started. I have known cases of other
+men--I despised them once, I thought that I'm different, I shall
+never be tempted. Oh, Margaret--" He came and sat down near her,
+improvising emotion. She could not bear to listen to him. "We
+fellows all come to grief once in our time. Will you believe
+that? There are moments when the strongest man-- 'Let him who
+standeth, take heed lest he fall.' That's true, isn't it? If you
+knew all, you would excuse me. I was far from good influences--
+far even from England. I was very, very lonely, and longed for a
+woman's voice. That's enough. I have told you too much already
+for you to forgive me now."
+
+"Yes, that's enough, dear."
+
+"I have"--he lowered his voice--"I have been through hell."
+
+Gravely she considered this claim. Had he? Had he suffered
+tortures of remorse, or had it been, "There! that's over. Now for
+respectable life again"? The latter, if she read him rightly. A
+man who has been through hell does not boast of his virility. He
+is humble and hides it, if, indeed, it still exists. Only in
+legend does the sinner come forth penitent, but terrible, to
+conquer pure woman by his resistless power. Henry was anxious to
+be terrible, but had not got it in him. He was a good average
+Englishman, who had slipped. The really culpable point--his
+faithlessness to Mrs. Wilcox--never seemed to strike him. She
+longed to mention Mrs. Wilcox.
+
+And bit by bit the story was told her. It was a very simple
+story. Ten years ago was the time, a garrison town in Cyprus the
+place. Now and then he asked her whether she could possibly
+forgive him, and she answered, "I have already forgiven you,
+Henry." She chose her words carefully, and so saved him from
+panic. She played the girl, until he could rebuild his fortress
+and hide his soul from the world. When the butler came to clear
+away, Henry was in a very different mood--asked the fellow what
+he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last night in
+the servants' hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He,
+as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a
+woman--an attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet
+the skies would have fallen if she had mentioned it to Henry.
+
+On her return from the George the building operations were
+complete, and the old Henry fronted her, competent, cynical, and
+kind. He had made a clean breast, had been forgiven, and the
+great thing now was to forget his failure, and to send it the way
+of other unsuccessful investments. Jacky rejoined Howards End and
+Dude Street, and the vermilion motor-car, and the Argentine Hard
+Dollars, and all the things and people for whom he had never had
+much use and had less now. Their memory hampered him. He could
+scarcely attend to Margaret, who brought back disquieting news
+from the George. Helen and her clients had gone.
+
+"Well, let them go--the man and his wife, I mean, for the more we
+see of your sister the better."
+
+"But they have gone separately--Helen very early, the Basts just
+before I arrived. They have left no message. They have answered
+neither of my notes. I don't like to think what it all means."
+
+"What did you say in the notes?"
+
+"I told you last night."
+
+"Oh--ah--yes! Dear, would you like one turn in the garden?"
+
+Margaret took his arm. The beautiful weather soothed her. But the
+wheels of Evie's wedding were still at work, tossing the guests
+outwards as deftly as they had drawn them in, and she could not
+be with him long. It had been arranged that they should motor to
+Shrewsbury, whence he would go north, and she back to London with
+the Warringtons. For a fraction of time she was happy. Then her
+brain recommenced.
+
+"I am afraid there has been gossiping of some kind at the George.
+Helen would not have left unless she had heard something. I
+mismanaged that. It is wretched. I ought to have parted her from
+that woman at once."
+
+"Margaret!" he exclaimed, loosing her arm impressively.
+
+"Yes--yes, Henry?"
+
+"I am far from a saint--in fact, the reverse--but you have taken
+me, for better or worse. Bygones must be bygones. You have
+promised to forgive me. Margaret, a promise is a promise. Never
+mention that woman again."
+
+"Except for some practical reason--never."
+
+"Practical! You practical!"
+
+"Yes, I'm practical," she murmured, stooping over the
+mowing-machine and playing with the grass which trickled through
+her fingers like sand.
+
+He had silenced her, but her fears made him uneasy. Not for the
+first time, he was threatened with blackmail. He was rich and
+supposed to be moral; the Basts knew that he was not, and might
+find it profitable to hint as much.
+
+"At all events, you mustn't worry," he said. "This is a man's
+business." He thought intently. "On no account mention it to
+anybody."
+
+Margaret flushed at advice so elementary, but he was really
+paving the way for a lie. If necessary he would deny that he had
+ever known Mrs. Bast, and prosecute her for libel. Perhaps he
+never had known her. Here was Margaret, who behaved as if he had
+not. There the house. Round them were half a dozen gardeners,
+clearing up after his daughter's wedding. All was so solid and
+spruce, that the past flew up out of sight like a spring-blind,
+leaving only the last five minutes unrolled.
+
+Glancing at these, he saw that the car would be round during the
+next five, and plunged into action. Gongs were tapped, orders
+issued, Margaret was sent to dress, and the housemaid to sweep up
+the long trickle of grass that she had left across the hall. As
+is Man to the Universe, so was the mind of Mr. Wilcox to the
+minds of some men--a concentrated light upon a tiny spot, a
+little Ten Minutes moving self-contained through its appointed
+years. No Pagan he, who lives for the Now, and may be wiser than
+all philosophers. He lived for the five minutes that have past,
+and the five to come; he had the business mind.
+
+How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and
+breasted the great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain
+rumour, but was all right. She had forgiven him, God bless her,
+and he felt the manlier for it. Charles and Evie had not heard
+it, and never must hear. No more must Paul. Over his children he
+felt great tenderness, which he did not try to track to a cause;
+Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did not connect her
+with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor little
+Evie! he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.
+
+And Margaret? How did she stand?
+
+She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard
+something. She dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious
+about Leonard, for whom they certainly were responsible. Nor
+ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But the main situation had not
+altered. She still loved Henry. His actions, not his disposition,
+had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And she loved her
+future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had leapt
+from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon
+Oniton. Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now
+pick out the church and the black-and-white gables of the George.
+There was the bridge, and the river nibbling its green peninsula.
+She could even see the bathing-shed, but while she was looking
+for Charles's new spring-board, the forehead of the hill rose and
+hid the whole scene.
+
+She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into
+England, day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains,
+and the tower chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes
+have no part in the place, nor in any place. It is not their
+names that recur in the parish register. It is not their ghosts
+that sigh among the alders at evening. They have swept into the
+valley and swept out of it, leaving a little dust and a little
+money behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford. He had moved
+out of college, and was contemplating the Universe, or such
+portions of it as concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings in
+Long Wall. He was not concerned with much. When a young man is
+untroubled by passions and sincerely indifferent to public
+opinion his outlook is necessarily limited. Tibby wished neither
+to strengthen the position of the rich nor to improve that of the
+poor, and so was well content to watch the elms nodding behind
+the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen. There are worse lives.
+Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected in manner, he
+never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained the heroic equipment,
+and it was only after many visits that men discovered Schlegel to
+possess a character and a brain. He had done well in Mods, much
+to the surprise of those who attended lectures and took proper
+exercise, and was now glancing disdainfully at Chinese in case he
+should some day consent to qualify as a Student Interpreter. To
+him thus employed Helen entered. A telegram had preceded her.
+
+He noticed, in a distant way, that his sister had altered.
+
+As a rule he found her too pronounced, and had never come across
+this look of appeal, pathetic yet dignified--the look of a
+sailor who has lost everything at sea.
+
+"I have come from Oniton," she began. "There has been a great
+deal of trouble there."
+
+"Who's for lunch?" said Tibby, picking up the claret, which was
+warming in the hearth. Helen sat down submissively at the table.
+"Why such an early start?" he asked.
+
+"Sunrise or something--when I could get away."
+
+"So I surmise. Why?"
+
+"I don't know what's to be done, Tibby. I am very much upset at a
+piece of news that concerns Meg, and do not want to face her, and
+I am not going back to Wickham Place. I stopped here to tell you
+this."
+
+The landlady came in with the cutlets. Tibby put a marker in the
+leaves of his Chinese Grammar and helped them. Oxford--the Oxford
+of the vacation--dreamed and rustled outside, and indoors the
+little fire was coated with grey where the sunshine touched it.
+Helen continued her odd story.
+
+"Give Meg my love and say that I want to be alone. I mean to go
+to Munich or else Bonn."
+
+"Such a message is easily given," said her brother.
+
+"As regards Wickham Place and my share of the furniture, you and
+she are to do exactly as you like. My own feeling is that
+everything may just as well be sold. What does one want with
+dusty economic books, which have made the world no better, or
+with mother's hideous chiffoniers? I have also another commission
+for you. I want you to deliver a letter." She got up. "I haven't
+written it yet. Why shouldn't I post it, though?" She sat down
+again. "My head is rather wretched. I hope that none of your
+friends are likely to come in."
+
+Tibby locked the door. His friends often found it in this
+condition. Then he asked whether anything had gone wrong at
+Evie's wedding.
+
+"Not there," said Helen, and burst into tears.
+
+He had known her hysterical--it was one of her aspects with which
+he had no concern--and yet these tears touched him as something
+unusual. They were nearer the things that did concern him, such
+as music. He laid down his knife and looked at her curiously.
+Then, as she continued to sob, he went on with his lunch.
+
+The time came for the second course, and she was still crying.
+Apple Charlotte was to follow, which spoils by waiting. "Do you
+mind Mrs. Martlett coming in?" he asked, "or shall I take it from
+her at the door?"
+
+"Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?"
+
+He took her to his bedroom, and introduced the pudding in her
+absence. Having helped himself, he put it down to warm in the
+hearth. His hand stretched towards the Grammar, and soon he was
+turning over the pages, raising his eyebrows scornfully, perhaps
+at human nature, perhaps at Chinese. To him thus employed Helen
+returned. She had pulled herself together, but the grave appeal
+had not vanished from her eyes.
+
+"Now for the explanation," she said. "Why didn't I begin with it?
+I have found out something about Mr. Wilcox. He has behaved very
+wrongly indeed, and ruined two people's lives. It all came on me
+very suddenly last night; I am very much upset, and I do not know
+what to do. Mrs. Bast--"
+
+"Oh, those people!"
+
+Helen seemed silenced.
+
+"Shall I lock the door again?"
+
+"No thanks, Tibbikins. You're being very good to me. I want to
+tell you the story before I go abroad. you must do exactly what
+you like--treat it as part of the furniture. Meg cannot have
+heard it yet, I think. But I cannot face her and tell her that
+the man she is going to marry has misconducted himself. I don't
+even know whether she ought to be told. Knowing as she does that
+I dislike him, she will suspect me, and think that I want to ruin
+her match. I simply don't know what to make of such a thing. I
+trust your judgment. What would you do?"
+
+"I gather he has had a mistress," said Tibby.
+
+Helen flushed with shame and anger. "And ruined two people's
+lives. And goes about saying that personal actions count for
+nothing, and there always will be rich and poor. He met her when
+he was trying to get rich out in Cyprus--I don't wish to make him
+worse than he is, and no doubt she was ready enough to meet him.
+But there it is. They met. He goes his way and she goes hers.
+What do you suppose is the end of such women?"
+
+He conceded that it was a bad business.
+
+"They end in two ways: Either they sink till the lunatic asylums
+and the workhouses are full of them, and cause Mr. Wilcox to
+write letters to the papers complaining of our national
+degeneracy, or else they entrap a boy into marriage before it is
+too late. She--I can't blame her."
+
+"But this isn't all," she continued after a long pause, during
+which the landlady served them with coffee. "I come now to the
+business that took us to Oniton. We went all three. Acting on Mr.
+Wilcox's advice, the man throws up a secure situation and takes
+an insecure one, from which he is dismissed. There are certain
+excuses, but in the main Mr. Wilcox is to blame, as Meg herself
+admitted. It is only common justice that he should employ the man
+himself. But he meets the woman, and, like the cur that he is, he
+refuses, and tries to get rid of them. He makes Meg write. Two
+notes came from her late that evening--one for me, one for
+Leonard, dismissing him with barely a reason. I couldn't
+understand. Then it comes out that Mrs. Bast had spoken to Mr.
+Wilcox on the lawn while we left her to get rooms, and was still
+speaking about him when Leonard came back to her. This Leonard
+knew all along. He thought it natural he should be ruined twice.
+Natural! Could you have contained yourself?"
+
+"It is certainly a very bad business," said Tibby.
+
+His reply seemed to calm his sister. "I was afraid that I saw it
+out of proportion. But you are right outside it, and you must
+know. In a day or two--or perhaps a week--take whatever steps you
+think fit. I leave it in your hands."
+
+She concluded her charge.
+
+"The facts as they touch Meg are all before you," she added; and
+Tibby sighed and felt it rather hard that, because of his open
+mind, he should be empanelled to serve as a juror. He had never
+been interested in human beings, for which one must blame him,
+but he had had rather too much of them at Wickham Place. Just as
+some people cease to attend when books are mentioned, so Tibby's
+attention wandered when "personal relations" came under
+discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts to
+know? Similar questions had vexed him from infancy, and at Oxford
+he had learned to say that the importance of human beings has
+been vastly overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint
+whiff of the eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it
+off now if his sister had not been ceaselessly beautiful.
+
+"You see, Helen--have a cigarette--I don't see what I'm to do."
+
+"Then there's nothing to be done. I dare say you are right. Let
+them marry. There remains the question of compensation."
+
+"Do you want me to adjudicate that too? Had you not better
+consult an expert?"
+
+"This part is in confidence," said Helen. "It has nothing to do
+with Meg, and do not mention it to her. The compensation--I do
+not see who is to pay it if I don't, and I have already decided
+on the minimum sum. As soon as possible I am placing it to your
+account, and when I am in Germany you will pay it over for me. I
+shall never forget your kindness, Tibbikins, if you do this."
+
+"What is the sum?"
+
+"Five thousand."
+
+"Good God alive!" said Tibby, and went crimson.
+
+"Now, what is the good of driblets? To go through life having
+done one thing--to have raised one person from the abyss; not
+these puny gifts of shillings and blankets--making the grey more
+grey. No doubt people will think me extraordinary."
+
+"I don't care an iota what people think!" cried he, heated to
+unusual manliness of diction. "But it's half what you have."
+
+"Not nearly half." She spread out her hands over her soiled
+skirt. "I have far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last
+spring that three hundred a year is necessary to set a man on
+his feet. What I give will bring in a hundred and fifty between
+two. It isn't enough."
+He could not recover. He was not angry or even shocked, and he
+saw that Helen would still have plenty to live on. But it amazed
+him to think what haycocks people can make of their lives. His
+delicate intonations would not work, and he could only blurt out
+that the five thousand pounds would mean a great deal of bother
+for him personally.
+
+"I didn't expect you to understand me."
+
+"I? I understand nobody."
+
+"But you'll do it?"
+
+"Apparently."
+
+"I leave you two commissions, then. The first concerns Mr.
+Wilcox, and you are to use your discretion. The second concerns
+the money, and is to be mentioned to no one, and carried out
+literally. You will send a hundred pounds on account to-morrow."
+
+He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets
+whose serried beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued. The
+lovely creature raised domes and spires into the cloudless blue,
+and only the ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how
+evanescent was the phantom, how faint its claim to represent
+England. Helen, rehearsing her commission, noticed nothing; the
+Basts were in her brain, and she retold the crisis in a
+meditative way, which might have made other men curious. She was
+seeing whether it would hold. He asked her once why she had taken
+the Basts right into the heart of Evie's wedding. She stopped
+like a frightened animal and said, "Does that seem to you so
+odd?" Her eyes, the hand laid on the mouth, quite haunted him,
+until they were absorbed into the figure of St. Mary the Virgin,
+before whom he paused for a moment on the walk home.
+
+It is convenient to follow him in the discharge of his duties.
+Margaret summoned him the next day. She was terrified at Helen's
+flight, and he had to say that she had called in at Oxford. Then
+she said: "Did she seem worried at any rumour about Henry?" He
+answered, "Yes." "I knew it was that!" she exclaimed. "I'll
+write to her." Tibbv was relieved.
+
+He then sent the cheque to the address that Helen gave him, and
+stated that he was instructed to forward later on five thousand
+pounds. An answer came back very civil and quiet in tone--such an
+answer as Tibby himself would have given. The cheque was
+returned, the legacy refused, the writer being in no need of
+money. Tibby forwarded this to Helen, adding in the fulness of
+his heart that Leonard Bast seemed somewhat a monumental person
+after all. Helen's reply was frantic. He was to take no notice.
+He was to go down at once and say that she commanded acceptance.
+He went. A scurf of books and china ornaments awaited him. The
+Basts had just been evicted for not paying their rent, and had
+wandered no one knew whither. Helen had begun bungling with her
+money by this time, and had even sold out her shares in the
+Nottingham and Derby Railway. For some weeks she did nothing.
+Then she reinvested, and, owing to the good advice of her
+stockbrokers, became rather richer than she had been before.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the
+generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to
+an after-life in the city of ghosts, while from others--and thus
+was the death of Wickham Place--the spirit slips before the body
+perishes. It had decayed in the spring, disintegrating the girls
+more than they knew, and causing either to accost unfamiliar
+regions. By September it was a corpse, void of emotion, and
+scarcely hallowed by the memories of thirty years of happiness.
+Through its round-topped doorway passed furniture, and pictures,
+and books, until the last room was gutted and the last van had
+rumbled away. It stood for a week or two longer, open-eyed, as if
+astonished at its own emptiness. Then it fell. Navvies came, and
+spilt it back into the grey. With their muscles and their beery
+good temper, they were not the worst of undertakers for a house
+which had always been human, and had not mistaken culture for an
+end.
+
+The furniture, with a few exceptions, went down into
+Hertfordshire, Mr. Wilcox having most kindly offered Howards End
+as a warehouse. Mr. Bryce had died abroad--an unsatisfactory
+affair--and as there seemed little guarantee that the rent would
+be paid regularly, he cancelled the agreement, and resumed
+possession himself. Until he relet the house, the Schlegels were
+welcome to stack their furniture in the garage and lower rooms.
+Margaret demurred, but Tibby accepted the offer gladly; it saved
+him from coming to any decision about the future. The plate and
+the more valuable pictures found a safer home in London, but the
+bulk of the things went country-ways, and were entrusted to the
+guardianship of Miss Avery.
+
+Shortly before the move, our hero and heroine were married. They
+have weathered the storm, and may reasonably expect peace. To
+have no illusions and yet to love--what stronger surety can a
+woman find? She had seen her husband's past as well as his heart.
+She knew her own heart with a thoroughness that commonplace
+people believe impossible. The heart of Mrs. Wilcox was alone
+hidden, and perhaps it is superstitious to speculate on the
+feelings of the dead. They were warned quietly--really quietly,
+for as the day approached she refused to go through another
+Oniton. Her brother gave her away, her aunt, who was out of
+health, presided over a few colourless refreshments. The Wilcoxes
+were represented by Charles, who witnessed the marriage
+settlement, and by Mr. Cahill. Paul did send a cablegram. In a few
+minutes, and without the aid of music, the clergyman made them
+man and wife, and soon the glass shade had fallen that cuts off
+married couples from the world. She, a monogamist, regretted the
+cessation of some of life's innocent odours; he, whose instincts
+were polygamous, felt morally braced by the change and less
+liable to the temptations that had assailed him in the past.
