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else.”

 

“But suppose he’s walking about the streets—for hours and hours?”

 

She leant forward and looked out of the window.

 

“He may refuse ever to speak to me again,” she said in a low voice,

almost to herself.

 

The exaggeration was so immense that Mary did not attempt to cope with

it, save by keeping hold of Katharine’s wrist. She half expected that

Katharine might open the door suddenly and jump out. Perhaps Katharine

perceived the purpose with which her hand was held.

 

“Don’t be frightened,” she said, with a little laugh. “I’m not going

to jump out of the cab. It wouldn’t do much good after all.”

 

Upon this, Mary ostentatiously withdrew her hand.

 

“I ought to have apologized,” Katharine continued, with an effort,

“for bringing you into all this business; I haven’t told you half,

either. I’m no longer engaged to William Rodney. He is to marry

Cassandra Otway. It’s all arranged—all perfectly right… . And

after he’d waited in the streets for hours and hours, William made me

bring him in. He was standing under the lamp-post watching our

windows. He was perfectly white when he came into the room. William

left us alone, and we sat and talked. It seems ages and ages ago, now.

Was it last night? Have I been out long? What’s the time?” She sprang

forward to catch sight of a clock, as if the exact time had some

important bearing on her case.

 

“Only half-past eight!” she exclaimed. “Then he may be there still.”

She leant out of the window and told the cabman to drive faster.

 

“But if he’s not there, what shall I do? Where could I find him? The

streets are so crowded.”

 

“We shall find him,” Mary repeated.

 

Mary had no doubt but that somehow or other they would find him. But

suppose they did find him? She began to think of Ralph with a sort of

strangeness, in her effort to understand how he could be capable of

satisfying this extraordinary desire. Once more she thought herself

back to her old view of him and could, with an effort, recall the haze

which surrounded his figure, and the sense of confused, heightened

exhilaration which lay all about his neighborhood, so that for months

at a time she had never exactly heard his voice or seen his face—or

so it now seemed to her. The pain of her loss shot through her.

Nothing would ever make up—not success, or happiness, or oblivion.

But this pang was immediately followed by the assurance that now, at

any rate, she knew the truth; and Katharine, she thought, stealing a

look at her, did not know the truth; yes, Katharine was immensely to

be pitied.

 

The cab, which had been caught in the traffic, was now liberated and

sped on down Sloane Street. Mary was conscious of the tension with

which Katharine marked its progress, as if her mind were fixed upon a

point in front of them, and marked, second by second, their approach

to it. She said nothing, and in silence Mary began to fix her mind, in

sympathy at first, and later in forgetfulness of her companion, upon a

point in front of them. She imagined a point distant as a low star

upon the horizon of the dark. There for her too, for them both, was

the goal for which they were striving, and the end for the ardors of

their spirits was the same: but where it was, or what it was, or why

she felt convinced that they were united in search of it, as they

drove swiftly down the streets of London side by side, she could not

have said.

 

“At last,” Katharine breathed, as the cab drew up at the door. She

jumped out and scanned the pavement on either side. Mary, meanwhile,

rang the bell. The door opened as Katharine assured herself that no

one of the people within view had any likeness to Ralph. On seeing

her, the maid said at once:

 

“Mr. Denham called again, miss. He has been waiting for you for some

time.”

 

Katharine vanished from Mary’s sight. The door shut between them, and

Mary walked slowly and thoughtfully up the street alone.

 

Katharine turned at once to the dining-room. But with her fingers upon

the handle, she held back. Perhaps she realized that this was a moment

which would never come again. Perhaps, for a second, it seemed to her

that no reality could equal the imagination she had formed. Perhaps

she was restrained by some vague fear or anticipation, which made her

dread any exchange or interruption. But if these doubts and fears or

this supreme bliss restrained her, it was only for a moment. In

another second she had turned the handle and, biting her lip to

control herself, she opened the door upon Ralph Denham. An

extraordinary clearness of sight seemed to possess her on beholding

him. So little, so single, so separate from all else he appeared, who

had been the cause of these extreme agitations and aspirations. She

could have laughed in his face. But, gaining upon this clearness of

sight against her will, and to her dislike, was a flood of confusion,

of relief, of certainty, of humility, of desire no longer to strive

and to discriminate, yielding to which, she let herself sink within

his arms and confessed her love.

CHAPTER XXXII

Nobody asked Katharine any questions next day. If cross-examined she

might have said that nobody spoke to her. She worked a little, wrote a

little, ordered the dinner, and sat, for longer than she knew, with

her head on her hand piercing whatever lay before her, whether it was

a letter or a dictionary, as if it were a film upon the deep prospects

that revealed themselves to her kindling and brooding eyes. She rose

once, and going to the bookcase, took out her father’s Greek

dictionary and spread the sacred pages of symbols and figures before

her. She smoothed the sheets with a mixture of affectionate amusement

and hope. Would other eyes look on them with her one day? The thought,

long intolerable, was now just bearable.

