Part 5 (1/2)

'Ah, indeed. That interests me very much,' he said. 'I owe a great debt to your grandfather, Miss Hilbery. At one time I could have repeated the greater part of him by heart. But one gets out of the way of reading poetry, unfortunately. You don't remember him, I suppose?'

A sharp rap at the door made Katharine's answer inaudible. Mrs Seal looked up with renewed hope in her eyes, and exclaiming: 'The proofs at last!' ran to open the door. 'Oh, it's only Mr Denham!' she cried, without any attempt to conceal her disappointment. Ralph, Katharine supposed, was a frequent visitor, for the only person he thought it necessary to greet was herself, and Mary at once explained the strange fact of her being there by saying: 'Katharine has come to see how one runs an office.'

Ralph felt himself stiffen uncomfortably, as he said: 'I hope Mary hasn't persuaded you that she knows how to run an office?'

'What, doesn't she?' said Katharine, looking from one to the other.

At these remarks Mrs Seal began to exhibit signs of discomposure, which displayed themselves by a tossing movement of her head, and, as Ralph took a letter from his pocket, and placed his finger upon a certain sentence, she forestalled him by exclaiming in confusion: 'Now, I know what you're going to say, Mr Denham! But it was the day Kit Markham was here, and she upsets one so-with her wonderful vitality, always thinking of something new that we ought to be doing and aren't-and I was conscious at the time that my dates were mixed. It had nothing to do with Mary at all, I a.s.sure you.'

'My dear Sally, don't apologize,' said Mary, laughing. 'Men are such pedants-they don't know what things matter, and what things don't.'

'Now, Denham, speak up for our s.e.x,' said Mr Clacton in a jocular manner, indeed, but like most insignificant men he was very quick to resent being found fault with by a woman, in argument with whom he was fond of calling himself 'a mere man'. He wished, however, to enter into a literary conversation with Miss Hilbery, and thus let the matter drop.

'Doesn't it seem strange to you, Miss Hilbery,' he said, 'that the French, with all their wealth of ill.u.s.trious names, have no poet who can compare with your grandfather? Let me see. There's Chenier and Hugo and Alfred de Musset aj aj-wonderful men, but, at the same time, there's a richness, a freshness about Alardyce-'

Here the telephone bell rang, and he had to absent himself with a smile and a bow which signified that, although literature is delightful, it is not work. Mrs Seal rose at the same time, but remained hovering over the table, delivering herself of a tirade against party government. 'For if I were to tell you what I know of back-stairs intrigue, and what can be done by the power of the purse, you wouldn't credit me, Mr Denham, you wouldn't, indeed. Which is why I feel that the only work for my father's daughter-for he was one of the pioneers, Mr Denham, and on his tombstone I had that verse from the Psalms put, about the sowers and the seed6 ... And what wouldn't I give that he should be alive now, seeing what we're going to see-'but reflecting that the glories of the future depended in part upon the activity of her typewriter, she bobbed her head, and hurried back to the seclusion of her little room, from which immediately issued sounds of enthusiastic, but obviously erratic, composition. ... And what wouldn't I give that he should be alive now, seeing what we're going to see-'but reflecting that the glories of the future depended in part upon the activity of her typewriter, she bobbed her head, and hurried back to the seclusion of her little room, from which immediately issued sounds of enthusiastic, but obviously erratic, composition.

Mary made it clear at once, by starting a fresh topic of general interest, that though she saw the humour of her colleague, she did not intend to have her laughed at.

'The standard of morality seems to me frightfully low,' she observed reflectively, pouring out a second cup of tea, 'especially among women who aren't well educated. They don't see that small things matter, and that's where the leakage begins, and then we find ourselves in difficulties-I very nearly lost my temper yesterday,' she went on, looking at Ralph with a little smile, as though he knew what happened when she lost her temper. 'It makes me very angry when people tell me lies-doesn't it make you angry?' she asked Katharine.

'But considering that every one tells lies,' Katharine remarked, looking about the room to see where she had put down her umbrella and her parcel, for there was an intimacy in the way in which Mary and Ralph addressed each other which made her wish to leave them. Mary, on the other hand, was anxious, superficially at least, that Katharine should stay and so fortify her in her determination not to be in love with Ralph.

Ralph, while lifting his cup from his lips to the table, had made up his mind that if Miss Hilbery left, he would go with her.