+
+They spent their honeymoon near Innsbruck. Henry knew of a
+reliable hotel there, and Margaret hoped for a meeting with her
+sister. In this she was disappointed. As they came south, Helen
+retreated over the Brenner, and wrote an unsatisfactory post-card
+from the shores of the Lake of Garda, saying that her plans were
+uncertain and had better be ignored. Evidently she disliked
+meeting Henry. Two months are surely enough to accustom an
+outsider to a situation which a wife has accepted in two days,
+and Margaret had again to regret her sister's lack of
+self-control. In a long letter she pointed out the need of
+charity in sexual matters; so little is known about them; it is
+hard enough for those who are personally touched to judge; then
+how futile must be the verdict of Society. "I don't say there is
+no standard, for that would destroy morality; only that there can
+be no standard until our impulses are classified and better
+understood." Helen thanked her for her kind letter--rather a
+curious reply. She moved south again, and spoke of wintering in
+Naples.
+
+Mr. Wilcox was not sorry that the meeting failed. Helen left him
+time to grow skin over his wound. There were still moments when
+it pained him. Had he only known that Margaret was awaiting him--
+Margaret, so lively and intelligent, and yet so submissive--he
+would have kept himself worthier of her. Incapable of grouping
+the past, he confused the episode of Jacky with another episode
+that had taken place in the days of his bachelorhood. The two
+made one crop of wild oats, for which he was heartily sorry, and
+he could not see that those oats are of a darker stock which are
+rooted in another's dishonour. Unchastity and infidelity were
+as confused to him as to the Middle Ages, his only moral teacher.
+Ruth (poor old Ruth!) did not enter into his calculations at all,
+for poor old Ruth had never found him out.
+
+His affection for his present wife grew steadily. Her cleverness
+gave him no trouble, and, indeed, he liked to see her reading
+poetry or something about social questions; it distinguished her
+from the wives of other men. He had only to call, and she clapped
+the book up and was ready to do what he wished. Then they would
+argue so jollily, and once or twice she had him in quite a tight
+corner, but as soon as he grew really serious, she gave in. Man
+is for war, woman for the recreation of the warrior, but he does
+not dislike it if she makes a show of fight. She cannot win in a
+real battle, having no muscles, only nerves. Nerves make her jump
+out of a moving motor-car, or refuse to be married fashionably.
+The warrior may well allow her to triumph on such occasions; they
+move not the imperishable plinth of things that touch his peace.
+
+Margaret had a bad attack of these nerves during the honeymoon.
+He told her--casually, as was his habit--that Oniton Grange was
+let. She showed her annoyance, and asked rather crossly why she
+had not been consulted.
+
+"I didn't want to bother you," he replied. "Besides, I have only
+heard for certain this morning."
+
+"Where are we to live?" said Margaret, trying to laugh. "I loved
+the place extraordinarily. Don't you believe in having a
+permanent home, Henry?"
+
+He assured her that she misunderstood him. It is home life that
+distinguishes us from the foreigner. But he did not believe in a
+damp home.
+
+"This is news. I never heard till this minute that Oniton was
+damp."
+
+"My dear girl!"--he flung out his hand--"have you eyes? have you
+a skin? How could it be anything but damp in such a situation? In
+the first place, the Grange is on clay, and built where the
+castle moat must have been; then there's that detestable little
+river, steaming all night like a kettle. Feel the cellar walls;
+look up under the eaves. Ask Sir James or any one. Those
+Shropshire valleys are notorious. The only possible place for a
+house in Shropshire is on a hill; but, for my part, I think the
+country is too far from London, and the scenery nothing special."
+
+Margaret could not resist saying, "Why did you go there, then?"
+
+"I--because--" He drew his head back and grew rather angry. "Why
+have we come to the Tyrol, if it comes to that? One might go on
+asking such questions indefinitely."
+
+One might; but he was only gaining time for a plausible answer.
+Out it came, and he believed it as soon as it was spoken.
+
+"The truth is, I took Oniton on account of Evie. Don't let this
+go any further."
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"I shouldn't like her to know that she nearly let me in for a
+very bad bargain. No sooner did I sign the agreement than she got
+engaged. Poor little girl! She was so keen on it all, and
+wouldn't even wait to make proper inquiries about the shooting.
+Afraid it would get snapped up--just like all of your sex. Well,
+no harm's done. She has had her country wedding, and I've got rid
+of my goose to some fellows who are starting a preparatory
+school."
+
+"Where shall we live, then, Henry? I should enjoy living
+somewhere."
+
+"I have not yet decided. What about Norfolk?"
+
+Margaret was silent. Marriage had not saved her from the sense of
+flux. London was but a foretaste of this nomadic civilisation
+which is altering human nature so profoundly, and throws upon
+personal relations a stress greater than they have ever borne
+before. Under cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no
+help from the earth. Trees and meadows and mountains will only be
+a spectacle, and the binding force that they once exercised on
+character must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal to
+the task!
+
+"It is now what?" continued Henry. "Nearly October. Let us camp
+for the winter at Ducie Street, and look out for something in the
+spring."
+
+"If possible, something permanent. I can't be as young as I was,
+for these alterations don't suit me."
+
+"But, my dear, which would you rather have--alterations or
+rheumatism?"
+
+"I see your point," said Margaret, getting up. "If Oniton is
+really damp, it is impossible, and must be inhabited by little
+boys. Only, in the spring, let us look before we leap. I will
+take warning by Evie, and not hurry you. Remember that you have a
+free hand this time. These endless moves must be bad for the
+furniture, and are certainly expensive."
+
+"What a practical little woman it is! What's it been reading?
+Theo--theo--how much?"
+
+"Theosophy."
+
+So Ducie Street was her first fate--a pleasant enough fate. The
+house, being only a little larger than Wickham Place, trained her
+for the immense establishment that was promised in the spring.
+They were frequently away, but at home life ran fairly regularly.
+In the morning Henry went to business, and his sandwich--a relic
+this of some prehistoric craving--was always cut by her own hand.
+He did not rely upon the sandwich for lunch, but liked to have it
+by him in case he grew hungry at eleven. When he had gone, there
+was the house to look after, and the servants to humanise, and
+several kettles of Helen's to keep on the boil. Her conscience
+pricked her a little about the Basts; she was not sorry to have
+lost sight of them. No doubt Leonard was worth helping, but being
+Henry's wife, she preferred to help some one else. As for
+theatres and discussion societies, they attracted her less and
+less. She began to "miss" new movements, and to spend her spare
+time re-reading or thinking, rather to the concern of her Chelsea
+friends. They attributed the change to her marriage, and perhaps
+some deep instinct did warn her not to travel further from her
+husband than was inevitable. Yet the main cause lay deeper still;
+she had outgrown stimulants, and was passing from words to
+things. It was doubtless a pity not to keep up with Wedekind or
+John, but some closing of the gates is inevitable after thirty,
+if the mind itself is to become a creative power.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+She was looking at plans one day in the following spring--they
+had finally decided to go down into Sussex and build--when Mrs.
+Charles Wilcox was announced.
+
+"Have you heard the news?" Dolly cried, as soon as she entered
+the room. Charles is so ang--I mean he is sure you know about it,
+or, rather, that you don't know."
+
+"Why, Dolly!" said Margaret, placidly kissing her. "Here's a
+surprise! How are the boys and the baby?"
+
+Boys and the baby were well, and in describing a great row that
+there had been at the Hilton Tennis Club, Dolly forgot her news.
+The wrong people had tried to get in. The rector, as representing
+the older inhabitants, had said--Charles had said--the
+tax-collector had said--Charles had regretted not saying--and she
+closed the description with, "But lucky you, with four courts of
+your own at Midhurst."
+
+"It will be very jolly," replied Margaret.
+
+"Are those the plans? Does it matter my seeing them?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Charles has never seen the plans."
+
+"They have only just arrived. Here is the ground floor--no,
+that's rather difficult. Try the elevation, We are to have a good
+many gables and a picturesque sky-line."
+
+"What makes it smell so funny?" said Dolly, after a moment's
+inspection. She was incapable of understanding plans or maps.
+
+"I suppose the paper."
+
+"And WHICH way up is it?"
+
+"Just the ordinary way up. That's the sky-line and the part that
+smells strongest is the sky."
+
+"Well, ask me another. Margaret--oh--what was I going to say?
+How's Helen?"
+
+"Quite well."
+
+"Is she never coming back to England? Every one thinks it's
+awfully odd she doesn't."
+
+"So it is," said Margaret, trying to conceal her vexation. She
+was getting rather sore on this point. "Helen is odd, awfully.
+She has now been away eight months."
+
+"But hasn't she any address?"
+
+"A poste restante somewhere in Bavaria is her address. Do write
+her a line. I will look it up for you."
+
+"No, don't bother. That's eight months she has been away,
+surely?"
+
+"Exactly. She left just after Evie's wedding. It would be eight
+months."
+
+"Just when baby was born, then?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+Dolly sighed, and stared enviously round the drawing-room. She
+was beginning to lose her brightness and good looks. The
+Charles's were not well off, for Mr. Wilcox, having brought up
+his children with expensive tastes, believed in letting them
+shift for themselves. After all, he had not treated them
+generously. Yet another baby was expected, she told Margaret, and
+they would have to give up the motor. Margaret sympathised, but
+in a formal fashion, and Dolly little imagined that the
+stepmother was urging Mr. Wilcox to make them a more liberal
+allowance. She sighed again, and at last the particular grievance
+was remembered. "Oh, yes," she cried, "that is it: Miss Avery has
+been unpacking your packing-cases."
+
+"Why has she done that? How unnecessary!"
+
+"Ask another. I suppose you ordered her to."
+
+"I gave no such orders. Perhaps she was airing the things. She
+did undertake to light an occasional fire."
+
+"It was far more than an air," said Dolly solemnly. "The floor
+sounds covered with books. Charles sent me to know what is to be
+done, for he feels certain you don't know."
+
+"Books!" cried Margaret, moved by the holy word. "Dolly, are you
+serious? Has she been touching our books?"
+
+"Hasn't she, though! What used to be the hall's full of them.
+Charles thought for certain you knew of it."
+
+"I am very much obliged to you, Dolly. What can have come over
+Miss Avery? I must go down about it at once. Some of the books
+are my brother's, and are quite valuable. She had no right to
+open any of the cases."
+
+"I say she's dotty. She was the one that never got married, you
+know. Oh, I say, perhaps, she thinks your books are
+wedding-presents to herself. Old maids are taken that way
+sometimes. Miss Avery hates us all like poison ever since her
+frightful dust-up with Evie."
+
+"I hadn't heard of that," said Margaret. A visit from Dolly had
+its compensations.
+
+"Didn't you know she gave Evie a present last August, and Evie
+returned it, and then--oh, goloshes! You never read such a letter
+as Miss Avery wrote."
+
+"But it was wrong of Evie to return it. It wasn't like her to do
+such a heartless thing."
+
+"But the present was so expensive."
+
+"Why does that make any difference, Dolly?"
+
+"Still, when it costs over five pounds--I didn't see it, but it
+was a lovely enamel pendant from a Bond Street shop. You can't
+very well accept that kind of thing from a farm woman. Now, can
+you?"
+
+"You accepted a present from Miss Avery when you were married."
+
+"Oh, mine was old earthenware stuff--not worth a halfpenny.
+Evie's was quite different. You'd have to ask any one to the
+wedding who gave you a pendant like that. Uncle Percy and Albert
+and father and Charles all said it was quite impossible, and when
+four men agree, what is a girl to do? Evie didn't want to upset
+the old thing, so thought a sort of joking letter best, and
+returned the pendant straight to the shop to save Miss Avery
+trouble."
+
+"But Miss Avery said--"
+
+Dolly's eyes grew round. "It was a perfectly awful letter.
+Charles said it was the letter of a madman. In the end she had
+the pendant back again from the shop and threw it into the
+duck-pond."
+
+"Did she give any reasons?"
+
+"We think she meant to be invited to Oniton, and so climb into
+society."
+
+"She's rather old for that," said Margaret pensively.
+
+"May she not have given the present to Evie in remembrance of her
+mother?"
+
+"That's a notion. Give every one their due, eh? Well, I suppose I
+ought to be toddling. Come along, Mr. Muff--you want a new coat,
+but I don't know who'll give it you, I'm sure;" and addressing
+her apparel with mournful humour, Dolly moved from the room.
+
+Margaret followed her to ask whether Henry knew about Miss
+Avery's rudeness.
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"I wonder, then, why he let me ask her to look after the house."
+
+"But she's only a farm woman," said Dolly, and her explanation
+proved correct. Henry only censured the lower classes when it
+suited him. He bore with Miss Avery as with Crane--because he
+could get good value out of them. "I have patience with a man who
+knows his job," he would say, really having patience with the
+job, and not the man. Paradoxical as it may sound, he had
+something of the artist about him; he would pass over an insult
+to his daughter sooner than lose a good charwoman for his wife.
+
+Margaret judged it better to settle the little trouble herself.
+Parties were evidently ruffled. With Henry's permission, she
+wrote a pleasant note to Miss Avery, asking her to leave the
+cases untouched. Then, at the first convenient opportunity, she
+went down herself, intending to repack her belongings and store
+them properly in the local warehouse; the plan had been
+amateurish and a failure. Tibby promised to accompany her, but at
+the last moment begged to be excused. So, for the second time in
+her life, she entered the house alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+The day of her visit was exquisite, and the last of unclouded
+happiness that she was to have for many months. Her anxiety about
+Helen's extraordinary absence was still dormant, and as for a
+possible brush with Miss Avery-that only gave zest to the
+expedition. She had also eluded Dolly's invitation to luncheon.
+Walking straight up from the station, she crossed the village
+green and entered the long chestnut avenue that connects it with
+the church. The church itself stood in the village once. But it
+there attracted so many worshippers that the devil, in a pet,
+snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on an
+inconvenient knoll, three quarters of a mile away. If this story
+is true, the chestnut avenue must have been planted by the
+angels. No more tempting approach could be imagined for the
+lukewarm Christian, and if he still finds the walk too long, the
+devil is defeated all the same, Science having built Holy
+Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles's and roofed it with
+tin.
+
+Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky
+that gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to
+finger the little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not
+England a great mythology? our folklore has never advanced beyond
+daintiness, and the greater melodies about our country-side have
+all issued through the pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the
+native imagination can be, it seems to have failed here. It has
+stopped with the witches and the fairies. It cannot vivify one
+fraction of a summer field, or give names to half a dozen stars.
+England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature--for
+the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for the
+thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common
+talk.
+
+At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened
+into a road, smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched
+country. She followed it for over a mile. Its little hesitations
+pleased her. Having no urgent destiny, it strolled downhill or up
+as it wished, taking no trouble about the gradients, or about the
+view, which nevertheless expanded. The great estates that
+throttle the south of Hertfordshire were less obtrusive here, and
+the appearance of the land was neither aristocratic nor suburban.
+To define it was difficult, but Margaret knew what it was not: it
+was not snobbish. Though its contours were slight, there was a
+touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never
+attain, and the distant brow of the Chilterns towered like a
+mountain. "Left to itself," was Margaret's opinion, "this county
+would vote Liberal." The comradeship, not passionate, that is our
+highest gift as a nation, was promised by it, as by the low brick
+farm where she called for the key.
+
+But the inside of the farm was disappointing. A most finished
+young person received her. "Yes, Mrs. Wilcox; no, Mrs. Wilcox; oh
+yes, Mrs. Wilcox, auntie received your letter quite duly. Auntie
+has gone up to your little place at the present moment. Shall I
+send the servant to direct you?" Followed by: "Of course, auntie
+does not generally look after your place; she only does it to
+oblige a neighbour as something exceptional. It gives her
+something to do. She spends quite a lot of her time there. My
+husband says to me sometimes, "Where's auntie?' I say, 'Need you
+ask? She's at Howards End.' Yes, Mrs. Wilcox. Mrs. Wilcox, could
+I prevail upon you to accept a piece of cake? Not if I cut it for
+you?"
+
+Margaret refused the cake, but unfortunately this gave her
+gentility in the eyes of Miss Avery's niece.
+
+"I cannot let you go on alone. Now don't. You really mustn't. I
+will direct you myself if it comes to that. I must get my hat.
+Now"--roguishly--"Mrs. Wilcox, don't you move while I'm gone."
+
+Stunned, Margaret did not move from the best parlour, over which
+the touch of art nouveau had fallen. But the other rooms looked
+in keeping, though they conveyed the peculiar sadness of a rural
+interior. Here had lived an elder race, to which we look back
+with disquietude. The country which we visit at week-ends was
+really a home to it, and the graver sides of life, the deaths,
+the partings, the yearnings for love, have their deepest
+expression in the heart of the fields. All was not sadness. The
+sun was shining without. The thrush sang his two syllables on the
+budding guelder-rose. Some children were playing uproariously in
+heaps of golden straw. It was the presence of sadness at all that
+surprised Margaret, and ended by giving her a feeling of
+completeness. In these English farms, if anywhere, one might see
+life steadily and see it whole, group in one vision its
+transitoriness and its eternal youth, connect--connect without
+bitterness until all men are brothers. But her thoughts were
+interrupted by the return of Miss Avery's niece, and were so
+tranquillising that she suffered the interruption gladly.
+
+It was quicker to go out by the back door, and, after due
+explanations, they went out by it. The niece was now mortified by
+innumerable chickens, who rushed up to her feet for food, and by
+a shameless and maternal sow. She did not know what animals were
+coming to. But her gentility withered at the touch of the sweet
+air. The wind was rising, scattering the straw and ruffling the
+tails of the ducks as they floated in families over Evie's
+pendant. One of those delicious gales of spring, in which leaves
+still in bud seem to rustle, swept over the land and then fell
+silent. "Georgie," sang the thrush. "Cuckoo," came furtively from
+the cliff of pine-trees. "Georgie, pretty Georgie," and the other
+birds joined in with nonsense. The hedge was a half-painted
+picture which would be finished in a few days. Celandines grew on
+its banks, lords and ladies and primroses in the defended
+hollows; the wild rose-bushes, still bearing their withered hips,
+showed also the promise of blossom. Spring had come, clad in no
+classical garb, yet fairer than all springs; fairer even than she
+who walks through the myrtles of Tuscany with the graces before
+her and the zephyr behind.
+
+The two women walked up the lane full of outward civility. But
+Margaret was thinking how difficult it was to be earnest about
+furniture on such a day, and the niece was thinking about hats.
+Thus engaged, they reached Howards End. Petulant cries of
+"Auntie!" severed the air. There was no reply, and the front door
+was locked.
+
+"Are you sure that Miss Avery is up here?" asked Margaret.
+
+"Oh, yes, Mrs. Wilcox, quite sure. She is here daily."
+
+Margaret tried to look in through the dining-room window, but the
+curtain inside was drawn tightly. So with the drawing-room and
+the hall. The appearance of these curtains was familiar, yet she
+did not remember their being there on her other visit; her
+impression was that Mr. Bryce had taken everything away. They
+tried the back. Here again they received no answer, and could see
+nothing; the kitchen-window was fitted with a blind, while the
+pantry and scullery had pieces of wood propped up against them,
+which looked ominously like the lids of packing-cases. Margaret
+thought of her books, and she lifted up her voice also. At the
+first cry she succeeded.
+
+"Well, well!" replied some one inside the house. "If it isn't
+Mrs. Wilcox come at last!"
+
+"Have you got the key, auntie?"
+
+"Madge, go away," said Miss Avery, still invisible.
+
+"Auntie, it's Mrs. Wilcox--"
+
+Margaret supported her. "Your niece and I have come together."
