Chapter XV
Whether too slight or too vague the ties that bind people casuallymeeting in a hotel at midnight, they possess one advantage at least overthe bonds which unite the elderly, who have lived together once and somust live for ever. Slight they may be, but vivid and genuine, merelybecause the power to break them is within the grasp of each, and thereis no reason for continuance except a true desire that continue theyshall. When two people have been married for years they seem to becomeunconscious of each other's bodily presence so that they move as ifalone, speak aloud things which they do not expect to be answered, andin general seem to experience all the comfort of solitude without itsloneliness. The joint lives of Ridley and Helen had arrived at thisstage of community, and it was often necessary for one or the other torecall with an effort whether a thing had been said or only thought,shared or dreamt in private. At four o'clock in the afternoon two orthree days later Mrs. Ambrose was standing brushing her hair, whileher husband was in the dressing-room which opened out of her room, andoccasionally, through the cascade of water--he was washing his face--shecaught exclamations, "So it goes on year after year; I wish, I wish, Iwish I could make an end of it," to which she paid no attention.
"It's white? Or only brown?" Thus she herself murmured, examining a hairwhich gleamed suspiciously among the brown. She pulled it out and laidit on the dressing-table. She was criticising her own appearance, orrather approving of it, standing a little way back from the glass andlooking at her own face with superb pride and melancholy, when herhusband appeared in the doorway in his shirt sleeves, his face halfobscured by a towel.
"You often tell me I don't notice things," he remarked.
"Tell me if this is a white hair, then?" she replied. She laid the hairon his hand.
"There's not a white hair on your head," he exclaimed.
"Ah, Ridley, I begin to doubt," she sighed; and bowed her head underhis eyes so that he might judge, but the inspection produced only a kisswhere the line of parting ran, and husband and wife then proceeded tomove about the room, casually murmuring.
"What was that you were saying?" Helen remarked, after an interval ofconversation which no third person could have understood.
"Rachel--you ought to keep an eye upon Rachel," he observedsignificantly, and Helen, though she went on brushing her hair, lookedat him. His observations were apt to be true.
"Young gentlemen don't interest themselves in young women's educationwithout a motive," he remarked.
"Oh, Hirst," said Helen.
"Hirst and Hewet, they're all the same to me--all covered with spots,"he replied. "He advises her to read Gibbon. Did you know that?"
Helen did not know that, but she would not allow herself inferior to herhusband in powers of observation. She merely said:
"Nothing would surprise me. Even that dreadful flying man we met at thedance--even Mr. Dalloway--even--"
"I advise you to be circumspect," said Ridley. "There's Willoughby,remember--Willoughby"; he pointed at a letter.
Helen looked with a sigh at an envelope which lay upon herdressing-table. Yes, there lay Willoughby, curt, inexpressive,perpetually jocular, robbing a whole continent of mystery, enquiringafter his daughter's manners and morals--hoping she wasn't a bore, andbidding them pack her off to him on board the very next ship if shewere--and then grateful and affectionate with suppressed emotion, andthen half a page about his own triumphs over wretched little natives whowent on strike and refused to load his ships, until he roared Englishoaths at them, "popping my head out of the window just as I was, in myshirt sleeves. The beggars had the sense to scatter."
"If Theresa married Willoughby," she remarked, turning the page with ahairpin, "one doesn't see what's to prevent Rachel--"
But Ridley was now off on grievances of his own connected with thewashing of his shirts, which somehow led to the frequent visits ofHughling Elliot, who was a bore, a pedant, a dry stick of a man, and yetRidley couldn't simply point at the door and tell him to go. The truthof it was, they saw too many people. And so on and so on, more conjugaltalk pattering softly and unintelligibly, until they were both ready togo down to tea.
The first thing that caught Helen's eye as she came downstairs was acarriage at the door, filled with skirts and feathers nodding on thetops of hats. She had only time to gain the drawing-room before twonames were oddly mispronounced by the Spanish maid, and Mrs. Thornburycame in slightly in advance of Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing.
"Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing," said Mrs. Thornbury, with a wave of her hand."A friend of our common friend Mrs. Raymond Parry."
Mrs. Flushing shook hands energetically. She was a woman of fortyperhaps, very well set up and erect, splendidly robust, though not astall as the upright carriage of her body made her appear.
She looked Helen straight in the face and said, "You have a charmin'house."
She had a strongly marked face, her eyes looked straight at you, andthough naturally she was imperious in her manner she was nervous at thesame time. Mrs. Thornbury acted as interpreter, making things smooth allround by a series of charming commonplace remarks.