'I don't think that I tell lies, and I don't think that Ralph tells lies, do you, Ralph?'Mary continued.

Katharine laughed, with more gaiety, as it seemed to Mary, than she could properly account for. What was she laughing at? At them, presumably. Katharine had risen, and was glancing hither and thither, at the presses and the cupboards, and all the machinery of the office, as if she included them all in her rather malicious amus.e.m.e.nt, which caused Mary to keep her eyes on her straightly and rather fiercely, as if she were a gay-plumed, mischievous bird, who might light on the topmost bough and pick off the ruddiest cherry, without any warning. Two women less like each other could scarcely be imagined, Ralph thought, looking from one to the other. Next moment he, too, rose, and nodding to Mary, as Katharine said good-bye, opened the door for her, and followed her out.

Mary sat still and made no attempt to prevent them from going. For a second or two after the door had shut on them her eyes rested on the door with a straightforward fierceness in which, for a moment, a certain degree of bewilderment seemed to enter; but, after a brief hesitation, she put down her cup and proceeded to clear away the tea-things.

The impulse which had driven Ralph to take this action was the result of a very swift little piece of reasoning, and thus, perhaps, was not quite so much of an impulse as it seemed. It pa.s.sed through his mind that if he missed this chance of talking to Katharine, he would have to face an enraged ghost, when he was alone in his room again, demanding an explanation of his cowardly indecision. It was better, on the whole, to risk present discomfiture than to waste an evening bandying excuses and constructing impossible scenes with this uncompromising section of himself. For ever since he had visited the Hilberys he had been much at the mercy of a phantom Katharine, who came to him when he sat alone, and answered him as he would have her answer, and was always beside him to crown those varying triumphs which were transacted almost every night, in imaginary scenes, as he walked through the lamplit streets home from the office. To walk with Katharine in the flesh would either feed that phantom with fresh food, which, as all who nourish dreams are aware, is a process that becomes necessary from time to time, or refine it to such a degree of thinness that it was scarcely serviceable any longer; and that, too, is sometimes a welcome change to a dreamer. And all the time Ralph was well aware that the bulk of Katharine was not represented in his dreams at all, so that when he met her he was bewildered by the fact that she had nothing to do with his dream of her.

When, on reaching the street, Katharine found that Mr Denham proceeded to keep pace by her side, she was surprised and, perhaps, a little annoyed. She, too, had her margin of imagination, and tonight her activity in this obscure region of the mind required solitude. If she had had her way, she would have walked very fast down the Tottenham Court Road,ak and then sprung into a cab and raced swiftly home. The view she had had of the inside of an office was of the nature of a dream to her. Shut off up there, she compared Mrs Seal, and Mary Datchet, and Mr Clacton to enchanted people in a bewitched tower, with the spiders'webs looping across the corners of the room, and then sprung into a cab and raced swiftly home. The view she had had of the inside of an office was of the nature of a dream to her. Shut off up there, she compared Mrs Seal, and Mary Datchet, and Mr Clacton to enchanted people in a bewitched tower, with the spiders'webs looping across the corners of the room,7 and all the tools of the necromancer's craft at hand; for so aloof and unreal and apart from the normal world did they seem to her, in the house of innumerable typewriters, murmuring their incantations and concocting their drugs, and flinging their frail spiders' webs over the torrent of life which rushed down the streets outside. and all the tools of the necromancer's craft at hand; for so aloof and unreal and apart from the normal world did they seem to her, in the house of innumerable typewriters, murmuring their incantations and concocting their drugs, and flinging their frail spiders' webs over the torrent of life which rushed down the streets outside.

She may have been conscious that there was some exaggeration in this fancy of hers, for she certainly did not wish to share it with Ralph. To him, she supposed, Mary Datchet, composing leaflets for Cabinet Ministers among her typewriters, represented all that was interesting and genuine; and, accordingly, she shut them both out from all share in the crowded street, with its pendant necklace of lamps, its lighted windows, and its throng of men and women, which exhilarated her to such an extent that she very nearly forgot her companion. She walked very fast, and the effect of people pa.s.sing in the opposite direction was to produce a queer dizziness both in her head and in Ralph's, which set their bodies far apart. But she did her duty by her companion almost unconsciously.