+
+"Madge, go away. This is no moment for your hat."
+
+The poor woman went red. "Auntie gets more eccentric lately," she
+said nervously.
+
+"Miss Avery!" called Margaret. "I have come about the furniture.
+Could you kindly let me in?"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox," said the voice, "of course." But after that
+came silence. They called again without response. They walked
+round the house disconsolately.
+
+"I hope Miss Avery is not ill," hazarded Margaret.
+
+"Well, if you'll excuse me," said Madge, "perhaps I ought to be
+leaving you now. The servants need seeing to at the farm. Auntie
+is so odd at times." Gathering up her elegancies, she retired
+defeated, and, as if her departure had loosed a spring, the front
+door opened at once.
+
+Miss Avery said, "Well, come right in, Mrs. Wilcox!" quite
+pleasantly and calmly.
+
+"Thank you so much," began Margaret, but broke off at the sight
+of an umbrella-stand. It was her own.
+
+"Come right into the hall first," said Miss Avery. She drew the
+curtain, and Margaret uttered a cry of despair. For an appalling
+thing had happened. The hall was fitted up with the contents of
+the library from Wickham Place. The carpet had been laid, the big
+work-table drawn up near the window; the bookcases filled the
+wall opposite the fireplace, and her father's sword--this is what
+bewildered her particularly--had been drawn from its scabbard and
+hung naked amongst the sober volumes. Miss Avery must have worked
+for days.
+
+"I'm afraid this isn't what we meant," she began. "Mr. Wilcox and
+I never intended the cases to be touched. For instance, these
+books are my brother's. We are storing them for him and for my
+sister, who is abroad. When you kindly undertook to look after
+things, we never expected you to do so much."
+
+"The house has been empty long enough," said the old woman.
+
+Margaret refused to argue. "I dare say we didn't explain," she
+said civilly. "It has been a mistake, and very likely our
+mistake."
+
+"Mrs. Wilcox, it has been mistake upon mistake for fifty years.
+The house is Mrs. Wilcox's, and she would not desire it to stand
+empty any longer."
+
+To help the poor decaying brain, Margaret said:
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Wilcox's house, the mother of Mr. Charles."
+
+"Mistake upon mistake," said Miss Avery. "Mistake upon mistake."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Margaret, sitting down in one of her
+own chairs. "I really don't know what's to be done." She could
+not help laughing.
+
+The other said: "Yes, it should be a merry house enough."
+
+"I don't know--I dare say. Well, thank you very much, Miss Avery.
+Yes, that's all right. Delightful."
+
+"There is still the parlour." She went through the door opposite
+and drew a curtain. Light flooded the drawing-room furniture from
+Wickham Place. "And the dining-room." More curtains were drawn,
+more windows were flung open to the spring. "Then through here--"
+Miss Avery continued passing and reprising through the hall. Her
+voice was lost, but Margaret heard her pulling up the kitchen
+blind. "I've not finished here yet," she announced, returning.
+"There's still a deal to do. The farm lads will carry your great
+wardrobes upstairs, for there is no need to go into expense at
+Hilton."
+
+"It is all a mistake," repeated Margaret, feeling that she must
+put her foot down. "A misunderstanding. Mr. Wilcox and I are not
+going to live at Howards End."
+
+"Oh, indeed! On account of his hay fever?"
+
+"We have settled to build a new home for ourselves in Sussex, and
+part of this furniture--my part--will go down there presently."
+She looked at Miss Avery intently, trying to understand the kink
+in her brain.
+
+Here was no maundering old woman. Her wrinkles were shrewd and
+humorous. She looked capable of scathing wit and also of high but
+unostentatious nobility. "You think that you won't come back to
+live here, Mrs. Wilcox, but you will."
+
+"That remains to be seen," said Margaret, smiling. "We have no
+intention of doing so for the present. We happen to need a much
+larger house. Circumstances oblige us to give big parties. Of
+course, some day--one never knows, does one?"
+
+Miss Avery retorted: "Some day! Tcha! tcha! Don't talk about some
+day. You are living here now."
+
+"Am I?"
+
+"You are living here, and have been for the last ten minutes, if
+you ask me."
+
+It was a senseless remark, but with a queer feeling of disloyalty
+Margaret rose from her chair. She felt that Henry had been
+obscurely censured. They went into the dining-room, where the
+sunlight poured in upon her mother's chiffonier, and upstairs,
+where many an old god peeped from a new niche. The furniture
+fitted extraordinarily well. In the central room--over the hall,
+the room that Helen had slept in four years ago--Miss Avery had
+placed Tibby's old bassinette.
+
+"The nursery," she said.
+
+Margaret turned away without speaking.
+
+At last everything was seen. The kitchen and lobby were still
+stacked with furniture and straw, but, as far as she could make
+out, nothing had been broken or scratched. A pathetic display of
+ingenuity! Then they took a friendly stroll in the garden. It had
+gone wild since her last visit. The gravel sweep was weedy, and
+grass had sprung up at the very jaws of the garage. And Evie's
+rockery was only bumps. Perhaps Evie was responsible for Miss
+Avery's oddness. But Margaret suspected that the cause lay
+deeper, and that the girl's silly letter had but loosed the
+irritation of years.
+
+"It's a beautiful meadow," she remarked. It was one of those
+open-air drawing-rooms that have been formed, hundreds of years
+ago, out of the smaller fields. So the boundary hedge zigzagged
+down the hill at right angles, and at the bottom there was a
+little green annex--a sort of powder-closet for the cows.
+
+"Yes, the maidy's well enough," said Miss Avery, "for those, that
+is, who don't suffer from sneezing." And she cackled maliciously.
+"I've seen Charlie Wilcox go out to my lads in hay time--oh, they
+ought to do this--they mustn't do that--he'd learn them to be
+lads. And just then the tickling took him. He has it from his
+father, with other things. There's not one Wilcox that can stand
+up against a field in June--I laughed fit to burst while he was
+courting Ruth."
+
+"My brother gets hay fever too," said Margaret.
+
+"This house lies too much on the land for them. Naturally, they
+were glad enough to slip in at first. But Wilcoxes are better
+than nothing, as I see you've found."
+
+Margaret laughed.
+
+"They keep a place going, don't they? Yes, it is just that."
+
+"They keep England going, it is my opinion."
+
+But Miss Avery upset her by replying: "Ay, they breed like
+rabbits. Well, well, it's a funny world. But He who made it knows
+what He wants in it, I suppose. If Mrs. Charlie is expecting her
+fourth, it isn't for us to repine."
+
+"They breed and they also work," said Margaret, conscious of some
+invitation to disloyalty, which was echoed by the very breeze and
+by the songs of the birds. "It certainly is a funny world, but so
+long as men like my husband and his sons govern it, I think it'll
+never be a bad one--never really bad."
+
+"No, better'n nothing," said Miss Avery, and turned to the
+wych-elm.
+
+On their way back to the farm she spoke of her old friend much
+more clearly than before. In the house Margaret had wondered
+whether she quite distinguished the first wife from the second.
+Now she said: "I never saw much of Ruth after her grandmother
+died, but we stayed civil. It was a very civil family. Old Mrs.
+Howard never spoke against anybody, nor let any one be turned
+away without food. Then it was never 'Trespassers will be
+prosecuted' in their land, but would people please not come in?
+Mrs. Howard was never created to run a farm."
+
+"Had they no men to help them?" Margaret asked.
+
+Miss Avery replied: "Things went on until there were no men."
+
+"Until Mr. Wilcox came along," corrected Margaret, anxious that
+her husband should receive his dues.
+
+"I suppose so; but Ruth should have married a--no disrespect to
+you to say this, for I take it you were intended to get Wilcox
+any way, whether she got him first or no."
+
+"Whom should she have married?"
+
+"A soldier!" exclaimed the old woman. "Some real soldier."
+
+Margaret was silent. It was a criticism of Henry's character far
+more trenchant than any of her own. She felt dissatisfied.
+
+"But that's all over," she went on. "A better time is coming now,
+though you've kept me long enough waiting. In a couple of weeks
+I'll see your light shining through the hedge of an evening. Have
+you ordered in coals?"
+
+"We are not coming," said Margaret firmly. She respected Miss
+Avery too much to humour her. "No. Not coming. Never coming. It
+has all been a mistake. The furniture must be repacked at once,
+and I am very sorry, but I am making other arrangements, and must
+ask you to give me the keys."
+
+"Certainly, Mrs. Wilcox," said Miss Avery, and resigned her
+duties with a smile.
+
+Relieved at this conclusion, and having sent her compliments to
+Madge, Margaret walked back to the station. She had intended to
+go to the furniture warehouse and give directions for removal,
+but the muddle had turned out more extensive than she expected,
+so she decided to consult Henry. It was as well that she did
+this. He was strongly against employing the local man whom he had
+previously recommended, and advised her to store in London after
+all.
+
+But before this could be done an unexpected trouble fell upon
+her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+It was not unexpected entirely. Aunt Juley's health had been bad
+all winter. She had had a long series of colds and coughs, and
+had been too busy to get rid of them. She had scarcely promised
+her niece "to really take my tiresome chest in hand," when she
+caught a chill and developed acute pneumonia. Margaret and Tibby
+went down to Swanage. Helen was telegraphed for, and that spring
+party that after all gathered in that hospitable house had all
+the pathos of fair memories. On a perfect day, when the sky
+seemed blue porcelain, and the waves of the discreet little bay
+beat gentlest of tattoos upon the sand, Margaret hurried up
+through the rhododendrons, confronted again by the senselessness
+of Death. One death may explain itself, but it throws no light
+upon another; the groping inquiry must begin anew. Preachers or
+scientists may generalise, but we know that no generality is
+possible about those whom we love; not one heaven awaits them,
+not even one oblivion. Aunt Juley, incapable of tragedy, slipped
+out of life with odd little laughs and apologies for having
+stopped in it so long. She was very weak; she could not rise to
+the occasion, or realise the great mystery which all agree must
+await her; it only seemed to her that she was quite done up--more
+done up than ever before; that she saw and heard and felt less
+every moment; and that, unless something changed, she would soon
+feel nothing. Her spare strength she devoted to plans: could not
+Margaret take some steamer expeditions? were mackerel cooked as
+Tibby liked them? She worried herself about Helen's absence, and
+also that she should be the cause of Helen's return. The nurses
+seemed to think such interests quite natural, and perhaps hers
+was an average approach to the Great Gate. But Margaret saw Death
+stripped of any false romance; whatever the idea of Death may
+contain, the process can be trivial and hideous.
+
+"Important--Margaret dear, take the Lulworth when Helen comes."
+
+"Helen won't be able to stop, Aunt Juley. She has telegraphed
+that she can only get away just to see you. She must go back to
+Germany as soon as you are well."
+
+"How very odd of Helen! Mr. Wilcox--"
+
+"Yes, dear?"
+
+"Can he spare you?"
+
+Henry wished her to come, and had been very kind. Yet again
+Margaret said so.
+
+Mrs. Munt did not die. Quite outside her will, a more dignified
+power took hold of her and checked her on the downward slope. She
+returned, without emotion, as fidgety as ever. On the fourth day
+she was out of danger.
+
+"Margaret--important," it went on: "I should like you to have
+some companion to take walks with. Do try Miss Conder."
+
+"I have been for a little walk with Miss Conder."
+
+"But she is not really interesting. If only you had Helen."
+
+"I have Tibby, Aunt Juley."
+
+"No, but he has to do his Chinese. Some real companion is what
+you need. Really, Helen is odd."
+
+"Helen is odd, very," agreed Margaret.
+
+"Not content with going abroad, why does she want to go back
+there at once?"
+
+"No doubt she will change her mind when she sees us. She has not
+the least balance."
+
+That was the stock criticism about Helen, but Margaret's voice
+trembled as she made it. By now she was deeply pained at her
+sister's behaviour. It may be unbalanced to fly out of England,
+but to stay away eight months argues that the heart is awry as
+well as the head. A sick-bed could recall Helen, but she was deaf
+to more human calls; after a glimpse at her aunt, she would
+retire into her nebulous life behind some poste restante. She
+scarcely existed; her letters had become dull and infrequent; she
+had no wants and no curiosity. And it was all put down to poor
+Henry's account! Henry, long pardoned by his wife, was still too
+infamous to be greeted by his sister-in-law. It was morbid, and,
+to her alarm, Margaret fancied that she could trace the growth of
+morbidity back in Helen's life for nearly four years. The flight
+from Oniton; the unbalanced patronage of the Basts; the explosion
+of grief up on the Downs--all connected with Paul, an
+insignificant boy whose lips had kissed hers for a fraction of
+time. Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox had feared that they might kiss
+again. Foolishly--the real danger was reaction. Reaction against
+the Wilcoxes had eaten into her life until she was scarcely sane.
+At twenty-five she had an idee fixe. What hope was there for her
+as an old woman?
+
+The more Margaret thought about it the more alarmed she became.
+For many months she had put the subject away, but it was too big
+to be slighted now. There was almost a taint of madness. Were all
+Helen's actions to be governed by a tiny mishap, such as may
+happen to any young man or woman? Can human nature be constructed
+on lines so insignificant? The blundering little encounter at
+Howards End was vital. It propagated itself where graver
+intercourse lay barren; it was stronger than sisterly intimacy,
+stronger than reason or books. In one of her moods Helen had
+confessed that she still "enjoyed" it in a certain sense. Paul
+had faded, but the magic of his caress endured. And where there
+is enjoyment of the past there may also be reaction--propagation
+at both ends.
+
+Well, it is odd and sad that our minds should be such seed-beds,
+and we without power to choose the seed. But man is an odd, sad
+creature as yet, intent on pilfering the earth, and heedless of
+the growths within himself. He cannot be bored about psychology.
+He leaves it to the specialist, which is as if he should leave
+his dinner to be eaten by a steam-engine. He cannot be bothered
+to digest his own soul. Margaret and Helen have been more
+patient, and it is suggested that Margaret has succeeded--so far
+as success is yet possible. She does understand herself, she has
+some rudimentary control over her own growth. Whether Helen has
+succeeded one cannot say.
+
+The day that Mrs. Munt rallied Helen's letter arrived. She had
+posted it at Munich, and would be in London herself on the
+morrow. It was a disquieting letter, though the opening was
+affectionate and sane.
+
+"DEAREST MEG,
+
+"Give Helen's love to Aunt Juley. Tell her that I love, and have
+loved her ever since I can remember. I shall be in London
+Thursday.
+
+"My address will be care of the bankers. I have not yet settled
+on a hotel, so write or wire to me there and give me detailed
+news. If Aunt Juley is much better, or if, for a terrible reason,
+it would be no good my coming down to Swanage, you must not think
+it odd if I do not come. I have all sorts of plans in my head. I
+am living abroad at present, and want to get back as quickly as
+possible. Will you please tell me where our furniture is? I
+should like to take out one or two books; the rest are for you.
+
+"Forgive me, dearest Meg. This must read like rather a tiresome
+letter, but all letters are from your loving
+
+                                                    "HELEN."
+
+It was a tiresome letter, for it tempted Margaret to tell a lie.
+If she wrote that Aunt Juley was still in danger her sister would
+come. Unhealthiness is contagious. We cannot be in contact with
+those who are in a morbid state without ourselves deteriorating.
+To "act for the best" might do Helen good, but would do herself
+harm, and, at the risk of disaster, she kept her colours flying a
+little longer. She replied that their aunt was much better, and
+awaited developments.
+
+Tibby approved of her reply. Mellowing rapidly, he was a
+pleasanter companion than before. Oxford had done much for him.
+He had lost his peevishness, and could hide his indifference to
+people and his interest in food. But he had not grown more human.
+The years between eighteen and twenty-two, so magical for most,
+were leading him gently from boyhood to middle age. He had never
+known young-manliness, that quality which warms the heart till
+death, and gives Mr. Wilcox an imperishable charm. He was frigid,
+through no fault of his own, and without cruelty. He thought
+Helen wrong and Margaret right, but the family trouble was for
+him what a scene behind footlights is for most people. He had
+only one suggestion to make, and that was characteristic.
+
+"Why don't you tell Mr. Wilcox?"
+
+"About Helen?"
+
+"Perhaps he has come across that sort of thing."
+
+"He would do all he could, but--"
+
+"Oh, you know best. But he is practical."
+
+It was the student's belief in experts. Margaret demurred for one
+or two reasons. Presently Helen's answer came. She sent a
+telegram requesting the address of the furniture, as she would
+now return at once. Margaret replied, "Certainly not; meet me at
+the bankers' at four." She and Tibby went up to London. Helen was
+not at the bankers', and they were refused her address. Helen had
+passed into chaos.
+
+Margaret put her arm round her brother. He was all that she had
+left, and never had he seemed more unsubstantial.
+
+"Tibby love, what next?"
+
+He replied: "It is extraordinary."
+
+"Dear, your judgment's often clearer than mine. Have you any
+notion what's at the back?"
+
+"None, unless it's something mental."
+
+"Oh--that!" said Margaret. "Quite impossible." But the suggestion
+had been uttered, and in a few minutes she took it up herself.
+Nothing else explained. And London agreed with Tibby. The mask
+fell off the city, and she saw it for what it really is--a
+caricature of infinity. The familiar barriers, the streets along
+which she moved, the houses between which she had made her little
+journeys for so many years, became negligible suddenly. Helen
+seemed one with grimy trees and the traffic and the
+slowly-flowing slabs of mud. She had accomplished a hideous act
+of renunciation and returned to the One. Margaret's own faith
+held firm. She knew the human soul will be merged, if it be
+merged at all, with the stars and the sea. Yet she felt that her
+sister had been going amiss for many years. It was symbolic the
+catastrophe should come now, on a London afternoon, while rain
+fell slowly.
+
+Henry was the only hope. Henry was definite. He might know of
+some paths in the chaos that were hidden from them, and she
+determined to take Tibby's advice and lay the whole matter in his
+hands. They must call at his office. He could not well make it
+worse. She went for a few moments into St. Paul's, whose dome
+stands out of the welter so bravely, as if preaching the gospel
+of form. But within, St. Paul's is as its surroundings--echoes
+and whispers, inaudible songs, invisible mosaics, wet footmarks,
+crossing and recrossing the floor. Si monumentum requiris,
+circumspice; it points us back to London. There was no hope of
+Helen here.
+
+Henry was unsatisfactory at first. That she had expected. He was
+overjoyed to see her back from Swanage, and slow to admit the
+growth of a new trouble. When they told him of their search, he
+only chaffed Tibby and the Schlegels generally, and declared that
+it was "just like Helen" to lead her relatives a dance.
+
+"That is what we all say," replied Margaret. "But why should it
+be just like Helen? Why should she be allowed to be so queer, and
+to grow queerer?"
+
+"Don't ask me. I'm a plain man of business. I live and let live.
+My advice to you both is, don't worry. Margaret, you've got black
+marks again under your eyes. You know that's strictly forbidden.
+First your aunt--then your sister. No, we aren't going to have
+it. Are we, Theobald?" He rang the bell. "I'll give you some tea,
+and then you go straight to Ducie Street. I can't have my girl
+looking as old as her husband."
+
+"All the same, you have not quite seen our point," said Tibby.
+
+Mr. Wilcox, who was in good spirits, retorted, "I don't suppose I
+ever shall." He leant back, laughing at the gifted but ridiculous
+family, while the fire flickered over the map of Africa. Margaret
+motioned to her brother to go on. Rather diffident, he obeyed
+her.