"I've taken it upon myself, Mr. Ambrose," she said, "to promise that youwill be so kind as to give Mrs. Flushing the benefit of your experience.I'm sure no one here knows the country as well as you do. No one takessuch wonderful long walks. No one, I'm sure, has your encyclopaedicknowledge upon every subject. Mr. Wilfrid Flushing is a collector. Hehas discovered really beautiful things already. I had no notion that thepeasants were so artistic--though of course in the past--"
"Not old things--new things," interrupted Mrs. Flushing curtly. "Thatis, if he takes my advice."
The Ambroses had not lived for many years in London without knowingsomething of a good many people, by name at least, and Helen rememberedhearing of the Flushings. Mr. Flushing was a man who kept an oldfurniture shop; he had always said he would not marry because most womenhave red cheeks, and would not take a house because most houses havenarrow staircases, and would not eat meat because most animals bleedwhen they are killed; and then he had married an eccentric aristocraticlady, who certainly was not pale, who looked as if she ate meat, who hadforced him to do all the things he most disliked--and this then was thelady. Helen looked at her with interest. They had moved out into thegarden, where the tea was laid under a tree, and Mrs. Flushing washelping herself to cherry jam. She had a peculiar jerking movement ofthe body when she spoke, which caused the canary-coloured plume onher hat to jerk too. Her small but finely-cut and vigorous features,together with the deep red of lips and cheeks, pointed to manygenerations of well-trained and well-nourished ancestors behind her.
"Nothin' that's more than twenty years old interests me," she continued."Mouldy old pictures, dirty old books, they stick 'em in museums whenthey're only fit for burnin'."
"I quite agree," Helen laughed. "But my husband spends his life indigging up manuscripts which nobody wants." She was amused by Ridley'sexpression of startled disapproval.
"There's a clever man in London called John who paints ever so muchbetter than the old masters," Mrs. Flushing continued. "His picturesexcite me--nothin' that's old excites me."
"But even his pictures will become old," Mrs. Thornbury intervened.
"Then I'll have 'em burnt, or I'll put it in my will," said Mrs.Flushing.
"And Mrs. Flushing lived in one of the most beautiful old houses inEngland--Chillingley," Mrs. Thornbury explained to the rest of them.
"If I'd my way I'd burn that to-morrow," Mrs. Flushing laughed. She hada laugh like the cry of a jay, at once startling and joyless.
"What does any sane person want with those great big houses?" shedemanded. "If you go downstairs after dark you're covered with blackbeetles, and the electric lights always goin' out. What would you doif spiders came out of the tap when you turned on the hot water?" shedemanded, fixing her eye on Helen.
Mrs. Ambrose shrugged her shoulders with a smile.
"This is what I like," said Mrs. Flushing. She jerked her head
at theVilla. "A little house in a garden. I had one once in Ireland. One couldlie in bed in the mornin' and pick roses outside the window with one'stoes."
"And the gardeners, weren't they surprised?" Mrs. Thornbury enquired.
"There were no gardeners," Mrs. Flushing chuckled. "Nobody but me andan old woman without any teeth. You know the poor in Ireland lose theirteeth after they're twenty. But you wouldn't expect a politician tounderstand that--Arthur Balfour wouldn't understand that."
Ridley sighed that he never expected any one to understand anything,least of all politicians.
"However," he concluded, "there's one advantage I find in extreme oldage--nothing matters a hang except one's food and one's digestion. AllI ask is to be left alone to moulder away in solitude. It's obvious thatthe world's going as fast as it can to--the Nethermost Pit, and all Ican do is to sit still and consume as much of my own smoke as possible."He groaned, and with a melancholy glance laid the jam on his bread, forhe felt the atmosphere of this abrupt lady distinctly unsympathetic.
"I always contradict my husband when he says that," said Mrs. Thornburysweetly. "You men! Where would you be if it weren't for the women!"
"Read the _Symposium_," said Ridley grimly.
"_Symposium_?" cried Mrs. Flushing. "That's Latin or Greek? Tell me, isthere a good translation?"
"No," said Ridley. "You will have to learn Greek."
Mrs. Flushing cried, "Ah, ah, ah! I'd rather break stones in the road. Ialways envy the men who break stones and sit on those nice little heapsall day wearin' spectacles. I'd infinitely rather break stones thanclean out poultry runs, or feed the cows, or--"
Here Rachel came up from the lower garden with a book in her hand.
