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father’s pomposity and to William’s military rigidity. He had not once
raised his eyes. Katharine’s glance, on the other hand, ranged past
the two gentlemen, along the books, over the tables, towards the door.
She was paying the least possible attention, it seemed, to what was
happening. Her father looked at her with a sudden clouding and
troubling of his expression. Somehow his faith in her stability and
sense was queerly shaken. He no longer felt that he could ultimately
entrust her with the whole conduct of her own affairs after a
superficial show of directing them. He felt, for the first time in
many years, responsible for her.
“Look here, we must get to the bottom of this,” he said, dropping his
formal manner and addressing Rodney as if Katharine were not present.
“You’ve had some difference of opinion, eh? Take my word for it, most
people go through this sort of thing when they’re engaged. I’ve seen
more trouble come from long engagements than from any other form of
human folly. Take my advice and put the whole matter out of your
minds—both of you. I prescribe a complete abstinence from emotion.
Visit some cheerful seaside resort, Rodney.”
He was struck by William’s appearance, which seemed to him to indicate
profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected,
Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven
him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery
certainly did not overrate William’s sufferings. No minutes in his
life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was
now facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself
entirely and fundamentally other than Mr. Hilbery thought him.
Everything was against him. Even the Sunday evening and the fire and
the tranquil library scene were against him. Mr. Hilbery’s appeal to
him as a man of the world was terribly against him. He was no longer a
man of any world that Mr. Hilbery cared to recognize. But some power
compelled him, as it had compelled him to come downstairs, to make his
stand here and now, alone and unhelped by any one, without prospect of
reward. He fumbled with various phrases; and then jerked out:
“I love Cassandra.”
Mr. Hilbery’s face turned a curious dull purple. He looked at his
daughter. He nodded his head, as if to convey his silent command to
her to leave the room; but either she did not notice it or preferred
not to obey.
“You have the impudence—” Mr. Hilbery began, in a dull, low voice
that he himself had never heard before, when there was a scuffling and
exclaiming in the hall, and Cassandra, who appeared to be insisting
against some dissuasion on the part of another, burst into the room.
“Uncle Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I insist upon telling you the truth!”
She flung herself between Rodney and her uncle, as if she sought to
intercept their blows. As her uncle stood perfectly still, looking
very large and imposing, and as nobody spoke, she shrank back a
little, and looked first at Katharine and then at Rodney. “You must
know the truth,” she said, a little lamely.
“You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine’s presence?” Mr.
Hilbery continued, speaking with complete disregard of Cassandra’s
interruption.
“I am aware, quite aware—” Rodney’s words, which were broken in
sense, spoken after a pause, and with his eyes upon the ground,
nevertheless expressed an astonishing amount of resolution. “I am
quite aware what you must think of me,” he brought out, looking Mr.
Hilbery directly in the eyes for the first time.
“I could express my views on the subject more fully if we were alone,”
Mr. Hilbery returned.
“But you forget me,” said Katharine. She moved a little towards
Rodney, and her movement seemed to testify mutely to her respect for
him, and her alliance with him. “I think William has behaved perfectly
rightly, and, after all, it is I who am concerned—I and Cassandra.”
Cassandra, too, gave an indescribably slight movement which seemed to
draw the three of them into alliance together. Katharine’s tone and
glance made Mr. Hilbery once more feel completely at a loss, and in
addition, painfully and angrily obsolete; but in spite of an awful
inner hollowness he was outwardly composed.
“Cassandra and Rodney have a perfect right to settle their own affairs
according to their own wishes; but I see no reason why they should do
so either in my room or in my house… . I wish to be quite clear on
this point, however; you are no longer engaged to Rodney.”
He paused, and his pause seemed to signify that he was extremely
thankful for his daughter’s deliverance.
Cassandra turned to Katharine, who drew her breath as if to speak and
checked herself; Rodney, too, seemed to await some movement on her
part; her father glanced at her as if he half anticipated some further
revelation. She remained perfectly silent. In the silence they heard
distinctly steps descending the staircase, and Katharine went straight
to the door.
“Wait,” Mr. Hilbery commanded. “I wish to speak to you—alone,” he
added.
She paused, holding the door ajar.
“I’ll come back,” she said, and as she spoke she opened the door and
went out. They could hear her immediately speak to some one outside,
though the words were inaudible.
Mr. Hilbery was left confronting the guilty couple, who remained
standing as if they did not accept their dismissal, and the
disappearance of Katharine had brought some change into the situation.
So, in his secret heart, Mr. Hilbery felt that it had, for he could
not explain his daughter’s behavior to his own satisfaction.