+
+"Margaret's point is this," he said. "Our sister may be mad."
+
+Charles, who was working in the inner room, looked round.
+
+"Come in, Charles," said Margaret kindly. "Could you help us at
+all? We are again in trouble."
+
+"I'm afraid I cannot. What are the facts? We are all mad more or
+less, you know, in these days."
+
+"The facts are as follows," replied Tibby, who had at times a
+pedantic lucidity. "The facts are that she has been in England
+for three days and will not see us. She has forbidden the bankers
+to give us her address. She refuses to answer questions. Margaret
+finds her letters colourless. There are other facts, but these
+are the most striking."
+
+"She has never behaved like this before, then?" asked Henry.
+
+"Of course not!" said his wife, with a frown.
+
+"Well, my dear, how am I to know?"
+
+A senseless spasm of annoyance came over her. "You know quite
+well that Helen never sins against affection," she said. "You
+must have noticed that much in her, surely."
+
+"Oh yes; she and I have always hit it off together."
+
+"No, Henry--can't you see?--I don't mean that."
+
+She recovered herself, but not before Charles had observed her.
+Stupid and attentive, he was watching the scene.
+
+"I was meaning that when she was eccentric in the past, one could
+trace it back to the heart in the long-run. She behaved oddly
+because she cared for some one, or wanted to help them. There's
+no possible excuse for her now. She is grieving us deeply, and
+that is why I am sure that she is not well. 'Mad' is too terrible
+a word, but she is not well. I shall never believe it. I
+shouldn't discuss my sister with you if I thought she was well--
+trouble you about her, I mean."
+
+Henry began to grow serious. Ill-health was to him something
+perfectly definite. Generally well himself, he could not realise
+that we sink to it by slow gradations. The sick had no rights;
+they were outside the pale; one could lie to them remorselessly.
+When his first wife was seized, he had promised to take her down
+into Hertfordshire, but meanwhile arranged with a nursing-home
+instead. Helen, too, was ill. And the plan that he sketched out
+for her capture, clever and well-meaning as it was, drew its
+ethics from the wolf-pack.
+
+"You want to get hold of her?" he said. "That's the problem,
+isn't it? She has got to see a doctor."
+
+"For all I know she has seen one already."
+
+"Yes, yes; don't interrupt." He rose to his feet and thought
+intently. The genial, tentative host disappeared, and they saw
+instead the man who had carved money out of Greece and Africa,
+and bought forests from the natives for a few bottles of gin.
+"I've got it," he said at last. "It's perfectly easy. Leave it
+to me. We'll send her down to Howards End."
+
+"How will you do that?"
+
+"After her books. Tell her that she must unpack them herself.
+Then you can meet her there."
+
+"But, Henry, that's just what she won't let me do. It's part of
+her--whatever it is--never to see me."
+
+"Of course you won't tell her you're going. When she is there,
+looking at the cases, you'll just stroll in. If nothing is wrong
+with her, so much the better. But there'll be the motor round the
+corner, and we can run her to a specialist in no time."
+
+Margaret shook her head. "It's quite impossible."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It doesn't seem impossible to me," said Tibby; "it is surely a
+very tippy plan."
+
+"It is impossible, because--" She looked at her husband sadly.
+"It's not the particular language that Helen and I talk, if you
+see my meaning. It would do splendidly for other people, whom I
+don't blame."
+
+"But Helen doesn't talk," said Tibby. "That's our whole
+difficulty. She won't talk your particular language, and on that
+account you think she's ill."
+
+"No, Henry; it's sweet of you, but I couldn't."
+
+"I see," he said; "you have scruples."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And sooner than go against them you would have your sister
+suffer. You could have got her down to Swanage by a word, but you
+had scruples. And scruples are all very well. I am as scrupulous
+as any man alive, I hope; but when it is a case like this, when
+there is a question of madness--"
+
+"I deny it's madness."
+
+"You said just now--"
+
+"It's madness when I say it, but not when you say it."
+
+Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Margaret! Margaret!" he groaned.
+"No education can teach a woman logic. Now, my dear, my time is
+valuable. Do you want me to help you or not?"
+
+"Not in that way."
+
+"Answer my question. Plain question, plain answer. Do--"
+
+Charles surprised them by interrupting. "Pater, we may as well
+keep Howards End out of it," he said.
+
+"Why, Charles?"
+
+Charles could give no reason; but Margaret felt as if, over
+tremendous distance, a salutation had passed between them.
+
+"The whole house is at sixes and sevens," he said crossly. "We
+don't want any more mess."
+
+"Who's 'we'?" asked his father. "My boy, pray who's 'we'?"
+
+"I am sure I beg your pardon," said Charles. "I appear always to
+be intruding."
+
+By now Margaret wished she had never mentioned her trouble to her
+husband. Retreat was impossible. He was determined to push the
+matter to a satisfactory conclusion, and Helen faded as he
+talked. Her fair, flying hair and eager eyes counted for nothing,
+for she was ill, without rights, and any of her friends might
+hunt her. Sick at heart, Margaret joined in the chase. She wrote
+her sister a lying letter, at her husband's dictation; she said
+the furniture was all at Howards End, but could be seen on Monday
+next at 3 P.M., when a charwoman would be in attendance. It was a
+cold letter, and the more plausible for that. Helen would think
+she was offended. And on Monday next she and Henry were to lunch
+with Dolly, and then ambush themselves in the garden.
+
+After they had gone, Mr. Wilcox said to his son: "I can't have
+this sort of behaviour, my boy. Margaret's too sweet-natured to
+mind, but I mind for her."
+
+Charles made no answer.
+
+"Is anything wrong with you, Charles, this afternoon?"
+
+"No, pater; but you may be taking on a bigger business than you
+reckon. "
+
+"How?"
+
+"Don't ask me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+One speaks of the moods of spring, but the days that are her true
+children have only one mood; they are all full of the rising and
+dropping of winds, and the whistling of birds. New flowers may
+come out, the green embroidery of the hedges increase, but the
+same heaven broods overhead, soft, thick, and blue, the same
+figures, seen and unseen, are wandering by coppice and meadow.
+The morning that Margaret had spent with Miss Avery, and the
+afternoon she set out to entrap Helen, were the scales of a
+single balance. Time might never have moved, rain never have
+fallen, and man alone, with his schemes and ailments, was
+troubling Nature until he saw her through a veil of tears.
+
+She protested no more. Whether Henry was right or wrong, he was
+most kind, and she knew of no other standard by which to judge
+him. She must trust him absolutely. As soon as he had taken up a
+business, his obtuseness vanished. He profited by the slightest
+indications, and the capture of Helen promised to be staged as
+deftly as the marriage of Evie.
+
+They went down in the morning as arranged, and he discovered that
+their victim was actually in Hilton. On his arrival he called at
+all the livery-stables in the village, and had a few minutes'
+serious conversation with the proprietors. What he said, Margaret
+did not know--perhaps not the truth; but news arrived after lunch
+that a lady had come by the London train, and had taken a fly to
+Howards End.
+
+"She was bound to drive," said Henry. "There will be her books."
+
+"I cannot make it out," said Margaret for the hundredth time.
+
+"Finish your coffee, dear. We must be off."
+
+"Yes, Margaret, you know you must take plenty," said Dolly.
+
+Margaret tried, but suddenly lifted her hand to her eyes. Dolly
+stole glances at her father-in-law which he did not answer. In
+the silence the motor came round to the door.
+
+"You're not fit for it," he said anxiously. "Let me go alone. I
+know exactly what to do."
+
+"Oh yes, I am fit," said Margaret, uncovering her face. "Only
+most frightfully worried. I cannot feel that Helen is really
+alive. Her letters and telegrams seem to have come from some one
+else. Her voice isn't in them. I don't believe your driver really
+saw her at the station. I wish I'd never mentioned it. I know
+that Charles is vexed. Yes, he is--" She seized Dolly's hand and
+kissed it. "There, Dolly will forgive me. There. Now we'll be
+off."
+
+Henry had been looking at her closely. He did not like this
+breakdown.
+
+"Don't you want to tidy yourself?" he asked.
+
+"Have I time?"
+
+"Yes, plenty."
+
+She went to the lavatory by the front door, and as soon as the
+bolt slipped, Mr. Wilcox said quietly:
+
+"Dolly, I'm going without her."
+
+Dolly's eyes lit up with vulgar excitement. She followed him on
+tiptoe out to the car.
+
+"Tell her I thought it best."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Wilcox, I see."
+
+"Say anything you like. All right."
+
+The car started well, and with ordinary luck would have got away.
+But Porgly-woggles, who was playing in the garden, chose this
+moment to sit down in the middle of the path. Crane, in trying to
+pass him, ran one wheel over a bed of wallflowers. Dolly
+screamed. Margaret, hearing the noise, rushed out hatless, and
+was in time to jump on the footboard. She said not a single word;
+he was only treating her as she had treated Helen, and her rage
+at his dishonesty only helped to indicate what Helen would feel
+against them. She thought, "I deserve it; I am punished for
+lowering my colours." And she accepted his apologies with a
+calmness that astonished him.
+
+"I still consider you are not fit for it," he kept saying.
+
+"Perhaps I was not at lunch. But the whole thing is spread
+clearly before me now."
+
+"I was meaning to act for the best."
+
+"Just lend me your scarf, will you. This wind takes one's hair
+so."
+
+"Certainly, dear girl. Are you all right now?"
+
+"Look! My hands have stopped trembling."
+
+"And have quite forgiven me? Then listen. Her cab should already
+have arrived at Howards End. (We're a little late, but no
+matter.) Our first move will be to send it down to wait at the
+farm, as, if possible, one doesn't want a scene before servants.
+A certain gentleman"--he pointed at Crane's back--"won't drive
+in, but will wait a little short of the front gate, behind the
+laurels. Have you still the keys of the house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, they aren't wanted. Do you remember how the house stands?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+ "If we don't find her in the porch, we can stroll round into the
+garden. Our object--"
+
+Here they stopped to pick up the doctor.
+
+"I was just saying to my wife, Mansbridge, that our main object
+is not to frighten Miss Schlegel. The house, as you know, is my
+property, so it should seem quite natural for us to be there. The
+trouble is evidently nervous--wouldn't you say so, Margaret?"
+
+The doctor, a very young man, began to ask questions about Helen.
+Was she normal? Was there anything congenital or hereditary? Had
+anything occurred that was likely to alienate her from her
+family?
+
+"Nothing," answered Margaret, wondering what would have happened
+if she had added: "Though she did resent my husband's
+immorality."
+
+"She always was highly strung," pursued Henry, leaning back in
+the car as it shot past the church. "A tendency to spiritualism
+and those things, though nothing serious. Musical, literary,
+artistic, but I should say normal--a very charming girl."
+
+Margaret's anger and terror increased every moment. How dare
+these men label her sister! What horrors lay ahead! What
+impertinences that shelter under the name of science! The pack
+was turning on Helen, to deny her human rights, and it seemed to
+Margaret that all Schlegels were threatened with her. "Were they
+normal?" What a question to ask! And it is always those who know
+nothing about human nature, who are bored by psychology--and
+shocked by physiology, who ask it. However piteous her sister's
+state, she knew that she must be on her side. They would be mad
+together if the world chose to consider them so.
+
+It was now five minutes past three. The car slowed down by the
+farm, in the yard of which Miss Avery was standing. Henry asked
+her whether a cab had gone past. She nodded, and the next moment
+they caught sight of it, at the end of the lane. The car ran
+silently like a beast of prey. So unsuspicious was Helen that she
+was sitting in the porch, with her back to the road. She had
+come. Only her head and shoulders were visible. She sat framed in
+the vine, and one of her hands played with the buds. The wind
+ruffled her hair, the sun glorified it; she was as she had always
+been.
+
+Margaret was seated next to the door. Before her husband could
+prevent her, she slipped out. She ran to the garden gate, which
+was shut, passed through it, and deliberately pushed it in his
+face. The noise alarmed Helen. Margaret saw her rise with an
+unfamiliar movement, and, rushing into the porch, learnt the
+simple explanation of all their fears--her sister was with child.
+
+"Is the truant all right?" called Henry.
+
+She had time to whisper: "Oh, my darling--" The keys of the house
+were in her hand. She unlocked Howards End and thrust Helen into
+it. "Yes, all right," she said, and stood with her back to the
+door.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+"Margaret, you look upset!" said Henry.
+
+Mansbridge had followed. Crane was at the gate, and the flyman
+had stood up on the box. Margaret shook her head at them; she
+could not speak any more. She remained clutching the keys, as if
+all their future depended on them. Henry was asking more
+questions. She shook her head again. His words had no sense. She
+heard him wonder why she had let Helen in. "You might have given
+me a knock with the gate," was another of his remarks. Presently
+she heard herself speaking. She, or someone for her, said, "Go
+away." Henry came nearer. He repeated, "Margaret, you look upset
+again. My dear, give me the keys. What are you doing with Helen?"
+
+"Oh, dearest, do go away, and I will manage it all."
+
+"Manage what?"
+
+He stretched out his hand for the keys. She might have obeyed if
+it had not been for the doctor.
+
+"Stop that at least," she said piteously; the doctor had turned
+back, and was questioning the driver of Helen's cab. A new
+feeling came over her; she was fighting for women against men.
+She did not care about rights, but if men came into Howards End,
+it should be over her body.
+
+"Come, this is an odd beginning," said her husband.
+
+The doctor came forward now, and whispered two words to Mr.
+Wilcox--the scandal was out. Sincerely horrified, Henry stood
+gazing at the earth.
+
+"I cannot help it," said Margaret. "Do wait. It's not my fault.
+Please all four of you go away now."
+
+Now the flyman was whispering to Crane.
+
+"We are relying on you to help us, Mrs. Wilcox," said the young
+doctor. "Could you go in and persuade your sister to come out?"
+
+"On what grounds?" said Margaret, suddenly looking him straight
+in the eyes.
+
+Thinking it professional to prevaricate, he murmured something
+about a nervous breakdown.
+
+"I beg your pardon, but it is nothing of the sort. You are not
+qualified to attend my sister, Mr. Mansbridge. If we require your
+services, we will let you know."
+
+"I can diagnose the case more bluntly if you wish," he retorted.
+
+"You could, but you have not. You are, therefore, not qualified
+to attend my sister."
+
+"Come, come, Margaret!" said Henry, never raising his eyes. "This
+is a terrible business, an appalling business. It's doctor's
+orders. Open the door."
+
+"Forgive me, but I will not."
+
+"I don't agree."
+
+Margaret was silent.
+
+"This business is as broad as it's long," contributed the
+doctor. "We had better all work together. You need us, Mrs.
+Wilcox, and we need you."
+
+"Quite so," said Henry.
+
+"I do not need you in the least," said Margaret.
+
+The two men looked at each other anxiously.
+
+"No more does my sister, who is still many weeks from her
+confinement."
+
+"Margaret, Margaret!"
+
+"Well, Henry, send your doctor away. What possible use is he
+now?"
+
+Mr. Wilcox ran his eye over the house. He had a vague feeling
+that he must stand firm and support the doctor. He himself might
+need support, for there was trouble ahead.
+
+"It all turns on affection now," said Margaret. "Affection. Don't
+you see?" Resuming her usual methods, she wrote the word on the
+house with her finger. "Surely you see. I like Helen very much,
+you not so much. Mr. Mansbridge doesn't know her. That's all.
+And affection, when reciprocated, gives rights. Put that down in
+your note-book, Mr. Mansbridge. It's a useful formula."
+
+Henry told her to be calm.
+
+"You don't know what you want yourselves," said Margaret, folding
+her arms. "For one sensible remark I will let you in. But you
+cannot make it. You would trouble my sister for no reason. I will
+not permit it. I'll stand here all the day sooner."
+
+"Mansbridge," said Henry in a low voice, "perhaps not now."
+
+The pack was breaking up. At a sign from his master, Crane also
+went back into the car.
+
+"Now, Henry, you," she said gently. None of her bitterness had
+been directed at him. "Go away now, dear. I shall want your
+advice later, no doubt. Forgive me if I have been cross. But,
+seriously, you must go."
+
+He was too stupid to leave her. Now it was Mr. Mansbridge who
+called in a low voice to him.
+
+"I shall soon find you down at Dolly's," she called, as the gate
+at last clanged between them. The fly moved out of the way, the
+motor backed, turned a little, backed again, and turned in the
+narrow road. A string of farm carts came up in the middle; but
+she waited through all, for there was no hurry. When all was over
+and the car had started, she opened the door. "Oh, my darling!"
+she said. "My darling, forgive me." Helen was standing in the
+hall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+Margaret bolted the door on the inside. Then she would have
+kissed her sister, but Helen, in a dignified voice, that came
+strangely from her, said:
+
+"Convenient! You did not tell me that the books were unpacked. I
+have found nearly everything that I want."
+
+"I told you nothing that was true."
+
+"It has been a great surprise, certainly. Has Aunt Juley been
+ill?"
+
+"Helen, you wouldn't think I'd invent that?"
+
+"I suppose not," said Helen, turning away, and crying a very
+little. "But one loses faith in everything after this."
+
+"We thought it was illness, but even then--I haven't behaved
+worthily."
+
+Helen selected another book.
+
+"I ought not to have consulted any one. What would our father
+have thought of me?"
+
+She did not think of questioning her sister, or of rebuking her.
+Both might be necessary in the future, but she had first to purge
+a greater crime than any that Helen could have committed--that
+want of confidence that is the work of the devil.
+
+"Yes, I am annoyed," replied Helen. "My wishes should have been
+respected. I would have gone through this meeting if it was
+necessary, but after Aunt Juley recovered, it was not necessary.
+Planning my life, as I now have to do."
+
+"Come away from those books," called Margaret. "Helen, do talk
+to me."
+
+"I was just saying that I have stopped living haphazard. One
+can't go through a great deal of--"she left out the noun--
+"without planning one's actions in advance. I am going to have a
+child in June, and in the first place conversations, discussions,
+excitement, are not good for me. I will go through them if
+necessary, but only then. In the second place I have no right to
+trouble people. I cannot fit in with England as I know it. I have
+done something that the English never pardon. It would not be
+right for them to pardon it. So I must live where I am not
+known."
+
+"But why didn't you tell me, dearest?"
+
+"Yes," replied Helen judicially. "I might have, but decided to
+wait."
+
+"I believe you would never have told me."
+
+"Oh yes, I should. We have taken a flat in Munich."
+
+Margaret glanced out of the window.
+
+"By 'we' I mean myself and Monica. But for her, I am and have
+been and always wish to be alone."
+
+"I have not heard of Monica."
+
+"You wouldn't have. She's an Italian--by birth at least. She
+makes her living by journalism. I met her originally on Garda.
+Monica is much the best person to see me through."
+
+"You are very fond of her, then."
+
+"She has been extraordinarily sensible with me."
+
+Margaret guessed at Monica's type--"Italiano Inglesiato"
+they had named it--the crude feminist of the South, whom one
+respects but avoids. And Helen had turned to it in her need!
+
+"You must not think that we shall never meet," said Helen, with a
+measured kindness. "I shall always have a room for you when you
+can be spared, and the longer you can be with me the better. But
+you haven't understood yet, Meg, and of course it is very
+difficult for you. This is a shock to you. It isn't to me, who
+have been thinking over our futures for many months, and they
+won't be changed by a slight contretemps, such as this. I cannot
+live in England."
+
+"Helen, you've not forgiven me for my treachery. You COULDN'T
+talk like this to me if you had."