"What's that book?" said Ridley, when she had shaken hands.
"It's Gibbon," said Rachel as she sat down.
"_The_ _Decline_ _and_ _Fall_ _of_ _the_ _Roman_ _Empire_?" said Mrs.Thornbury. "A very wonderful book, I know. My dear father was alwaysquoting it at us, with the result that we resolved never to read aline."
"Gibbon the historian?" enquired Mrs. Flushing. "I connect him withsome of the happiest hours of my life. We used to lie in bed and readGibbon--about the massacres of the Christians, I remember--when we weresupposed to be asleep. It's no joke, I can tell you, readin' a greatbig book, in double columns, by a night-light, and the light that comesthrough a chink in the door. Then there were the moths--tiger moths,yellow moths, and horrid cockchafers. Louisa, my sister, would have thewindow open. I wanted it shut. We fought every night of our lives overthat window. Have you ever seen a moth dyin' in a night-light?" sheenquired.
Again there was an interruption. Hewet and Hirst appeared at thedrawing-room window and came up to the tea-table.
Rachel's heart beat hard. She was conscious of an extraordinaryintensity in everything, as though their presence stripped somecover off the surface of things; but the greetings were remarkablycommonplace.
"Excuse me," said Hirst, rising from his chair directly he had sat down.He went into the drawing-room, and returned with a cushion which heplaced carefully upon his seat.
"Rheumatism," he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.
"The result of the dance?" Helen enquired.
"Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic," Hirst stated.He bent his wrist back sharply. "I hear little pieces of chalk grindingtogether!"
Rachel looked at him. She was amused, and yet she was respectful; ifsuch a thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh, andthe lower part to check its laughter.
Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.
"You like this?" he asked in an undertone.
"No, I don't like it," she replied. She had indeed been trying allthe afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory which she hadperceived at first had faded, and, read as she would, she could notgrasp the meaning with her mind.
"It goes round, round, round, like a roll of oil-cloth," she hazarded.Evidently she meant Hewet alone to hear her words, but Hirst demanded,"What d'you mean?"
She was instantly ashamed of her figure of speech, for she could notexplain it in words of sober criticism.
"Surely it's the most perfect style, so far as style goes, that's everbeen invented," he continued. "Every sentence is practically perfect,and the wit--"
"Ugly in body, repulsive in mind," she thought, instead of thinkingabout Gibbon's style. "Yes, but strong, searching, unyielding inmind." She looked at his big head, a disproportionate part of which wasoccupied by the forehead, and at the direct, severe eyes.
"I give you up in despair," he said. He meant it lightly, but she tookit seriously, and believed that her value as a human being was lessenedbecause she did not happen to admire the style of Gibbon. The otherswere talking now in a group about the native villages which Mrs.Flushing ought to visit.
"I despair too," she said impetuously. "How are you going to judgepeople merely by their minds?"
"You agree with my spinster Aunt, I expect," said St. John in his jauntymanner, which was always irritating because it made the person hetalked to appear unduly clumsy and in earnest. "'Be good, sweet maid'--Ithought Mr. Kingsley and my Aunt were now obsolete."
"One can be very nice without having read a book," she asserted. Verysilly and simple her words sounded, and laid her open to derision.
"Did I ever deny it?" Hirst enquired, raising his eyebrows.
Most unexpectedly Mrs. Thornbury here intervened, either because itwas her mission to keep things smooth or because she had long wished tospeak to Mr. Hirst, feeling as she did that young men were her sons.
"I have lived all my life with people like your Aunt, Mr. Hirst," shesaid, leaning forward in her chair. Her brown squirrel-like eyes becameeven brighter than usual. "They have never heard of Gibbon. They onlycare for their pheasants and their peasants. They are great big men wholook so fine on horseback, as people must have done, I think, in thedays of the great wars. Say what you like against them--they are animal,they are unintellectual; they don't read themselves, and they don't wantothers to read, but they are some of the finest and the kindest humanbeings on the face of the earth! You would be surprised at some ofthe stories I could tell. You have never guessed, perhaps, at all theromances that go on in the heart of the country. There are the people,I feel, among whom Shakespeare will be born if he is ever born again. Inthose old houses, up among the Downs--"
"My Aunt," Hirst interrupted, "spends her life in East Lambeth amongthe degraded poor. I only quoted my Aunt because she is inclined topersecute people she calls 'intellectual,' which is what I suspect MissVinrace of doing. It's all the fashion now. If you're clever it'salways taken for granted that you're completely without sympathy,understanding, affection--all the things that really matter. Oh, youChristians! You're the most conceited, patronising, hypocritical set ofold humbugs in the kingdom! Of course," he continued, "I'm the firstto allow your country gentlemen great merits. For one thing, they'reprobably quite frank about their passions, which we are not. My father,who is a clergyman in Norfolk, says that there is hardly a squire in thecountry who does not--"
"But about Gibbon?" Hewet interrupted. The look of nervous tension whichhad come over every face was relaxed by the interruption.