“Uncle Trevor,” Cassandra exclaimed impulsively, “don’t be angry,
please. I couldn’t help it; I do beg you to forgive me.”
Her uncle still refused to acknowledge her identity, and still talked
over her head as if she did not exist.
“I suppose you have communicated with the Otways,” he said to Rodney
grimly.
“Uncle Trevor, we wanted to tell you,” Cassandra replied for him. “We
waited—” she looked appealingly at Rodney, who shook his head ever so
slightly.
“Yes? What were you waiting for?” her uncle asked sharply, looking at
her at last.
The words died on her lips. It was apparent that she was straining her
ears as if to catch some sound outside the room that would come to her
help. He received no answer. He listened, too.
“This is a most unpleasant business for all parties,” he concluded,
sinking into his chair again, hunching his shoulders and regarding the
flames. He seemed to speak to himself, and Rodney and Cassandra looked
at him in silence.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said suddenly. He spoke gruffly, but the
force of his anger was evidently spent, or some preoccupation had
turned his mood to other regions. While Cassandra accepted his
invitation, Rodney remained standing.
“I think Cassandra can explain matters better in my absence,” he said,
and left the room, Mr. Hilbery giving his assent by a slight nod of
the head.
Meanwhile, in the dining-room next door, Denham and Katharine were
once more seated at the mahogany table. They seemed to be continuing a
conversation broken off in the middle, as if each remembered the
precise point at which they had been interrupted, and was eager to go
on as quickly as possible. Katharine, having interposed a short
account of the interview with her father, Denham made no comment, but
said:
“Anyhow, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see each other.”
“Or stay together. It’s only marriage that’s out of the question,”
Katharine replied.
“But if I find myself coming to want you more and more?”
“If our lapses come more and more often?”
He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment.
“But at least,” he renewed, “we’ve established the fact that my lapses
are still in some odd way connected with you; yours have nothing to do
with me. Katharine,” he added, his assumption of reason broken up by
his agitation, “I assure you that we are in love—what other people
call love. Remember that night. We had no doubts whatever then. We
were absolutely happy for half an hour. You had no lapse until the day
after; I had no lapse until yesterday morning. We’ve been happy at
intervals all day until I—went off my head, and you, quite naturally,
were bored.”
“Ah,” she exclaimed, as if the subject chafed her, “I can’t make you
understand. It’s not boredom—I’m never bored. Reality—reality,” she
ejaculated, tapping her finger upon the table as if to emphasize and
perhaps explain her isolated utterance of this word. “I cease to be
real to you. It’s the faces in a storm again—the vision in a
hurricane. We come together for a moment and we part. It’s my fault,
too. I’m as bad as you are—worse, perhaps.”
They were trying to explain, not for the first time, as their weary
gestures and frequent interruptions showed, what in their common
language they had christened their “lapses”; a constant source of
distress to them, in the past few days, and the immediate reason why
Ralph was on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening
anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the cause of these
lapses? Either because Katharine looked more beautiful, or more
strange, because she wore something different, or said something
unexpected, Ralph’s sense of her romance welled up and overcame him
either into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which Katharine,
with unintentional but invariable perversity, interrupted or
contradicted with some severity or assertion of prosaic fact. Then the
vision disappeared, and Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the
conviction that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her
reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the form of gradual
detachment until she became completely absorbed in her own thoughts,
which carried her away with such intensity that she sharply resented
any recall to her companion’s side. It was useless to assert that
these trances were always originated by Ralph himself, however little
in their later stages they had to do with him. The fact remained that
she had no need of him and was very loath to be reminded of him. How,
then, could they be in love? The fragmentary nature of their
relationship was but too apparent.
Thus they sat depressed to silence at the dining-room table, oblivious
of everything, while Rodney paced the drawing-room overhead in such
agitation and exaltation of mind as he had never conceived possible,
and Cassandra remained alone with her uncle. Ralph, at length, rose
and walked gloomily to the window. He pressed close to the pane.
Outside were truth and freedom and the immensity only to be
apprehended by the mind in loneliness, and never communicated to
another. What worse sacrilege was there than to attempt to violate
what he perceived by seeking to impart it? Some movement behind him
made him reflect that Katharine had the power, if she chose, to be in
person what he dreamed of her spirit. He turned sharply to implore her
help, when again he was struck cold by her look of distance, her
expression of intentness upon some far object. As if conscious of his
look upon her she rose and came to him, standing close by his side,
and looking with him out into the dusky atmosphere. Their physical
closeness was to him a bitter enough comment upon the distance between
their minds. Yet distant as she was, her presence by his side
transformed the world. He saw himself performing wonderful deeds of
courage; saving the
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