+
+"Oh, Meg dear, why do we talk at all?" She dropped a book and
+sighed wearily. Then, recovering herself, she said: "Tell me, how
+is it that all the books are down here?"
+
+"Series of mistakes."
+
+"And a great deal of furniture has been unpacked."
+
+"All."
+
+"Who lives here, then?"
+
+"No one."
+
+"I suppose you are letting it, though."
+
+"The house is dead," said Margaret, with a frown. "Why worry on
+about it?"
+
+"But I am interested. You talk as if I had lost all my interest
+in life. I am still Helen, I hope. Now this hasn't the feel of a
+dead house. The hall seems more alive even than in the old days,
+when it held the Wilcoxes' own things."
+
+"Interested, are you? Very well, I must tell you, I suppose. My
+husband lent it on condition we--but by a mistake all our things
+were unpacked, and Miss Avery, instead of--" She stopped. "Look
+here, I can't go on like this. I warn you I won't. Helen, why
+should you be so miserably unkind to me, simply because you hate
+Henry?"
+
+"I don't hate him now," said Helen. "I have stopped being a
+schoolgirl, and, Meg, once again, I'm not being unkind. But as
+for fitting in with your English life--no, put it out of your
+head at once. Imagine a visit from me at Ducie Street! It's
+unthinkable."
+
+Margaret could not contradict her. It was appalling to see her
+quietly moving forward with her plans, not bitter or excitable,
+neither asserting innocence nor confessing guilt, merely desiring
+freedom and the company of those who would not blame her. She had
+been through--how much? Margaret did not know. But it was enough
+to part her from old habits as well as old friends.
+
+"Tell me about yourself," said Helen, who had chosen her books,
+and was lingering over the furniture.
+
+"There's nothing to tell."
+
+"But your marriage has been happy, Meg?"
+
+"Yes, but I don't feel inclined to talk."
+
+"You feel as I do."
+
+"Not that, but I can't."
+
+"No more can I. It is a nuisance, but no good trying."
+
+Something had come between them. Perhaps it was Society, which
+henceforward would exclude Helen. Perhaps it was a third life,
+already potent as a spirit. They could find no meeting-place.
+Both suffered acutely, and were not comforted by the knowledge
+that affection survived.
+
+"Look here, Meg, is the coast clear?"
+
+"You mean that you want to go away from me?"
+
+"I suppose so--dear old lady! it isn't any use. I knew we should
+have nothing to say. Give my love to Aunt Juley and Tibby, and
+take more yourself than I can say. Promise to come and see me in
+Munich later."
+
+"Certainly, dearest."
+
+"For that is all we can do."
+
+It seemed so. Most ghastly of all was Helen's common sense;
+Monica had been extraordinarily good for her.
+
+"I am glad to have seen you and the things." She looked at the
+bookcase lovingly, as if she was saying farewell to the past.
+
+Margaret unbolted the door. She remarked: "The car has gone, and
+here's your cab."
+
+She led the way to it, glancing at the leaves and the sky. The
+spring had never seemed more beautiful. The driver, who was
+leaning on the gate, called out, "Please, lady, a message," and
+handed her Henry's visiting-card through the bars.
+
+"How did this come?" she asked.
+
+Crane had returned with it almost at once.
+
+She read the card with annoyance. It was covered with
+instructions in domestic French. When she and her sister had
+talked she was to come back for the night to Dolly's. Il faut
+dormir sur ce sujet." while Helen was to be found une comfortable
+chambre a l'hotel. The final sentence displeased her greatly
+until she remembered that the Charles's had only one spare room,
+and so could not invite a third guest.
+
+"Henry would have done what he could," she interpreted.
+
+Helen had not followed her into the garden. The door once open,
+she lost her inclination to fly. She remained in the hall, going
+from bookcase to table. She grew more like the old Helen,
+irresponsible and charming.
+
+"This IS Mr. Wilcox's house?" she inquired.
+
+"Surely you remember Howards End?"
+
+"Remember? I who remember everything! But it looks to be ours
+now."
+
+"Miss Avery was extraordinary," said Margaret, her own spirits
+lightening a little. Again she was invaded by a slight feeling of
+disloyalty. But it brought her relief, and she yielded to it.
+"She loved Mrs. Wilcox, and would rather furnish her home with
+our things than think of it empty. In consequence here are all
+the library books."
+
+"Not all the books. She hasn't unpacked the Art books, in which
+she may show her sense. And we never used to have the sword
+here."
+
+"The sword looks well, though."
+
+"Magnificent."
+
+"Yes, doesn't it?"
+
+"Where's the piano, Meg?"
+
+"I warehoused that in London. Why?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Curious, too, that the carpet fits."
+
+"The carpet's a mistake," announced Helen. "I know that we had it
+in London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too
+beautiful."
+
+"You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to
+come into the dining-room before you start? There's no carpet
+there. They went in, and each minute their talk became more
+natural.
+
+"Oh, WHAT a place for mother's chiffonier!" cried Helen.
+
+"Look at the chairs, though."
+
+"Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn't it?"
+
+"North-west."
+
+"Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt
+the sun. Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm."
+
+"But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just--"
+
+"Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the
+lawn."
+
+Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.
+
+"Ye--es. The window's too high."
+
+"Try a drawing-room chair."
+
+"No, I don't like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been
+match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise."
+
+"Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You're perfectly
+right. It's a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it
+nice for women. Men don't know what we want--,I
+
+"And never will."
+
+"I don't agree. In two thousand years they'll know. Look where
+Tibby spilt the soup."
+
+"Coffee. It was coffee surely."
+
+Helen shook her head. "Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be
+given coffee at that time."
+
+"Was father alive?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you're right and it must have been soup. I thinking of much
+later--that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley's, when she didn't
+realise that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw
+it down on purpose. There was some rhyme, 'Tea, coffee--coffee
+tea,' that she said to him every morning at breakfast. Wait a
+minute--how did it go?"
+
+"I know--no, I don't. What a detestable boy Tibby was!"
+
+"But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up
+with it."
+
+"Ah, that greengage-tree," cried Helen, as if the garden was also
+part of their childhood. Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And
+there come the chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love
+yellowhammers."
+
+Margaret interrupted her. "I have got it," she announced.
+
+       "'Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
+         Or chocolaritee.'
+
+"That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild."
+
+"Tibby is moderately a dear now," said Helen.
+
+"There! I knew you'd say that in the end. Of course he's a dear."
+
+A bell rang.
+
+"Listen! what's that?"
+
+Helen said, "Perhaps the Wilcoxes are beginning the siege."
+
+"What nonsense--listen!"
+
+And the triviality faded from their faces, though it left
+something behind--the knowledge that they never could be parted
+because their love was rooted in common things. Explanations and
+appeals had failed; they had tried for a common meeting-ground,
+and had only made each other unhappy. And all the time their
+salvation was lying round them--the past sanctifying the present;
+the present, with wild heart-throb, declaring that there would
+after all be a future with laughter and the voices of children.
+Helen, still smiling, came up to her sister. She said, "It is
+always Meg." They looked into each other's eyes. The inner life
+had paid.
+
+Solemnly the clapper tolled. No one was in the front. Margaret
+went to the kitchen, and struggled between packing-cases to the
+window. Their visitor was only a little boy with a tin can. And
+triviality returned.
+
+"Little boy, what do you want?"
+
+"Please, I am the milk."
+
+"Did Miss Avery send you?" said Margaret, rather sharply.
+
+"Yes, please."
+
+"Then take it back and say we require no milk." While she called
+to Helen, "No, it's not the siege, but possibly an attempt to
+provision us against one."
+
+"But I like milk," cried Helen. "Why send it away?"
+
+"Do you? Oh, very well. But we've nothing to put it in, and he
+wants the can."
+
+"Please, I'm to call in the morning for the can," said the boy.
+
+"The house will be locked up then."
+
+"In the morning would I bring eggs too?"
+
+"Are you the boy whom I saw playing in the stacks last week?"
+
+The child hung his head.
+
+"Well, run away and do it again."
+
+"Nice little boy," whispered Helen. "I say, what's your name?
+Mine's Helen."
+
+"Tom."
+
+That was Helen all over. The Wilcoxes, too, would ask a child its
+name, but they never told their names in return.
+
+"Tom, this one here is Margaret. And at home we've another called
+Tibby. "
+
+"Mine are lop-eareds," replied Tom, supposing Tibby to be a
+rabbit.
+
+"You're a very good and rather a clever little boy. Mind you come
+again.--Isn't he charming?"
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Margaret. "He is probably the son of Madge,
+and Madge is dreadful. But this place has wonderful powers."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Because I probably agree with you."
+
+"It kills what is dreadful and makes what is beautiful live."
+
+"I do agree," said Helen, as she sipped the milk. "But you said
+that the house was dead not half an hour ago."
+
+"Meaning that I was dead. I felt it."
+
+"Yes, the house has a surer life than we, even if it was empty,
+and, as it is, I can't get over that for thirty years the sun has
+never shone full on our furniture. After all, Wickham Place was a
+grave. Meg, I've a startling idea."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Drink some milk to steady you."
+
+Margaret obeyed.
+
+"No, I won't tell you yet," said Helen, "because you may laugh or
+be angry. Let's go upstairs first and give the rooms an airing."
+
+They opened window after window, till the inside, too, was
+rustling to the spring. Curtains blew, picture frames tapped
+cheerfully. Helen uttered cries of excitement as she found this
+bed obviously in its right place, that in its wrong one. She was
+angry with Miss Avery for not having moved the wardrobes up.
+"Then one would see really." She admired the view. She was the
+Helen who had written the memorable letters four years ago. As
+they leant out, looking westward, she said: "About my idea.
+Couldn't you and I camp out in this house for the night?"
+
+"I don't think we could well do that," said Margaret.
+
+"Here are beds, tables, towels--"
+
+"I know; but the house isn't supposed to be slept in, and Henry's
+suggestion was--"
+
+"I require no suggestions. I shall not alter anything in my
+plans. But it would give me so much pleasure to have one night
+here with you. It will be something to look back on. Oh, Meg
+lovey, do let's!"
+
+"But, Helen, my pet," said Margaret, "we can't without getting
+Henry's leave. Of course, he would give it, but you said yourself
+that you couldn't visit at Ducie Street now, and this is equally
+intimate."
+
+"Ducie Street is his house. This is ours. Our furniture, our sort
+of people coming to the door. Do let us camp out, just one night,
+and Tom shall feed us on eggs and milk. Why not? It's a moon."
+
+Margaret hesitated. "I feel Charles wouldn't like it," she said
+at last. "Even our furniture annoyed him, and I was going to
+clear it out when Aunt Juley's illness prevented me. I sympathise
+with Charles. He feels it's his mother's house. He loves it in
+rather an untaking way. Henry I could answer for--not Charles."
+
+"I know he won't like it," said Helen. "But I am going to pass
+out of their lives. What difference will it make in the long run
+if they say, 'And she even spent the night at Howards End'?"
+
+"How do you know you'll pass out of their lives? We have thought
+that twice before."
+
+"Because my plans--"
+
+"--which you change in a moment."
+
+"Then because my life is great and theirs are little," said
+Helen, taking fire. "I know of things they can't know of, and so
+do you. We know that there's poetry. We know that there's death.
+They can only take them on hearsay. We know this is our house,
+because it feels ours. Oh, they may take the title-deeds and the
+door-keys, but for this one night we are at home."
+
+"It would be lovely to have you once more alone," said Margaret.
+"It may be a chance in a thousand."
+
+"Yes, and we could talk." She dropped her voice. "It won't be a
+very glorious story. But under that wych-elm--honestly, I see
+little happiness ahead. Cannot I have this one night with you?"
+
+"I needn't say how much it would mean to me."
+
+"Then let us."
+
+"It is no good hesitating. Shall I drive down to Hilton now and
+get leave?"
+
+"Oh, we don't want leave."
+
+But Margaret was a loyal wife. In spite of imagination and
+poetry--perhaps on account of them--she could sympathise with the
+technical attitude that Henry would adopt. If possible, she would
+be technical, too. A night's lodging--and they demanded no more--
+need not involve the discussion of general principles.
+
+"Charles may say no," grumbled Helen.
+
+"We shan't consult him."
+
+"Go if you like; I should have stopped without leave."
+
+It was the touch of selfishness, which was not enough to mar
+Helen's character, and even added to its beauty. She would have
+stopped without leave and escaped to Germany the next morning.
+Margaret kissed her.
+
+"Expect me back before dark. I am looking forward to it so much.
+It is like you to have thought of such a beautiful thing."
+
+"Not a thing, only an ending," said Helen rather sadly; and the
+sense of tragedy closed in on Margaret again as soon as she left
+the house.
+
+She was afraid of Miss Avery. It is disquieting to fulfil a
+prophecy, however superficially. She was glad to see no watching
+figure as she drove past the farm, but only little Tom, turning
+somersaults in the straw.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+The tragedy began quietly enough, and, like many another talk, by
+the man's deft assertion of his superiority. Henry heard her
+arguing with the driver, stepped out and settled the fellow, who
+was inclined to be rude, and then led the way to some chairs on
+the lawn. Dolly, who had not been "told," ran out with offers of
+tea. He refused them, and ordered them to wheel baby's
+perambulator away, as they desired to be alone.
+
+"But the diddums can't listen; he isn't nine months old," she
+pleaded.
+
+"That's not what I was saying," retorted her father-in-law.
+
+Baby was wheeled out of earshot, and did not hear about the
+crisis till later years. It was now the turn of Margaret.
+
+"Is it what we feared?" he asked.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Dear girl," he began, "there is a troublesome business ahead of
+us, and nothing but the most absolute honesty and plain speech
+will see us through." Margaret bent her head. "I am obliged to
+question you on subjects we'd both prefer to leave untouched. As
+you know, I am not one of your Bernard Shaws who consider nothing
+sacred. To speak as I must will pain me, but there are occasions
+-- We are husband and wife, not children. I am a man of the
+world, and you are a most exceptional woman."
+
+All Margaret's senses forsook her. She blushed, and looked past
+him at the Six Hills, covered with spring herbage. Noting her
+colour, he grew still more kind.
+
+"I see that you feel as I felt when-- My poor little wife! Oh, be
+brave! Just one or two questions, and I have done with you. Was
+your sister wearing a wedding-ring?"
+
+Margaret stammered a "No."
+
+There was an appalling silence.
+
+"Henry, I really came to ask a favour about Howards End."
+
+"One point at a time. I am now obliged to ask for the name of her
+seducer."
+
+She rose to her feet and held the chair between them. Her colour
+had ebbed, and she was grey. It did not displease him that she
+should receive his question thus.
+
+"Take your time," he counselled her. "Remember that this is far
+worse for me than for you."
+
+She swayed; he feared she was going to faint. Then speech came,
+and she said slowly: "Seducer? No; I do not know her seducer's
+name."
+
+"Would she not tell you?"
+
+"I never even asked her who seduced her," said Margaret, dwelling
+on the hateful word thoughtfully.
+
+"That is singular." Then he changed his mind. "Natural perhaps,
+dear girl, that you shouldn't ask. But until his name is known,
+nothing can be done. Sit down. How terrible it is to see you so
+upset! I knew you weren't fit for it. I wish I hadn't taken you."
+
+Margaret answered, "I like to stand, if you don't mind, for it
+gives me a pleasant view of the Six Hills."
+
+"As you like."
+
+"Have you anything else to ask me, Henry?"
+
+"Next you must tell me whether you have gathered anything. I have
+often noticed your insight, dear. I only wish my own was as good.
+You may have guessed something, even though your sister said
+nothing. The slightest hint would help us."
+
+"Who is 'we'?"
+
+"I thought it best to ring up Charles."
+
+"That was unnecessary," said Margaret, growing warmer. "This news
+will give Charles disproportionate pain."
+
+"He has at once gone to call on your brother."
+
+"That too was unnecessary."
+
+"Let me explain, dear, how the matter stands. You don't think
+that I and my son are other than gentlemen? It is in Helen's
+interests that we are acting. It is still not too late to save
+her name."
+
+Then Margaret hit out for the first time. "Are we to make her
+seducer marry her?" she asked.
+
+"If possible, yes."
+
+"But, Henry, suppose he turned out to be married already? One has
+heard of such cases."
+
+"In that case he must pay heavily for his misconduct, and be
+thrashed within an inch of his life."
+
+So her first blow missed. She was thankful of it. What had
+tempted her to imperil both of their lives. Henry's obtuseness
+had saved her as well as himself. Exhausted with anger, she sat
+down again, blinking at him as he told her as much as he thought
+fit. At last she said: "May I ask you my question now?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear."
+
+"To-morrow Helen goes to Munich--"
+
+"Well, possibly she is right."
+
+"Henry, let a lady finish. To-morrow she goes; to-night, with
+your permission, she would like to sleep at Howards End."
+
+It was the crisis of his life. Again she would have recalled the
+words as soon as they were uttered. She had not led up to them
+with sufficient care. She longed to warn him that they were far
+more important than he supposed. She saw him weighing them, as if
+they were a business proposition.
+
+"Why Howards End?" he said at last. "Would she not be more
+comfortable, as I suggested, at the hotel?"
+
+Margaret hastened to give him reasons. "It is an odd request, but
+you know what Helen is and what women in her state are." He
+frowned, and moved irritably. "She has the idea that one night in
+your house would give her pleasure and do her good. I think
+she's right. Being one of those imaginative girls, the presence
+of all our books and furniture soothes her. This is a fact. It is
+the end of her girlhood. Her last words to me were, 'A beautiful
+ending.'"
+
+"She values the old furniture for sentimental reasons, in fact."
+
+"Exactly. You have quite understood. It is her last hope of being
+with it."
+
+"I don't agree there, my dear! Helen will have her share of the
+goods wherever she goes--possibly more than her share, for you
+are so fond of her that you'd give her anything of yours that she
+fancies, wouldn't you? and I'd raise no objection. I could
+understand it if it was her old home, because a home, or a
+house," he changed the word, designedly; he had thought of a
+telling point--"because a house in which one has once lived
+becomes in a sort of way sacred, I don't know why. Associations
+and so on. Now Helen has no associations with Howards End, though
+I and Charles and Evie have. I do not see why she wants to stay
+the night there. She will only catch cold."
+
+"Leave it that you don't see," cried Margaret. "Call it fancy.
+But realise that fancy is a scientific fact. Helen is fanciful,
+and wants to."
+
+Then he surprised her--a rare occurrence. He shot an unexpected
+bolt. "If she wants to sleep one night she may want to sleep two.
+We shall never get her out of the house, perhaps."
+
+"Well?" said Margaret, with the precipice in sight. "And suppose
+we don't get her out of the house? Would it matter? She would do
+no one any harm."
+
+Again the irritated gesture.
+
+"No, Henry," she panted, receding. "I didn't mean that. We will
+only trouble Howards End for this one night.  I take her to
+London to-morrow--"
+
+"Do you intend to sleep in a damp house, too?"
+
+"She cannot be left alone."
+
+"That's quite impossible! Madness. You must be here to meet
+Charles."
+
+"I have already told you that your message to Charles was
+unnecessary, and I have no desire to meet him."
+
+"Margaret--my Margaret."
+
+"What has this business to do with Charles? If it concerns me
+little, it concerns you less, and Charles not at all."
+
+"As the future owner of Howards End," said Mr. Wilcox arching his
+fingers, "I should say that it did concern Charles."