"You find him monotonous, I suppose. But you know--" He opened the book,and began searching for passages to read aloud, and in a little time hefound a good one which he considered suitable. But there was nothing inthe world that bored Ridley more than being read aloud to, and he wasbesides scrupulously fastidious as to the dress and behaviour of ladies.In the space of fifteen minutes he had decided against Mrs. Flushing onthe ground that her orange plume did not suit her complexion, that shespoke too loud, that she crossed her legs, and finally, when he sawher accept a cigarette that Hewet offered her, he jumped up, exclaimingsomething about "bar parlours," and left them. Mrs. Flushing wasevidently relieved by his departure. She puffed her cigarette, stuck herlegs out, and examined Helen closely as to the ch
aracter and reputationof their common friend Mrs. Raymond Parry. By a series of littlestrategems she drove her to define Mrs. Parry as somewhat elderly, by nomeans beautiful, very much made up--an insolent old harridan, in short,whose parties were amusing because one met odd people; but Helenherself always pitied poor Mr. Parry, who was understood to be shut updownstairs with cases full of gems, while his wife enjoyed herselfin the drawing-room. "Not that I believe what people say againsther--although she hints, of course--" Upon which Mrs. Flushing cried outwith delight:
"She's my first cousin! Go on--go on!"
When Mrs. Flushing rose to go she was obviously delighted with her newacquaintances. She made three or four different plans for meeting orgoing on an expedition, or showing Helen the things they had bought,on her way to the carriage. She included them all in a vague butmagnificent invitation.
As Helen returned to the garden again, Ridley's words of warning cameinto her head, and she hesitated a moment and looked at Rachel sittingbetween Hirst and Hewet. But she could draw no conclusions, for Hewetwas still reading Gibbon aloud, and Rachel, for all the expression shehad, might have been a shell, and his words water rubbing against herears, as water rubs a shell on the edge of a rock.
Hewet's voice was very pleasant. When he reached the end of the periodHewet stopped, and no one volunteered any criticism.
"I do adore the aristocracy!" Hirst exclaimed after a moment's pause."They're so amazingly unscrupulous. None of us would dare to behave asthat woman behaves."
"What I like about them," said Helen as she sat down, "is that they'reso well put together. Naked, Mrs. Flushing would be superb. Dressed asshe dresses, it's absurd, of course."
"Yes," said Hirst. A shade of depression crossed his face. "I've neverweighed more than ten stone in my life," he said, "which is ridiculous,considering my height, and I've actually gone down in weight since wecame here. I daresay that accounts for the rheumatism." Again he jerkedhis wrist back sharply, so that Helen might hear the grinding of thechalk stones. She could not help smiling.
"It's no laughing matter for me, I assure you," he protested. "Mymother's a chronic invalid, and I'm always expecting to be told thatI've got heart disease myself. Rheumatism always goes to the heart inthe end."
"For goodness' sake, Hirst," Hewet protested; "one might think you werean old cripple of eighty. If it comes to that, I had an aunt who died ofcancer myself, but I put a bold face on it--" He rose and began tiltinghis chair backwards and forwards on its hind legs. "Is any one hereinclined for a walk?" he said. "There's a magnificent walk, up behindthe house. You come out on to a cliff and look right down into the sea.The rocks are all red; you can see them through the water. The other dayI saw a sight that fairly took my breath away--about twenty jelly-fish,semi-transparent, pink, with long streamers, floating on the top of thewaves."
"Sure they weren't mermaids?" said Hirst. "It's much too hot to climbuphill." He looked at Helen, who showed no signs of moving.
"Yes, it's too hot," Helen decided.
There was a short silence.
"I'd like to come," said Rachel.
"But she might have said that anyhow," Helen thought to herself as Hewetand Rachel went away together, and Helen was left alone with St. John,to St. John's obvious satisfaction.
He may have been satisfied, but his usual difficulty in deciding thatone subject was more deserving of notice than another prevented him fromspeaking for some time. He sat staring intently at the head of a deadmatch, while Helen considered--so it seemed from the expression of hereyes--something not closely connected with the present moment.