 

She was quite unaware of the anxiety with which her movements were

watched and her expression scanned. Cassandra was careful not to be

caught looking at her, and their conversation was so prosaic that were

it not for certain jolts and jerks between the sentences, as if the

mind were kept with difficulty to the rails, Mrs. Milvain herself

could have detected nothing of a suspicious nature in what she

overheard.

 

William, when he came in late that afternoon and found Cassandra

alone, had a very serious piece of news to impart. He had just passed

Katharine in the street and she had failed to recognize him.

 

“That doesn’t matter with me, of course, but suppose it happened with

somebody else? What would they think? They would suspect something

merely from her expression. She looked—she looked”—he hesitated—

“like some one walking in her sleep.”

 

To Cassandra the significant thing was that Katharine had gone out

without telling her, and she interpreted this to mean that she had

gone out to meet Ralph Denham. But to her surprise William drew no

comfort from this probability.

 

“Once throw conventions aside,” he began, “once do the things that

people don’t do—” and the fact that you are going to meet a young man

is no longer proof of anything, except, indeed, that people will talk.

 

Cassandra saw, not without a pang of jealousy, that he was extremely

solicitous that people should not talk about Katharine, as if his

interest in her were still proprietary rather than friendly. As they

were both ignorant of Ralph’s visit the night before they had not that

reason to comfort themselves with the thought that matters were

hastening to a crisis. These absences of Katharine’s, moreover, left

them exposed to interruptions which almost destroyed their pleasure in

being alone together. The rainy evening made it impossible to go out;

and, indeed, according to William’s code, it was considerably more

damning to be seen out of doors than surprised within. They were so

much at the mercy of bells and doors that they could hardly talk of

Macaulay with any conviction, and William preferred to defer the

second act of his tragedy until another day.

 

Under these circumstances Cassandra showed herself at her best. She

sympathized with William’s anxieties and did her utmost to share them;

but still, to be alone together, to be running risks together, to be

partners in the wonderful conspiracy, was to her so enthralling that

she was always forgetting discretion, breaking out into exclamations

and admirations which finally made William believe that, although

deplorable and upsetting, the situation was not without its sweetness.

 

When the door did open, he started, but braved the forthcoming

revelation. It was not Mrs. Milvain, however, but Katharine herself

who entered, closely followed by Ralph Denham. With a set expression

which showed what an effort she was making, Katharine encountered

their eyes, and saying, “We’re not going to interrupt you,” she led

Denham behind the curtain which hung in front of the room with the

relics. This refuge was none of her willing, but confronted with wet

pavements and only some belated museum or Tube station for shelter,

she was forced, for Ralph’s sake, to face the discomforts of her own

house. Under the street lamps she had thought him looking both tired

and strained.

 

Thus separated, the two couples remained occupied for some time with

their own affairs. Only the lowest murmurs penetrated from one section

of the room to the other. At length the maid came in to bring a

message that Mr. Hilbery would not be home for dinner. It was true

that there was no need that Katharine should be informed, but William

began to inquire Cassandra’s opinion in such a way as to show that,

with or without reason, he wished very much to speak to her.

 

From motives of her own Cassandra dissuaded him.

 

“But don’t you think it’s a little unsociable?” he hazarded. “Why not

do something amusing?—go to the play, for instance? Why not ask

Katharine and Ralph, eh?” The coupling of their names in this manner

caused Cassandra’s heart to leap with pleasure.

 

“Don’t you think they must be—?” she began, but William hastily took

her up.

 

“Oh, I know nothing about that. I only thought we might amuse

ourselves, as your uncle’s out.”

 

He proceeded on his embassy with a mixture of excitement and

embarrassment which caused him to turn aside with his hand on the

curtain, and to examine intently for several moments the portrait of a

lady, optimistically said by Mrs. Hilbery to be an early work of Sir

Joshua Reynolds. Then, with some unnecessary fumbling, he drew aside

the curtain, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, repeated his

message and suggested that they should all spend the evening at the

play. Katharine accepted the suggestion with such cordiality that it

was strange to find her of no clear mind as to the precise spectacle

she wished to see. She left the choice entirely to Ralph and William,

who, taking counsel fraternally over an evening paper, found

themselves in agreement as to the merits of a music-hall. This being

arranged, everything else followed easily and enthusiastically.

Cassandra had never been to a music-hall. Katharine instructed her in

the peculiar delights of an entertainment where Polar bears follow

directly upon ladies in full evening dress, and the stage is

alternately a garden of mystery, a milliner’s band-box, and a fried-fish shop in the Mile End Road. Whatever the exact nature of the

program that night, it fulfilled the highest purposes of dramatic art,

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