+
+"In what way? Will Helen's condition depreciate the property?"
+
+"My dear, you are forgetting yourself."
+
+"I think you yourself recommended plain speaking."
+
+They looked at each other in amazement. The precipice was at
+their feet now.
+
+"Helen commands my sympathy," said Henry. "As your husband, I
+shall do all for her that I can, and I have no doubt that she
+will prove more sinned against than sinning. But I cannot treat
+her as if nothing has happened. I should be false to my position
+in society if I did."
+
+She controlled herself for the last time. "No, let us go back to
+Helen's request," she said. "It is unreasonable, but the request
+of an unhappy girl. Tomorrow she will go to Germany, and trouble
+society no longer. To-night she asks to sleep in your empty
+house--a house which you do not care about, and which you have
+not occupied for over a year. May she? Will you give my sister
+leave? Will you forgive her as you hope to be forgiven, and as
+you have actually been forgiven? Forgive her for one night only.
+That will be enough."
+
+"As I have actually been forgiven--?"
+
+"Never mind for the moment what I mean by that," said Margaret.
+"Answer my question."
+
+Perhaps some hint of her meaning did dawn on him. If so, he
+blotted it out. Straight from his fortress he answered: "I seem
+rather unaccommodating, but I have some experience of life, and
+know how one thing leads to another. I am afraid that your sister
+had better sleep at the hotel. I have my children and the memory
+of my dear wife to consider. I am sorry, but see that she leaves
+my house at once."
+
+"You have mentioned Mrs. Wilcox."
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"A rare occurrence. In reply, may I mention Mrs. Bast?"
+
+"You have not been yourself all day," said Henry, and rose from
+his seat with face unmoved. Margaret rushed at him and seized
+both his hands. She was transfigured.
+
+"Not any more of this!" she cried. "You shall see the connection
+if it kills you, Henry! You have had a mistress--I forgave you.
+My sister has a lover--you drive her from the house. Do you see
+the connection? Stupid, hypocritical, cruel--oh, contemptible!--a
+man who insults his wife when she's alive and cants with her
+memory when she's dead. A man who ruins a woman for his pleasure,
+and casts her off to ruin other men. And gives bad financial
+advice, and then says he is not responsible. These men are you.
+You can't recognise them, because you cannot connect. I've had
+enough of your unneeded kindness. I've spoilt you long enough.
+All your life you have been spoiled. Mrs. Wilcox spoiled you. No
+one has ever told what you are--muddled, criminally muddled. Men
+like you use repentance as a blind, so don't repent. Only say to
+yourself, 'What Helen has done, I've done.'"
+
+"The two cases are different," Henry stammered. His real retort
+was not quite ready. His brain was still in a whirl, and he
+wanted a little longer.
+
+"In what way different? You have betrayed Mrs. Wilcox, Helen only
+herself. You remain in society, Helen can't. You have had only
+pleasure, she may die. You have the insolence to talk to me of
+differences, Henry?"
+
+Oh, the uselessness of it! Henry's retort came.
+
+"I perceive you are attempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty
+weapon for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through
+life has been never to pay the least attention to threats, and I
+can only repeat what I said before: I do not give you and your
+sister leave to sleep at Howards End."
+
+Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first
+one and then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she
+stood looking at the Six Hills, tombs of warriors, breasts of the
+spring. Then she passed out into what was now the evening.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was
+staying. Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing
+in common but the English language, and tried by its help to
+express what neither of them understood. Charles saw in Helen the
+family foe. He had singled her out as the most dangerous of the
+Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked forward to telling his
+wife how right he had been. His mind was made up at once; the
+girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them
+farther. If occasion offered she might be married to a villain,
+or, possibly, to a fool. But this was a concession to morality,
+it formed no part of his main scheme. Honest and hearty was
+Charles's dislike, and the past spread itself out very clearly
+before him; hatred is a skilful compositor. As if they were heads
+in a note-book, he ran through all the incidents of the
+Schlegels' campaign: the attempt to compromise his brother, his
+mother's legacy, his father's marriage, the introduction of the
+furniture, the unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the
+request to sleep at Howards End; that was to be their
+master-stroke and the opportunity for his. But he already felt
+that Howards End was the objective, and, though he disliked the
+house, was determined to defend it.
+
+Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the
+conventions: his sister had a right to do what she thought right.
+It is not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave
+no hostages among them; men can always be more unconventional
+than women, and a bachelor of independent means need encounter no
+difficulties at all. Unlike Charles, Tibby had money enough; his
+ancestors had earned it for him, and if he shocked the people in
+one set of lodgings he had only to move into another. His was the
+leisure without sympathy--an attitude as fatal as the strenuous;
+a little cold culture may be raised on it, but no art. His
+sisters had seen the family danger, and had never forgotten to
+discount the gold islets that raised them from the sea. Tibby
+gave all the praise to himself, and so despised the struggling
+and the submerged.
+
+Hence the absurdity of the interview; the gulf between them was
+economic as well as spiritual. But several facts passed; Charles
+pressed for them with an impertinence that the undergraduate
+could not withstand. On what date had Helen gone abroad? To whom?
+(Charles was anxious to fasten the scandal on Germany.) Then,
+changing his tactics, he said roughly: "I suppose you realise
+that you are your sister's protector?"
+
+"In what sense?"
+
+"If a man played about with my sister, I'd send a bullet through
+him, but perhaps you don't mind."
+
+"I mind very much," protested Tibby.
+
+"Who d'ye suspect, then? Speak out man. One always suspects some
+one."
+
+"No one. I don't think so." Involuntarily he blushed. He had
+remembered the scene in his Oxford rooms.
+
+"You are hiding something," said Charles. As interviews go, he
+got the best of this one. "When you saw her last, did she mention
+any one's name? Yes or no!" he thundered, so that Tibby started.
+
+"In my rooms she mentioned some friends, called the Basts."
+
+"Who are the Basts?"
+
+"People--friends of hers at Evie's wedding."
+
+"I don't remember. But, by great Scott, I do! My aunt told me
+about some rag-tsag. Was she full of them when you saw her? Is
+there a man? Did she speak of the man? Or--look here--have you
+had any dealings with him?"
+
+Tibby was silent. Without intending it, he had betrayed his
+sister's confidence; he was not enough interested in human life
+to see where things will lead to. He had a strong regard for
+honesty, and his word, once given, had always been kept up to
+now. He was deeply vexed, not only for the harm he had done
+Helen, but for the flaw he had discovered in his own equipment.
+
+"I see--you are in his confidence. They met at your rooms. Oh,
+what a family, what a family! God help the poor pater--s"
+
+And Tibby found himself alone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+Leonard--he would figure at length in a newspaper report, but
+that evening he did not count for much. The foot of the tree was
+in shadow, since the moon was still hidden behind the house. But
+above, to right, to left, down the long meadow the moonlight was
+streaming. Leonard seemed not a man, but a cause.
+
+Perhaps it was Helen's way of falling in love--a curious way to
+Margaret, whose agony and whose contempt of Henry were yet
+imprinted with his image. Helen forgot people. They were husks
+that had enclosed her emotion. She could pity, or sacrifice
+herself, or have instincts, but had she ever loved in the noblest
+way, where man and woman, having lost themselves in sex, desire
+to lose sex itself in comradeship?
+
+Margaret wondered, but said no word of blame. This was Helen's
+evening. Troubles enough lay ahead of her--the loss of friends
+and of social advantages, the agony, the supreme agony, of
+motherhood, which is not even yet a matter of common knowledge.
+For the present let the moon shine brightly and the breezes of
+the spring blow gently, dying away from the gale of the day, and
+let the earth, that brings increase, bring peace. Not even to
+herself dare she blame Helen.
+
+She could not assess her trespass by any moral code; it was
+everything or nothing. Morality can tell us that murder is worse
+than stealing, and group most sins in an order all must approve,
+but it cannot group Helen. The surer its pronouncements on this
+point, the surer may we be that morality is not speaking. Christ
+was evasive when they questioned Him. It is those that cannot
+connect who hasten to cast the first stone.
+
+This was Helen's evening--won at what cost, and not to be marred
+by the sorrows of others. Of her own tragedy Margaret never
+uttered a word.
+
+"One isolates," said Helen slowly. "I isolated Mr. Wilcox from
+the other forces that were pulling Leonard downhill.
+Consequently, I was full of pity, and almost of revenge. For
+weeks I had blamed Mr. Wilcox only, and so, when your letters
+came-- "
+
+"I need never have written them," sighed Margaret. "They never
+shielded Henry. How hopeless it is to tidy away the past, even
+for others!"
+
+"I did not know that it was your own idea to dismiss the Basts."
+
+"Looking back, that was wrong of me."
+
+"Looking back, darling, I know that it was right. It is right to
+save the man whom one loves. I am less enthusiastic about justice
+now. But we both thought you wrote at his dictation. It seemed
+the last touch of his callousness. Being very much wrought up by
+this time--and Mrs. Bast was upstairs. I had not seen her, and
+had talked for a long time to Leonard--I had snubbed him for no
+reason, and that should have warned me I was in danger. So when
+the notes came I wanted us to go to you for an explanation. He
+said that he guessed the explanation--he knew of it, and you
+mustn't know. I pressed him to tell me. He said no one must know;
+it was something to do with his wife. Right up to the end we were
+Mr. Bast and Miss Schlegel. I was going to tell him that he must
+be frank with me when I saw his eyes, and guessed that Mr.
+Wilcox had ruined him in two ways, not one. I drew him to me.
+I made him tell me. I felt very lonely myself. He is not to
+blame. He would have gone on worshipping me. I want never to
+see him again, though it sounds appalling. I wanted to give
+him money and feel finished. Oh, Meg, the little that is known
+about these things!"
+
+She laid her face against the tree.
+
+"The little, too, that is known about growth! Both times it was
+loneliness, and the night, and panic afterwards. Did Leonard grow
+out of Paul?"
+
+Margaret did not speak for a moment. So tired was she that her
+attention had actually wandered to the teeth--the teeth that had
+been thrust into the tree's bark to medicate it. From where she
+sat she could see them gleam. She had been trying to count them.
+"Leonard is a better growth than madness," she said. "I was
+afraid that you would react against Paul until you went over the
+verge."
+
+"I did react until I found poor Leonard. I am steady now. I
+shan't ever like your Henry, dearest Meg, or even speak kindly
+about him, but all that blinding hate is over. I shall never rave
+against Wilcoxes any more. I understand how you married him, and
+you will now be very happy."
+
+Margaret did not reply.
+
+"Yes," repeated Helen, her voice growing more tender, "I do at
+last understand."
+
+"Except Mrs. Wilcox, dearest, no one understands our little
+movements."
+
+"Because in death--I agree."
+
+"Not quite. I feel that you and I and Henry are only fragments of
+that woman's mind. She knows everything. She is everything. She
+is the house, and the tree that leans over it. People have their
+own deaths as well as their own lives, and even if there is
+nothing beyond death, we shall differ in our nothingness. I
+cannot believe that knowledge such as hers will perish with
+knowledge such as mine. She knew about realities. She knew when
+people were in love, though she was not in the room. I don't
+doubt that she knew when Henry deceived her."
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Wilcox," called a voice.
+
+"Oh, good-night, Miss Avery."
+
+"Why should Miss Avery work for us?" Helen murmured.
+
+"Why, indeed?"
+
+Miss Avery crossed the lawn and merged into the hedge that
+divided it from the farm. An old gap, which Mr. Wilcox had filled
+up, had reappeared, and her track through the dew followed the
+path that he had turfed over, when he improved the garden and
+made it possible for games.
+
+"This is not quite our house yet," said Helen. "When Miss Avery
+called, I felt we are only a couple of tourists."
+
+"We shall be that everywhere, and for ever."
+
+"But affectionate tourists."
+
+"But tourists who pretend each hotel is their home."
+
+"I can't pretend very long," said Helen. "Sitting under this tree
+one forgets, but I know that to-morrow I shall see the moon rise
+out of Germany. Not all your goodness can alter the facts of the
+case. Unless you will come with me."
+
+Margaret thought for a moment. In the past year she had grown so
+fond of England that to leave it was a real grief. Yet what
+detained her? No doubt Henry would pardon her outburst, and go on
+blustering and muddling into a ripe old age. But what was the
+good? She had just as soon vanish from his mind.
+
+"Are you serious in asking me, Helen? Should I get on with your
+Monica?"
+
+"You would not, but I am serious in asking you."
+
+"Still, no more plans now. And no more reminiscences."
+
+They were silent for a little. It was Helen's evening.
+
+The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It
+had made music before they were born, and would continue after
+their deaths, but its song was of the moment. The moment had
+passed. The tree rustled again. Their senses were sharpened, and
+they seemed to apprehend life. Life passed. The tree rustled
+again.
+
+"Sleep now," said Margaret.
+
+The peace of the country was entering into her. It has no
+commerce with memory, and little with hope. Least of all is it
+concerned with the hopes of the next five minutes. It is the
+peace of the present, which passes understanding. Its murmur came
+"now," and "now" once more as they trod the gravel, and "now," as
+the moonlight fell upon their father's sword. They passed
+upstairs, kissed, and amidst the endless iterations fell
+asleep. The house had enshadowed the tree at first, but as the
+moon rose higher the two disentangled, and were clear fur a few
+moments at midnight. Margaret awoke and looked into the garden.
+How incomprehensible that Leonard Bast should have won her this
+night of peace! Was he also part of Mrs. Wilcox's mind?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+Far different was Leonard's development. The months after Oniton,
+whatever minor troubles they might bring him, were all
+overshadowed by Remorse. When Helen looked back she could
+philosophise, or she could look into the future and plan for her
+child. But the father saw nothing beyond his own sin. Weeks
+afterwards, in the midst of other occupations, he would suddenly
+cry out, "Brute--you brute, I couldn't have--" and be rent into
+two people who held dialogues. Or brown rain would descend,
+blotting out faces and the sky. Even Jacky noticed the change in
+him. Most terrible were his sufferings when he awoke from sleep.
+Sometimes he was happy at first, but grew conscious of a burden
+hanging to him and weighing down his thoughts when they would
+move. Or little irons scorched his body. Or a sword stabbed him.
+He would sit at the edge of his bed, holding his heart and
+moaning, "Oh what SHALL I do, whatever SHALL I do?" Nothing
+brought ease. He could put distance between him and the trespass,
+but it grew in his soul.
+
+Remorse is not among the eternal verities. The Greeks were right
+to dethrone her. Her action is too capricious, as though the
+Erinyes selected for punishment only certain men and certain
+sins. And of all means to regeneration Remorse is surely the most
+wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a
+knife that probes far deeper than the evil. Leonard was driven
+straight through its torments and emerged pure, but enfeebled--a
+better man, who would never lose control of himself again, but
+also a smaller man, who had less to control. Nor did purity mean
+peace. The use of the knife can become a habit as hard to shake
+off as passion itself, and Leonard continued to start with a cry
+out of dreams.
+
+He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It
+never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the
+intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by
+sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the
+whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been
+ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart,
+isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and
+beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could
+have travelled more gloriously through life than the juggernaut
+car that was crushing him. Memories of Evie's wedding had warped
+her, the starched servants, the yards of uneaten food, the rustle
+of overdressed women, motor-cars oozing grease on the gravel, a
+pretentious band. She had tasted the lees of this on her arrival;
+in the darkness, after failure, they intoxicated her. She and the
+victim seemed alone in a world of unreality, and she loved him
+absolutely, perhaps for half an hour.
+
+In the morning she was gone. The note that she left, tender and
+hysterical in tone, and intended to be most kind, hurt her lover
+terribly. It was as if some work of art had been broken by him,
+some picture in the National Gallery slashed out of its frame.
+When he recalled her talents and her social position, he felt
+that the first passer-by had a right to shoot him down. He was
+afraid of the waitress and the porters at the railway-station. He
+was afraid at first of his wife, though later he was to regard
+her with a strange new tenderness, and to think, "There is
+nothing to choose between us, after all."
+
+The expedition to Shropshire crippled the Basts permanently.
+Helen in her flight forgot to settle the hotel bill, and took
+their return tickets away with her; they had to pawn Jacky's
+bangles to get home, and the smash came a few days afterwards. It
+is true that Helen offered him five thousand pounds, but such a
+sum meant nothing to him. He could not see that the girl was
+desperately righting herself, and trying to save something out of
+the disaster, if it was only five thousand pounds. But he had to
+live somehow. He turned to his family, and degraded himself to a
+professional beggar. There was nothing else for him to do.
+
+"A letter from Leonard," thought Blanche, his sister; "and after
+all this time." She hid it, so that her husband should not see,
+and when he had gone to his work read it with some emotion, and
+sent the prodigal a little money out of her dress allowance.
+
+"A letter from Leonard!" said the other sister, Laura, a few days
+later. She showed it to her husband. He wrote a cruel, insolent
+reply, but sent more money than Blanche, so Leonard soon wrote to
+him again.
+
+And during the winter the system was developed.
+
+Leonard realised that they need never starve, because it would be
+too painful for his relatives. Society is based on the family,
+and the clever wastrel can exploit this indefinitely. Without a
+generous thought on either side, pounds and pounds passed. The
+donors disliked Leonard, and he grew to hate them intensely. When
+Laura censured his immoral marriage, he thought bitterly, "She
+minds that! What would she say if she knew the truth?" When
+Blanche's husband offered him work, he found some pretext for
+avoiding it. He had wanted work keenly at Oniton, but too much
+anxiety had shattered him, he was joining the unemployable. When
+his brother, the lay-reader, did not reply to a letter, he wrote
+again, saying that he and Jacky would come down to his village on
+foot. He did not intend this as blackmail. Still the brother sent
+a postal order, and it became part of the system. And so passed
+his winter and his spring.
+
+In the horror there are two bright spots. He never confused the
+past. He remained alive, and blessed are those who live, if it is
+only to a sense of sinfulness. The anodyne of muddledom, by which
+most men blur and blend their mistakes, never passed Leonard's
+lips--
+
+        "And if I drink oblivion of a day,
+         So shorten I the stature of my soul."
+
+It is a hard saying, and a hard man wrote it, but it lies at the
+root of all character.
+
+And the other bright spot was his tenderness for Jacky. He pitied
+her with nobility now--not the contemptuous pity of a man who
+sticks to a woman through thick and thin. He tried to be less
+irritable. He wondered what her hungry eyes desired--nothing that
+she could express, or that he or any man could give her. Would
+she ever receive the justice that is mercy--the justice for
+by-products that the world is too busy to bestow? She was fond of
+flowers, generous with money, and not revengeful. If she had
+borne him a child he might have cared for her. Unmarried, Leonard
+would never have begged; he would have flickered out and died.
+But the whole of life is mixed. He had to provide for Jacky, and
+went down dirty paths that she might have a few feathers and the
+dishes of food that suited her.
+
+One day he caught sight of Margaret and her brother. He was in
+St. Paul's. He had entered the cathedral partly to avoid the rain
+and partly to see a picture that had educated him in former
+years. But the light was bad, the picture ill placed, and Time
+and judgment were inside him now. Death alone still charmed him,
+with her lap of poppies, on which all men shall sleep. He took
+one glance, and turned aimlessly away towards a chair. Then down
+the nave he saw Miss Schlegel and her brother. They stood in the
+fairway of passengers, and their faces were extremely grave. He
+was perfectly certain that they were in trouble about their
+sister.