At last St. John exclaimed, "Damn! Damn everything! Damn everybody!" headded. "At Cambridge there are people to talk to."
"At Cambridge there are people to talk to," Helen echoed him,rhythmically and absent-mindedly. Then she woke up. "By the way, haveyou settled what you're going to do--is it to be Cambridge or the Bar?"
He pursed his lips, but made no immediate answer, for Helen was stillslightly inattentive. She had been thinking about Rachel and which ofthe two young men she was likely to fall in love with, and now sittingopposite to Hirst she thought, "He's ugly. It's a pity they're so ugly."
She did not include Hewet in this criticism; she was thinking of theclever, honest, interesting young men she knew, of whom Hirst was agood example, and wondering whether it was necessary that thought andscholarship should thus maltreat their bodies, and should thus elevatetheir minds to a very high tower from which the human race appeared tothem like rats and mice squirming on the flat.
"And the future?" she reflected, vaguely envisaging a race of menbecoming more and more like Hirst, and a race of women becoming more andmore like Rachel. "Oh no," she concluded, glancing at him, "one wouldn'tmarry you. Well, then, the future of the race is in the hands of Susanand Arthur; no--that's dreadful. Of farm labourers; no--not of theEnglish at all, but of Russians and Chinese." This train of thought didnot satisfy her, and was interrupted by St. John, who began again:
"I wish you knew Bennett. He's the greatest man in the world."
"Bennett?" she enquired. Becoming more at ease, St. John dropped theconcentrated abruptness of his manner, and explained that Bennett wasa man who lived in an old windmill six miles out of Cambridge. He livedthe perfect life, according to St. John, very lonely, very simple,caring only for the truth of things, always ready to talk, andextraordinarily modest, though his mind was of the greatest.
"Don't you think," said St. John, when he had done describing him, "thatkind of thing makes this kind of thing rather flimsy? Did you notice attea how poor old Hewet had to change the conversation? How they wereall ready to pounce upon me because they thought I was going to saysomething improper? It wasn't anything, really. If Bennett had beenthere he'd have said exactly what he meant to say, or he'd have got upand gone. But there's something rather bad for the character in that--Imean if one hasn't got Bennett's character. It's inclined to make onebitter. Should you say that I was bitter?"
Helen did not answer, and he continued:
"Of course I am, disgustingly bitter, and it's a beastly thing to be.But the worst of me is that I'm so envious. I envy every one. I can'tendure people who do things better than I do--perfectly absurd thingstoo--waiters balancing piles of plates--even Arthur, because Susan's inlove with him. I want people to like me, and they don't. It's partly myappearance, I expect," he continued, "though it's an absolute lie tosay I've Jewish blood in me--as a matter of fact we've been in Norfolk,Hirst of Hirstbourne Hall, for three centuries at least. It must beawfully soothing to be like you--every one liking one at once."
"I assure you they don't," Helen laughed.
"They do," said Hirst with conviction. "In the first place, you'rethe most beautiful woman I've ever seen; in the second, you have anexceptionally nice nature."
If Hirst had looked at her instead of looking intently at his teacuphe would have seen Helen blush, partly with pleasure, partly with animpulse of affection towards the young man who had seemed, and wouldseem again, so ugly and so limited. She pitied him, for she suspectedthat he suffered, and she was interested in him, for many of the thingshe said seemed to her true; she admired the morality of youth, and yetshe felt imprisoned. As if her instinct were to escape to somethingbrightly coloured and impersonal, which she could hold in her hands,she went into the house and returned with her embroidery. But he was notinterested in her embroidery; he did not even look at it.
"About Miss Vinrace," he began,--"oh, look here, do let's be St. Johnand Helen, and Rachel and Terence--what's she like? Does she reason,does she feel, or is she merely a kind of footstool?"
"Oh no," said Helen, with great decision. From her observations attea she was inclined to doubt whether Hirst was the person to educateRachel. She had gradually come to be interested in her niece, and fondof her; she disliked some things about her very much, she was amused byothers; but she felt her, on the whole, a live if unformed human being,experimental, and not always fortunate in her exper
iments, but withpowers of some kind, and a capacity for feeling. Somewhere in thedepths of her, too, she was bound to Rachel by the indestructible ifinexplicable ties of sex. "She seems vague, but she's a will of herown," she said, as if in the interval she had run through her qualities.