+
+Once outside--and he fled immediately--he wished that he had
+spoken to them. What was his life? What were a few angry words,
+or even imprisonment? He had done wrong--that was the true
+terror. Whatever they might know, he would tell them everything
+he knew. He re-entered St. Paul's. But they had moved in his
+absence, and had gone to lay their difficulties before Mr. Wilcox
+and Charles.
+
+The sight of Margaret turned remorse into new channels. He
+desired to confess, and though the desire is proof of a weakened
+nature, which is about to lose the essence of human intercourse,
+it did not take an ignoble form. He did not suppose that
+confession would bring him happiness. It was rather that he
+yearned to get clear of the tangle. So does the suicide yearn.
+The impulses are akin, and the crime of suicide lies rather in
+its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.
+Confession need harm no one--it can satisfy that test--and
+though it was un-English, and ignored by our Anglican cathedral,
+Leonard had a right to decide upon it.
+
+Moreover, he trusted Margaret. He wanted her hardness now. That
+cold, intellectual nature of hers would be just, if unkind. He
+would do whatever she told him, even if he had to see Helen. That
+was the supreme punishment she would exact. And perhaps she would
+tell him how Helen was. That was the supreme reward.
+
+He knew nothing about Margaret, not even whether she was married
+to Mr. Wilcox, and tracking her out took several days. That
+evening he toiled through the wet to Wickham Place, where the new
+flats were now appearing. Was he also the cause of their move?
+Were they expelled from society on his account? Thence to a
+public library, but could find no satisfactory Schlegel in the
+directory. On the morrow he searched again. He hung about outside
+Mr. Wilcox's office at lunch time, and, as the clerks came out
+said, "Excuse me, sir, but is your boss married?" Most of them
+stared, some said, "What's that to you?" but one, who had not yet
+acquired reticence, told him what he wished. Leonard could not
+learn the private address. That necessitated more trouble with
+directories and tubes. Ducie Street was not discovered till the
+Monday, the day that Margaret and her husband went down on their
+hunting expedition to Howards End.
+
+He called at about four o'clock. The weather had changed, and the
+sun shone gaily on the ornamental steps--black and white marble
+in triangles. Leonard lowered his eyes to them after ringing the
+bell. He felt in curious health; doors seemed to be opening and
+shutting inside his body, and he had been obliged to sleep
+sitting up in bed, with his back propped against the wall. When
+the parlourmaid came he could not see her face; the brown rain
+had descended suddenly.
+
+"Does Mrs. Wilcox live here?" he asked.
+
+"She's out," was the answer.
+
+"When will she be back?"
+
+"I'll ask," said the parlourmaid.
+
+Margaret had given instructions that no one who mentioned her
+name should ever be rebuffed. Putting the door on the chain--for
+Leonard's appearance demanded this--she went through to the
+smoking-room, which was occupied by Tibby. Tibby was asleep. He
+had had a good lunch. Charles Wilcox had not yet rung him up for
+the distracting interview. He said drowsily: "I don't know.
+Hilton. Howards End. Who is it?"
+
+"I'll ask, sir."
+
+"No, don't bother."
+
+"They have taken the car to Howards End," said the parlourmaid to
+Leonard.
+
+He thanked her, and asked whereabouts that place was.
+
+"You appear to want to know a good deal," she remarked. But
+Margaret had forbidden her to be mysterious. She told him against
+her better judgment that Howards End was in Hertfordshire.
+
+"Is it a village, please?"
+
+"Village! It's Mr. Wilcox's private house--at least, it's one of
+them. Mrs. Wilcox keeps her furniture there. Hilton is the
+village."
+
+"Yes. And when will they be back?"
+
+"Mr. Schlegel doesn't know. We can't know everything, can we?"
+She shut him out, and went to attend to the telephone, which was
+ringing furiously.
+
+He loitered away another night of agony. Confession grew more
+difficult. As soon as possible he went to bed. He watched a patch
+of moonlight cross the floor of their lodging, and, as sometimes
+happens when the mind is overtaxed, he fell asleep for the rest
+of the room, but kept awake for the patch of moonlight. Horrible!
+Then began one of those disintegrating dialogues. Part of him
+said: "Why horrible? It's ordinary light from the moon." "But
+it moves." "So does the moon." "But it is a clenched fist."
+"Why not?" "But it is going to touch me." "Let it." And, seeming
+to gather motion, the patch ran up his blanket. Presently a blue
+snake appeared; then another parallel to it. "Is there life in
+the moon?" "Of course." "But I thought it was uninhabited."
+"Not by Time, Death, Judgment, and the smaller snakes." "Smaller
+snakes!" said Leonard indignantly and aloud. "What a notion!" By
+a rending effort of the will he woke the rest of the room up.
+Jacky, the bed, their food, their clothes on the chair, gradually
+entered his consciousness, and the horror vanished outwards, like
+a ring that is spreading through water.
+
+"I say, Jacky, I'm going out for a bit."
+
+She was breathing regularly. The patch of light fell clear of the
+striped blanket, and began to cover the shawl that lay over her
+feet. Why had he been afraid? He went to the window, and saw that
+the moon was descending through a clear sky. He saw her volcanoes,
+and the bright expanses that a gracious error has named seas.
+They paled, for the sun, who had lit them up, was coming to light
+the earth. Sea of Serenity, Sea of Tranquillity, Ocean of the
+Lunar Storms, merged into one lucent drop, itself to slip into
+the sempiternal dawn. And he had been afraid of the moon!
+
+He dressed among the contending lights, and went through his
+money. It was running low again, but enough for a return ticket
+to Hilton. As it clinked, Jacky opened her eyes.
+
+"Hullo, Len! What ho, Len!"
+
+"What ho, Jacky! see you again later."
+
+She turned over and slept.
+
+The house was unlocked, their landlord being a salesman at Covent
+Garden. Leonard passed out and made his way down to the station.
+The train, though it did not start for an hour, was already drawn
+up at the end of the platform, and he lay down in it and slept.
+With the first jolt he was in daylight; they had left the
+gateways of King's Cross, and were under blue sky. Tunnels
+followed, and after each the sky grew bluer, and from the
+embankment at Finsbury Park he had his first sight of the sun. It
+rolled along behind the eastern smokes--a wheel, whose fellow was
+the descending moon--and as yet it seemed the servant of the blue
+sky, not its lord. He dozed again. Over Tewin Water it was day.
+To the left fell the shadow of the embankment and its arches; to
+the right Leonard saw up into the Tewin Woods and towards the
+church, with its wild legend of immortality. Six forest trees--
+that is a fact--grow out of one of the graves in Tewin
+churchyard. The grave's occupant--that is the legend--is an
+atheist, who declared that if God existed, six forest trees would
+grow out of her grave. These things in Hertfordshire; and farther
+afield lay the house of a hermit--Mrs. Wilcox had known him--who
+barred himself up, and wrote prophecies, and gave all he had to
+the poor. While, powdered in between, were the villas of business
+men, who saw life more steadily, though with the steadiness of
+the half-closed eye. Over all the sun was streaming, to all the
+birds were singing, to all the primroses were yellow, and the
+speedwell blue, and the country, however they interpreted her,
+was uttering her cry of "now." She did not free Leonard yet, and
+the knife plunged deeper into his heart as the train drew up at
+Hilton. But remorse had become beautiful.
+
+Hilton was asleep, or at the earliest, breakfasting. Leonard
+noticed the contrast when he stepped out of it into the country.
+Here men had been up since dawn. Their hours were ruled, not by a
+London office, but by the movements of the crops and the sun.
+That they were men of the finest type only the sentimentalists
+can declare. But they kept to the life of daylight. They are
+England's hope. Clumsily they carry forward the torch of the sun,
+until such time as the nation sees fit to take it up. Half
+clodhopper, half board-school prig, they can still throw back to
+a nobler stock, and breed yeomen.
+
+At the chalk pit a motor passed him. In it was another type, whom
+Nature favours--the Imperial. Healthy, ever in motion, it hopes
+to inherit the earth. It breeds as quickly as the yeoman, and as
+soundly; strong is the temptation to acclaim it as a super-yeoman,
+who carries his country's virtue overseas. But the Imperialist is
+not what he thinks or seems. He is a destroyer. He prepares the
+way for cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions may be fulfilled,
+the earth that he inherits will be grey.
+
+To Leonard, intent on his private sin, there came the conviction
+of innate goodness elsewhere. It was not the optimism which he
+had been taught at school. Again and again must the drums tap,
+and the goblins stalk over the universe before joy can be purged
+of the superficial. It was rather paradoxical, and arose from his
+sorrow. Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him--
+that is the best account of it that has yet been given. Squalor
+and tragedy can beckon to all that is great in us, and strengthen
+the wings of love. They can beckon; it is not certain that they
+will, for they are not love's servants. But they can beckon, and
+the knowledge of this incredible truth comforted him.
+
+As he approached the house all thought stopped. Contradictory
+notions stood side by side in his mind. He was terrified but
+happy, ashamed, but had done no sin. He knew the confession:
+"Mrs. Wilcox, I have done wrong," but sunrise had robbed its
+meaning, and he felt rather on a supreme adventure.
+
+He entered a garden, steadied himself against a motor-car that he
+found in it, found a door open and entered a house. Yes, it would
+be very easy. From a room to the left he heard voices, Margaret's
+amongst them. His own name was called aloud, and a man whom he
+had never seen said, "Oh, is he there? I am not surprised. I now
+thrash him within an inch of his life."
+
+"Mrs. Wilcox," said Leonard, "I have done wrong."
+
+The man took him by the collar and cried, "Bring me a stick."
+Women were screaming. A stick, very bright, descended. It hurt
+him, not where it descended, but in the heart. Books fell over
+him in a shower. Nothing had sense.
+
+"Get some water," commanded Charles, who had all through kept
+very calm. "He's shamming. Of course I only used the blade. Here,
+carry him out into the air."
+
+Thinking that he understood these things, Margaret obeyed him.
+They laid Leonard, who was dead, on the gravel; Helen poured
+water over him.
+
+"That's enough," said Charles.
+
+"Yes, murder's enough," said Miss Avery, coming out of the house
+with the sword.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+When Charles left Ducie Street he had caught the first train
+home, but had no inkling of the newest development until late at
+night. Then his father, who had dined alone, sent for him, and in
+very grave tones inquired for Margaret.
+
+"I don't know where she is, pater" said Charles. Dolly kept back
+dinner nearly an hour for her."
+
+"Tell me when she comes in."
+
+Another hour passed. The servants went to bed, and Charles
+visited his father again, to receive further instructions. Mrs.
+Wilcox had still not returned.
+
+"I'll sit up for her as late as you like, but she can hardly be
+coming. Isn't she stopping with her sister at the hotel?"
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Wilcox thoughtfully--"perhaps."
+
+"Can I do anything for you, sir?"
+
+"Not to-night, my boy."
+
+Mr. Wilcox liked being called sir. He raised his eyes, and gave
+his son more open a look of tenderness than he usually ventured.
+He saw Charles as little boy and strong man in one. Though his
+wife had proved unstable his children were left to him.
+
+After midnight he tapped on Charles's door. "I can't sleep," he
+said. "I had better have a talk with you and get it over."
+
+He complained of the heat. Charles took him out into the garden,
+and they paced up and down in their dressing-gowns. Charles
+became very quiet as the story unrolled; he had known all along
+that Margaret was as bad as her sister.
+
+"She will feel differently in the morning," said Mr. Wilcox, who
+had of course said nothing about Mrs. Bast. "But I cannot let
+this kind of thing continue without comment. I am morally certain
+that she is with her sister at Howards End. The house is mine--
+and, Charles, it will be yours--and when I say that no one is to
+live there, I mean that no one is to live there. I won't have
+it." He looked angrily at the moon. "To my mind this question is
+connected with something far greater, the rights of property
+itself."
+
+"Undoubtedly," said Charles.
+
+Mr. Wilcox linked his arm in his son's, but somehow liked him
+less as he told him more. "I don't want you to conclude that my
+wife and I had anything of the nature of a quarrel. She was only
+overwrought, as who would not be? I shall do what I can for
+Helen, but on the understanding that they clear out of the house
+at once. Do you see? That is a sine qua non."
+
+"Then at eight to-morrow I may go up in the car?"
+
+"Eight or earlier. Say that you are acting as my representative,
+and, of course, use no violence, Charles."
+
+On the morrow, as Charles returned, leaving Leonard dead upon the
+gravel, it did not seem to him that he had used violence. Death
+was due to heart disease. His stepmother herself had said so, and
+even Miss Avery had acknowledged that he only used the flat of
+the sword. On his way through the village he informed the police,
+who thanked him, and said there must be an inquest. He found his
+father in the garden shading his eyes from the sun.
+
+"It has been pretty horrible," said Charles gravely. "They were
+there, and they had the man up there with them too."
+
+"What--what man?"
+
+"I told you last night. His name was Bast."
+
+"My God! is it possible?" said Mr. Wilcox. "In your mother's
+house! Charles, in your mother's house!"
+
+"I know, pater. That was what I felt. As a matter of fact, there
+is no need to trouble about the man. He was in the last stages of
+heart disease, and just before I could show him what I thought of
+him he went off. The police are seeing about it at this moment."
+
+Mr. Wilcox listened attentively.
+
+"I got up there--oh, it couldn't have been more than half-past
+seven. The Avery woman was lighting a fire for them. They were
+still upstairs. I waited in the drawing-room. We were all
+moderately civil and collected, though I had my suspicions. I
+gave them your message, and Mrs. Wilcox said, 'Oh yes, I see;
+yes,' in that way of hers."
+
+"Nothing else?"
+
+"I promised to tell you, 'with her love,' that she was going to
+Germany with her sister this evening. That was all we had time
+for."
+
+Mr. Wilcox seemed relieved.
+
+"Because by then I suppose the man got tired of hiding, for
+suddenly Mrs. Wilcox screamed out his name. I recognised it,
+and I went for him in the hall. Was I right, pater? I thought
+things were going a little too far."
+
+"Right, my dear boy? I don't know. But you would have been no son
+of mine if you hadn't. Then did he just--just--crumple up as you
+said?" He shrunk from the simple word.
+
+"He caught hold of the bookcase, which came down over him. So I
+merely put the sword down and carried him into the garden. We all
+thought he was shamming. However, he's dead right enough. Awful
+business!"
+
+"Sword?" cried his father, with anxiety in his voice. "What
+sword? Whose sword?"
+
+"A sword of theirs."
+
+"What were you doing with it?"
+
+"Well, didn't you see, pater, I had to snatch up the first thing
+handy. I hadn't a riding-whip or stick. I caught him once or twice
+over the shoulders with the flat of their old German sword."
+
+"Then what?"
+
+"He pulled over the bookcase, as I said, and fell," aid Charles,
+with a sigh. It was no fun doing errands for his father, who was
+never quite satisfied.
+
+"But the real cause was heart disease? Of that you're sure?"
+
+"That or a fit. However, we shall hear more than enough at the
+inquest on such unsavoury topics."
+
+They went in to breakfast. Charles had a racking headache,
+consequent on motoring before food. He was also anxious about the
+future, reflecting that the police must detain Helen and Margaret
+for the inquest and ferret the whole thing out. He saw himself
+obliged to leave Hilton. One could not afford to live near the
+scene of a scandal--it was not fair on one's wife. His comfort was
+that the pater's eyes were opened at last. There would be a
+horrible smash-up, and probably a separation from Margaret; then
+they would all start again, more as they had been in his mother's
+time.
+
+"I think I'll go round to the police-station," said his father
+when breakfast was over.
+
+"What for?" cried Dolly, who had still not been "told."
+
+"Very well, sir. Which car will you have?"
+
+"I think I'll walk."
+
+"It's a good half-mile," said Charles, stepping into the
+garden. "The sun's very hot for April. Shan't I take you up, and
+then, perhaps, a little spin round by Tewin?"
+
+"You go on as if I didn't know my own mind " said Mr. Wilcox
+fretfully. Charles hardened his mouth. "You young fellows' one
+idea is to get into a motor. I tell you, I want to walk; I'm
+very fond of walking."
+
+"Oh, all right; I'm about the house if you want me for anything.
+I thought of not going up to the office to-day, if that is your
+wish."
+
+"It is, indeed, my boy," said Mr. Wilcox, and laid a hand on his
+sleeve.
+
+Charles did not like it; he was uneasy about his father, who did
+not seem himself this morning. There was a petulant touch about
+him--more like a woman. Could it be that he was growing old? The
+Wilcoxes were not lacking in affection; they had it royally, but
+they did not know how to use it. It was the talent in the napkin,
+and, for a warm-hearted man, Charles had conveyed very little
+joy. As he watched his father shuffling up the road, he had a
+vague regret--a wish that something had been different somewhere--
+a wish (though he did not express it thus) that he had been
+taught to say "I" in his youth. He meant to make up for Margaret's
+defection, but knew that his father had been very happy with her
+until yesterday. How had she done it? By some dishonest trick,
+no doubt--but how?
+
+Mr. Wilcox reappeared at eleven, looking very tired. There was to
+be an inquest on Leonard's body to-morrow, and the police
+required his son to attend.
+
+"I expected that," said Charles. "I shall naturally be the most
+important witness there."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+Out of the turmoil and horror that had begun with Aunt Juley's
+illness and was not even to end with Leonard's death, it seemed
+impossible to Margaret that healthy life should re-emerge. Events
+succeeded in a logical, yet senseless, train. People lost their
+humanity, and took values as arbitrary as those in a pack of
+playing-cards. It was natural that Henry should do this and cause
+Helen to do that, and then think her wrong for doing it; natural
+that she herself should think him wrong; natural that Leonard
+should want to know how Helen was, and come, and Charles be angry
+with him for coming--natural, but unreal. In this jangle of
+causes and effects what had become of their true selves? Here
+Leonard lay dead in the garden, from natural causes; yet life was
+a deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a
+wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and
+everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes
+the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and
+adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for;
+there was hope this side of the grave; there were truer
+relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As a prisoner
+looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she, from the turmoil and
+horror of those days, caught glimpses of the diviner wheels.
+
+And Helen, dumb with fright, but trying to keep calm for the
+child's sake, and Miss Avery, calm, but murmuring tenderly, "No
+one ever told the lad he'll have a child"--they also reminded her
+that horror is not the end. To what ultimate harmony we tend she
+did not know, but there seemed great chance that a child would be
+born into the world, to take the great chances of beauty and
+adventure that the world offers. She moved through the sunlit
+garden, gathering narcissi, crimson-eyed and white. There was
+nothing else to be done; the time for telegrams and anger was
+over and it seemed wisest that the hands of Leonard should be
+folded on his breast and be filled with flowers. Here was the
+father; leave it at that. Let Squalor be turned into Tragedy,
+whose eyes are the stars, and whose hands hold the sunset and the
+dawn.
+
+And even the influx of officials, even the return of the doctor,
+vulgar and acute, could not shake her belief in the eternity of
+beauty. Science explained people, but could not understand them.
+After long centuries among the bones and muscles it might be
+advancing to knowledge of the nerves, but this would never give
+understanding. One could open the heart to Mr. Mansbridge and his
+sort without discovering its secrets to them, for they wanted
+everything down in black and white, and black and white was
+exactly what they were left with.
+
+They questioned her closely about Charles. She never suspected
+why. Death had come, and the doctor agreed that it was due to
+heart disease. They asked to see her father's sword. She
+explained that Charles's anger was natural, but mistaken.
+Miserable questions about Leonard followed, all of which she
+answered unfalteringly. Then back to Charles again. "No doubt Mr.
+Wilcox may have induced death," she said; "but if it wasn't one
+thing it would have been another as you know." At last they
+thanked her and took the sword and the body down to Hilton. She
+began to pick up the books from the floor.
+
+Helen had gone to the farm. It was the best place for her, since
+she had to wait for the inquest. Though, as if things were not
+hard enough, Madge and her husband had raised trouble; they did
+not see why they should receive the offscourings of Howards End.
+And, of course, they were right. The whole world was going to be
+right, and amply avenge any brave talk against the conventions.
+"Nothing matters," the Schlegels had said in the past, "except
+one's self-respect and that of one's friends." When the time
+came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge had yielded,
+and Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and
+to-morrow she would return to Germany.
+
+As for herself, she determined to go too. No message came from
+Henry; perhaps he expected her to apologise. Now that she had
+time to think over her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She
+neither forgave him for his behaviour nor wished to forgive him.
+Her speech to him seemed perfect. She would not have altered a
+word. It had to be uttered once in a life, to adjust the
+lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only to her husband,
+but to thousands of men like him--a protest against the inner
+darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though
+he would build up his life without hers, she could not apologise.
+He had refused to connect, on the clearest issue that can be laid
+before a man, and their love must take the consequences.
+
+No, there was nothing more to be done. They had tried not to go
+over the precipice, but perhaps the fall was inevitable. And it
+comforted her to think that the future was certainly inevitable;
+cause and effect would go jangling forward to some goal doubtless,
+but to none that she could imagine. At such moments the soul
+retires within, to float upon the bosom of a deeper stream, and
+has communion with the dead, and sees the world's glory not
+diminished, but different in kind to what she has supposed. She
+alters her focus until trivial things are blurred. Margaret had
+been tending this way all the winter. Leonard's death brought her
+to the goal. Alas! that Henry should fade away as reality emerged,
+and only her love for him should remain clear, stamped with his
+image like the cameos we rescue out of dreams.
+
+With unfaltering eye she traced his future. He would soon present
+a healthy mind to the world again, and what did he or the world
+care if he was rotten at the core? He would grow into a rich,
+jolly old man, at times a little sentimental about women, but
+emptying his glass with anyone. Tenacious of power, he would keep
+Charles and the rest dependent, and retire from business
+reluctantly and at an advanced age. He would settle down--though
+she could not realise this. In her eyes Henry was always moving
+and causing others to move, until the ends of the earth met. But
+in time he must get too tired to move, and settle down. What next?
+The inevitable word. The release of the soul to its appropriate
+Heaven.
+
+Would they meet in it? Margaret believed in immortality for
+herself. An eternal future had always seemed natural to her. And
+Henry believed in it for himself. Yet, would they meet again? Are
+there not rather endless levels beyond the grave, as the theory
+that he had censured teaches? And his level, whether higher or
+lower, could it possibly be the same as hers?
+
+Thus gravely meditating, she was summoned by him. He sent up
+Crane in the motor. Other servants passed like water, but the
+chauffeur remained, though impertinent and disloyal. Margaret
+disliked Crane, and he knew it.
+
+"Is it the keys that Mr. Wilcox wants?" she asked,
+
+"He didn't say, madam."
+
+"You haven't any note for me?"
+
+"He didn't say, madam."
+
+After a moment's thought she locked up Howards End. It was
+pitiable to see in it the stirrings of warmth that would be
+quenched for ever. She raked out the fire that was blazing in the
+kitchen, and spread the coals in the gravelled yard. She closed
+the windows and drew the curtains. Henry would probably sell the
+place now.
+
+She was determined not to spare him, for nothing new had happened
+as far as they were concerned. Her mood might never have altered
+from yesterday evening. He was standing a little outside
+Charles's gate, and motioned the car to stop. When his wife got
+out he said hoarsely: "I prefer to discuss things with you
+outside."
+
+"It will be more appropriate in the road, I am afraid," said
+Margaret. "Did you get my message?"
+
+"What about?"
+
+"I am going to Germany with my sister. I must tell you now that I
+shall make it my permanent home. Our talk last night was more
+important than you have realised. I am unable to forgive you and
+am leaving you. "
+
+"I am extremely tired," said Henry, in injured tones. "I have
+been walking about all the morning, and wish to sit down."
+
+"Certainly, if you will consent to sit on the grass."
+
+The Great North Road should have been bordered all its length
+with glebe. Henry's kind had filched most of it. She moved to the
+scrap opposite, wherein were the Six Hills. They sat down on the
+farther side, so that they could not be seen by Charles or Dolly.
+
+"Here are your keys," said Margaret. She tossed them towards
+him. They fell on the sunlit slope of grass, and he did not pick
+them up.
+
+"I have something to tell you," he said gently.
+
+She knew this superficial gentleness, this confession of
+hastiness, that was only intended to enhance her admiration of
+the male.
+
+"I don't want to hear it," she replied. "My sister is going to be
+ill. My life is going to be with her now. We must manage to build
+up something, she and I and her child."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Munich. We start after the inquest, if she is not too ill."
+
+"After the inquest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you realised what the verdict at the inquest will be?"
+
+"Yes, heart disease."
+
+"No, my dear; manslaughter."
+
+Margaret drove her fingers through the grass. The hill beneath
+her moved as if it were alive.
+
+"Manslaughter," repeated Mr. Wilcox. "Charles may go to prison. I
+dare not tell him. I don't know what to do--what to do. I'm
+broken--I'm ended."
+
+No sudden warmth arose in her. She did not see that to break him
+was her only hope. She did not enfold the sufferer in her arms.
+But all through that day and the next a new life began to move.
+The verdict was brought in. Charles was committed for trial. It
+was against all reason that he should be punished, but the law,
+notwithstanding, sentenced him to three years' imprisonment. Then
+Henry's fortress gave way. He could bear no one but his wife; he
+shambled up to Margaret afterwards and asked her to do what she
+could with him. She did what seemed easiest--she took him down to
+recruit at Howards End.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+Tom's father was cutting the big meadow. He passed again and
+again amid whirring blades and sweet odours of grass,
+encompassing with narrowing circles the sacred centre of the
+field. Tom was negotiating with Helen. "I haven't any idea," she
+replied. "Do you suppose baby may, Meg?"
+
+Margaret put down her work and regarded them absently. "What was
+that?" she asked.
+
+"Tom wants to know whether baby is old enough to play with hay?"
+
+"I haven't the least notion," answered Margaret, and took up her
+work again.
+
+"Now, Tom, baby is not to stand; he is not to lie on his face; he
+is not to lie so that his head wags; he is not to be teased or
+tickled; and he is not to be cut into two or more pieces by the
+cutter. Will you be as careful as all that?"
+
+Tom held out his arms.
+
+"That child is a wonderful nursemaid," remarked Margaret.
+
+"He is fond of baby. That's why he does it!" was Helen's answer.
+"They're going to be lifelong friends."
+
+"Starting at the ages of six and one?"
+
+"Of course. It will be a great thing for Tom."
+
+"It may be a greater thing for baby."
+
+Fourteen months had passed, but Margaret still stopped at Howards
+End. No better plan had occurred to her. The meadow was being
+recut, the great red poppies were reopening in the garden. July
+would follow with the little red poppies among the wheat, August
+with the cutting of the wheat. These little events would become
+part of her year after year. Every summer she would fear lest the
+well should give out, every winter lest the pipes should freeze;
+every westerly gale might blow the wych-elm down and bring the
+end of all things, and so she could not read or talk during a
+westerly gale. The air was tranquil now. She and her sister were
+sitting on the remains of Evie's rockery, where the lawn merged
+into the field.
+
+"What a time they all are!" said Helen. "What can they be doing
+inside?" Margaret, who was growing less talkative, made no answer.
+The noise of the cutter came intermittently, like the breaking of
+waves. Close by them a man was preparing to scythe out one of
+the dell-holes.
+
+"I wish Henry was out to enjoy this," said Helen. "This lovely
+weather and to be shut up in the house! It's very hard."
+
+"It has to be," said Margaret. "The hay fever is his chief
+objection against living here, but he thinks it worth while."
+
+"Meg, is or isn't he ill? I can't make out."
+
+"Not ill. Eternally tired. He has worked very hard all his life,
+and noticed nothing. Those are the people who collapse when they
+do notice a thing."
+
+"I suppose he worries dreadfully about his part of the tangle."
+
+"Dreadfully. That is why I wish Dolly had not come, too, to-day.
+Still, be wanted them all to come. It has to be."
+
+"Why does he want them?"
+
+Margaret did not answer.
+
+"Meg, may I tell you something? I like Henry."
+
+"You'd be odd if you didn't, " said Margaret.
+
+"I usen't to."
+
+"Usen't!" She lowered her eyes a moment to the black abyss of the
+past. They had crossed it, always excepting Leonard and Charles.
+They were building up a new life, obscure, yet gilded with
+tranquillity. Leonard was dead; Charles had two years more in
+prison. One usen't always to see clearly before that time. It was
+different now.
+
+"I like Henry because he does worry."
+
+"And he likes you because you don't."
+
+Helen sighed. She seemed humiliated, and buried her face in her
+hands. After a time she said: "About love," a transition less
+abrupt than it appeared.
+
+Margaret never stopped working.
+
+"I mean a woman's love for a man. I supposed I should hang my
+life on to that once, and was driven up and down and about as if
+something was worrying through me. But everything is peaceful
+now; I seem cured. That Herr Forstmeister, whom Frieda keeps
+writing about, must be a noble character, but he doesn't see that
+I shall never marry him or anyone. It isn't shame or mistrust of
+myself. I simply couldn't. I'm ended. I used to be so dreamy
+about a man's love as a girl, and think that for good or evil
+love must be the great thing. But it hasn't been; it has been
+itself a dream. Do you agree?"
+
+"I do not agree. I do not."
+
+"I ought to remember Leonard as my lover," said Helen, stepping
+down into the field. "I tempted him, and killed him, and it is
+surely the least I can do. I would like to throw out all my heart
+to Leonard on such an afternoon as this. But I cannot. It is no
+good pretending. I am forgetting him." Her eyes filled with
+tears. "How nothing seems to match--how, my darling, my
+precious--" She broke off. "Tommy!"
+
+"Yes, please?"
+
+"Baby's not to try and stand.--There's something wanting in me. I
+see you loving Henry, and understanding him better daily, and I
+know that death wouldn't part you in the least. But I-- Is it
+some awful, appalling, criminal defect?"
+
+Margaret silenced her. She said: "It is only that people are far
+more different than is pretended. All over the world men and
+women are worrying because they cannot develop as they are
+supposed to develop. Here and there they have the matter out, and
+it comforts them. Don't fret yourself, Helen. Develop what you
+have; love your child. I do not love children. I am thankful to
+have none. I can play with their beauty and charm, but that is
+all--nothing real, not one scrap of what there ought to be. And
+others--others go farther still, and move outside humanity
+altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow.
+Don't you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is
+part of the battle against sameness. Differences, eternal
+differences, planted by God in a single family, so that there may
+always be colour; sorrow perhaps, but colour in the daily grey.
+Then I can't have you worrying about Leonard. Don't drag in the
+personal when it will not come. Forget him."
+
+"Yes, yes, but what has Leonard got out of life?"
+
+"Perhaps an adventure."
+
+"Is that enough?"
+
+"Not for us. But for him."
+
+Helen took up a bunch of grass. She looked at the sorrel, and the
+red and white and yellow clover, and the quaker grass, and the
+daisies, and the bents that composed it. She raised it to her
+face.
+
+"Is it sweetening yet?" asked Margaret.
+
+"No, only withered."
+
+"It will sweeten to-morrow."
+
+Helen smiled. "Oh, Meg, you are a person," she said. "Think of
+the racket and torture this time last year. But now I couldn't
+stop unhappy if I tried. What a change--and all through you!"
+
+"Oh, we merely settled down. You and Henry learnt to understand
+one another and to forgive, all through the autumn and the
+winter."
+
+"Yes, but who settled us down?"
+
+Margaret did not reply. The scything had begun, and she took off
+her pince-nez to watch it.
+
+"You!" cried Helen. "You did it all, sweetest, though you're too
+stupid to see. Living here was your plan--I wanted you; he wanted
+you; and everyone said it was impossible, but you knew. Just
+think of our lives without you, Meg--I and baby with Monica,
+revolting by theory, he handed about from Dolly to Evie. But you
+picked up the pieces, and made us a home. Can't it strike you--
+even for a moment--that your life has been heroic? Can't you
+remember the two months after Charles's arrest, when you began to
+act, and did all?"
+
+"You were both ill at the time," said Margaret. "I did the
+obvious things. I had two invalids to nurse. Here was a house,
+ready furnished and empty. It was obvious. I didn't know myself
+it would turn into a permanent home. No doubt I have done a
+little towards straightening the tangle, but things that I can't
+phrase have helped me."
+
+"I hope it will be permanent," said Helen, drifting away to other
+thoughts.
+
+"I think so. There are moments when I feel Howards End peculiarly
+our own."
+
+"All the same, London's creeping."
+
+She pointed over the meadow--over eight or nine meadows, but at
+the end of them was a red rust.
+
+"You see that in Surrey and even Hampshire now," she continued.
+"I can see it from the Purbeck Downs. And London is only part of
+something else, I'm afraid. Life's going to be melted down, all
+over the world."
+
+Margaret knew that her sister spoke truly. Howards End, Oniton,
+the Purbeck Downs, the Oderberge, were all survivals, and the
+melting-pot was being prepared for them. Logically, they had no
+right to be alive. One's hope was in the weakness of logic. Were
+they possibly the earth beating time?
+
+"Because a thing is going strong now, it need not go strong for
+ever," she said. "This craze for motion has only set in during
+the last hundred years. It may be followed by a civilisation that
+won't be a movement, because it will rest on the earth. All the
+signs are against it now, but I can't help hoping, and very early
+in the morning in the garden I feel that our house is the
+future as well as the past."
+
+They turned and looked at it. Their own memories coloured it now,
+for Helen's child had been born in the central room of the nine.
+Then Margaret said, "Oh, take care--!" for something moved behind
+the window of the hall, and the door opened.
+
+"The conclave's breaking at last. I'll go."
+
+It was Paul.
+
+Helen retreated with the children far into the field. Friendly
+voices greeted her. Margaret rose, to encounter a man with a
+heavy black moustache.
+
+"My father has asked for you," he said with hostility.
+
+She took her work and followed him.
+
+"We have been talking business," he continued, "but I dare say
+you knew all about it beforehand."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+Clumsy of movement--for he had spent all his life in the saddle--
+Paul drove his foot against the paint of the front door. Mrs.
+Wilcox gave a little cry of annoyance. She did not like anything
+scratched; she stopped in the hall to take Dolly's boa and gloves
+out of a vase.
+
+Her husband was lying in a great leather chair in the dining-room,
+and by his side, holding his hand rather ostentatiously, was Evie.
+Dolly, dressed in purple, sat near the window. The room was a
+little dark and airless; they were obliged to keep it like this
+until the carting of the hay. Margaret joined the family without
+speaking; the five of them had met already at tea, and she knew
+quite well what was going to be said. Averse to wasting her time,
+she went on sewing. The clock struck six.
+
+"Is this going to suit everyone?" said Henry in a weary voice. He
+used the old phrases, but their effect was unexpected and
+shadowy. "Because I don't want you all coming here later on and
+complaining that I have been unfair."
+
+"It's apparently got to suit us," said Paul.
+
+"I beg your pardon, my boy. You have only to speak, and I will
+leave the house to you instead."
+
+Paul frowned ill-temperedly, and began scratching at his arm. "As
+I've given up the outdoor life that suited me, and I have come
+home to look after the business, it's no good my settling down
+here," he said at last. "It's not really the country, and it's
+not the town."
+
+"Very well. Does my arrangement suit you, Evie?"
+
+"Of course, father."
+
+"And you, Dolly?"
+
+Dolly raised her faded little face, which sorrow could wither but
+not steady. "Perfectly splendidly," she said. "I thought Charles
+wanted it for the boys, but last time I saw him he said no,
+because we cannot possibly live in this part of England again.
+Charles says we ought to change our name, but I cannot think what
+to, for Wilcox just suits Charles and me, and I can't think of
+any other name."
+
+There was a general silence. Dolly looked nervously round, fearing
+that she had been inappropriate. Paul continued to scratch his arm.
+
+"Then I leave Howards End to my wife absolutely," said Henry.
+"And let everyone understand that; and after I am dead let there
+be no jealousy and no surprise."
+
+Margaret did not answer. There was something uncanny in her
+triumph. She, who had never expected to conquer anyone, had
+charged straight through these Wilcoxes and broken up their
+lives.
+
+"In consequence, I leave my wife no money," said Henry. "That is
+her own wish. All that she would have had will be divided among
+you. I am also giving you a great deal in my lifetime, so that
+you may be independent of me. That is her wish, too. She also is
+giving away a great deal of money. She intends to diminish her
+income by half during the next ten years; she intends when she
+dies to leave the house to her nephew, down in the field. Is all
+that clear? Does everyone understand?"
+
+Paul rose to his feet. He was accustomed to natives, and a very
+little shook him out of the Englishman. Feeling manly and
+cynical, he said: "Down in the field? Oh, come! I think we might
+have had the whole establishment, piccaninnies included."
+
+Mrs. Cahill whispered: "Don't, Paul. You promised you'd take
+care." Feeling a woman of the world, she rose and prepared to
+take her leave.
+
+Her father kissed her. "Good-bye, old girl, "he said; "don't you
+worry about me."
+
+"Good-bye, dad."
+
+Then it was Dolly's turn. Anxious to contribute, she laughed
+nervously, and said: "Good-bye, Mr. Wilcox. It does seem curious
+that Mrs. Wilcox should have left Margaret Howards End, and yet
+she get it, after all."
+
+From Evie came a sharply-drawn breath. "Goodbye," she said to
+Margaret, and kissed her.
+
+And again and again fell the word, like the ebb of a dying sea.
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Dolly."
+
+"So long, father."
+
+"Good-bye, my boy; always take care of yourself."
+
+"Good-bye, Mrs. Wilcox."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+Margaret saw their visitors to the gate. Then she returned to her
+husband and laid her head in his hands. He was pitiably tired.
+But Dolly's remark had interested her. At last she said: "Could
+you tell me, Henry, what was that about Mrs. Wilcox having left
+me Howards End?"
+
+Tranquilly he replied: "Yes, she did. But that is a very old
+story. When she was ill and you were so kind to her she wanted to
+make you some return, and, not being herself at the time,
+scribbled 'Howards End' on a piece of paper. I went into it
+thoroughly, and, as it was clearly fanciful, I set it aside,
+little knowing what my Margaret would be to me in the future."
+
+Margaret was silent. Something shook her life in its inmost
+recesses, and she shivered.
+
+"I didn't do wrong, did I?" he asked, bending down.
+
+"You didn't, darling. Nothing has been done wrong."
+
+From the garden came laughter. "Here they are at last!" exclaimed
+Henry, disengaging himself with a smile. Helen rushed into the
+gloom, holding Tom by one hand and carrying her baby on the
+other. There were shouts of infectious joy.
+
+"The field's cut!" Helen cried excitedly--"the big meadow! We've
+seen to the very end, and it'll be such a crop of hay as never!"
+
+WEYBRIDGE, 1908-191O.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Howards End, by E. M. Forster
+
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