The embroidery, which was a matter for thought, the design beingdifficult and the colours wanting consideration, brought lapses into thedialogue when she seemed to be engrossed in her skeins of silk, or, withhead a little drawn back and eyes narrowed, considered the effect ofthe whole. Thus she merely said, "Um-m-m" to St. John's next remark, "Ishall ask her to go for a walk with me."
Perhaps he resented this division of attention. He sat silent watchingHelen closely.
"You're absolutely happy," he proclaimed at last.
"Yes?" Helen enquired, sticking in her needle.
"Marriage, I suppose," said St. John.
"Yes," said Helen, gently drawing her needle out.
"Children?" St. John enquired.
"Yes," said Helen, sticking her needle in again. "I don't know why I'mhappy," she suddenly laughed, looking him full in the face. There was aconsiderable pause.
"There's an abyss between us," said St. John. His voice sounded as ifit issued from the depths of a cavern in the rocks. "You're infinitelysimpler than I am. Women always are, of course. That's the difficulty.One never knows how a woman gets there. Supposing all the time you'rethinking, 'Oh, what a morbid young man!'"
Helen sat and looked at him with her needle in her hand. Fromher position she saw his head in front of the dark pyramid of amagnolia-tree. With one foot raised on the rung of a chair, and herelbow out in the attitude for sewing, her own figure possessed thesublimity of a woman's of the early world, spinning the thread offate--the sublimity possessed by many women of the present day who fallinto the attitude required by scrubbing or sewing. St. John looked ather.
"I suppose you've never paid any a compliment in the course of yourlife," he said irrelevantly.
"I spoil Ridley rather," Helen considered.
"I'm going to ask you point blank--do you like me?"
After a certain pause, she replied, "Yes, certainly."
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "That's one mercy. You see," he continuedwith emotion, "I'd rather you liked me than any one I've ever met."
"What about the five philosophers?" said Helen, with a laugh, stitchingfirmly and swiftly at her canvas. "I wish you'd describe them."
Hirst had no particular wish to describe them, but when he began toconsider them he found himself soothed and strengthened. Far away to theother side of the world as they were, in smoky rooms, and grey medievalcourts, they appeared remarkable figures, free-spoken men with whom onecould be at ease; incomparably more subtle in emotion than the peoplehere. They gave him, certainly, what no woman could give him, not Heleneven. Warming at the thought of them, he went on to lay his case beforeMrs. Ambrose. Should he stay on at Cambridge or should he go to theBar? One day he thought one thing, another day another. Helen listenedattentively. At last, without any preface, she pronounced her decision.
"Leave Cambridge and go to the Bar," she said. He pressed her for herreasons.
"I think you'd enjoy London more," she said. It did not seem a verysubtle reason, but she appeared to think it sufficient. She looked athim against the background of flowering magnolia. There was somethingcurious in the sight. Perhaps it was that the heavy wax-like flowerswere so smooth and inarticulate, and his face--he had thrown his hataway, his hair was rumpled, he held his eye-glasses in his hand, sothat a red mark appeared on either side of his nose--was so worried andgarrulous. It was a beautiful bush, spreading very widely, and all thetime she had sat there talking she had been noticing the patches ofshade and the shape of the leaves, and the way the great white flowerssat in the midst of the green. She had noticed it half-consciously,nevertheless the pattern had become part of their talk. She laid downher sewing, and began to walk up and down the garden, and Hirst rose tooand paced by her side. He was rather disturbed, uncomfortable, and fullof thought. Neither of them spoke.
The sun was beginning to go down, and a change had come over themountains, as if they were robbed of their earthly substance, andcomposed merely of intense blue mist. Long thin clouds of flamingo red,with edges like the edges of curled ostrich feathers, lay up and downthe sky at different altitudes. The roofs of the town seemed to havesunk lower than usual; the cypresses appeared very black between theroofs, and the roofs themselves were brown and white. As usual inthe evening, single cries and single bells became audible rising frombeneath.
St. John stopped suddenly.
"Well, you must take the responsibility," he said. "I've made up mymind; I shall go to the Bar."
His words were very serious, almost emotional; they recalled Helen aftera second's hesitation.
"I'm sure you're right," she said warmly, and shook the hand he heldout. "You'll be a great man, I'm certain."
Then, as if to make him look at the scene, she swept her hand round theimmense circumference of the view. From the sea, over the roofs of thetown, across the crests of the mountains, over the river and the plain,and again across the crests of the mountains it swept until it reachedthe villa, the garden, the magnolia-tree, and the figures of Hirst andherself standing together, when it dropped to her side.
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