'Mary Datchet does that sort of work very well... She's responsible for it, I suppose?'

'Yes. The others don't help at all... Has she made a convert of you?'

'Oh no. That is, I'm a convert already.'

'But she hasn't persuaded you to work for them?'

'Oh dear no-that wouldn't do at all.'

So they walked on down the Tottenham Court Road, parting and coming together again, and Ralph felt much as though he were addressing the summit of a poplar in a high gale of wind.

'Suppose we get on to that omnibus?' he suggested.

Katharine acquiesced, and they climbed up, and found themselves alone on top of it.

'But which way are you going?' Katharine asked, waking a little from the trance into which movement among moving things had thrown her.

'I'm going to the Temple,'al Ralph replied, inventing a destination on the spur of the moment. He felt the change come over her as they sat down and the omnibus began to move forward. He imagined her contemplating the avenue in front of them with those honest sad eyes which seemed to set him at such a distance from them. But the breeze was blowing in their faces, and it lifted her hat for a second, and she drew out a pin and stuck it in again, a little action which seemed, for some reason, to make her rather more fallible. Ah, if only her hat would blow off, and leave her altogether dishevelled, accepting it from his hands! Ralph replied, inventing a destination on the spur of the moment. He felt the change come over her as they sat down and the omnibus began to move forward. He imagined her contemplating the avenue in front of them with those honest sad eyes which seemed to set him at such a distance from them. But the breeze was blowing in their faces, and it lifted her hat for a second, and she drew out a pin and stuck it in again, a little action which seemed, for some reason, to make her rather more fallible. Ah, if only her hat would blow off, and leave her altogether dishevelled, accepting it from his hands!

'This is like Venice,' she observed, raising her hand. 'The motor-cars, I mean, shooting about so quickly, with their lights.'

'I've never seen Venice,' he replied. 'I keep that and some other things for my old age.'

'What are the other things?' she asked.

'There's Venice and India and, I think, Dante, too.'

She laughed.

'Think of providing for one's old age! And would you refuse to see Venice if you had the chance?'

Instead of answering her, he wondered whether he should tell her something that was quite true about himself; and as he wondered, he told her.

'I've planned out my life in sections ever since I was a child, to make it last longer. You see, I'm always afraid that I'm missing something-'

And so am I!' Katharine exclaimed. 'But, after all,' she added, 'why should you miss anything?'

'Why? Because I'm poor, for one thing,' Ralph rejoined. 'You, I suppose, can have Venice and India and Dante every day of your life.'

She said nothing for a moment, but rested one hand, which was bare of glove, upon the rail in front of her, meditating upon a variety of things, of which one was that this strange young man p.r.o.nounced Dante as she was used to hearing it p.r.o.nounced, and another, that he had, most unexpectedly, a feeling about life that was familiar to her. Perhaps, then, he was the sort of person she might take an interest in, if she came to know him better, and as she had placed him among those whom she would never want to know better, this was enough to make her silent. She hastily recalled her first view of him, in the little room where the relics were kept, and ran a bar through half her impressions, as one cancels a badly written sentence, having found the right one.

'But to know that one might have things doesn't alter the fact that one hasn't got them,' she said, in some confusion. 'How could I go to India, for example? Besides,' she began impulsively, and stopped herself. Here the conductor came round, and interrupted them. Ralph waited for her to resume her sentence, but she said no more.

'I have a message to give your father,' he remarked. 'Perhaps you would give it him, or I could come-'

'Yes, do come,' Katharine replied.

'Still, I don't see why you shouldn't go to India,' Ralph began, in order to keep her from rising, as she threatened to do.

But she got up in spite of him, and said good-bye with her usual air of decision, and left him with a quickness which Ralph connected now with all her movements. He looked down and saw her standing on the pavement edge, an alert, commanding figure, which waited its season to cross, and then walked boldly and swiftly to the other side. That gesture and action would be added to the picture he had of her, but at present the real woman completely routed the phantom one.

CHAPTER VII.

AND LITTLE AUGUSTUS PELHAM Said to me, ”It's the younger generation knocking at the door,”1 and I said to him, ”Oh, but the younger generation comes in without knocking, Mr Pelham.” Such a feeble little joke, wasn't it, but down it went into his notebook all the same.' and I said to him, ”Oh, but the younger generation comes in without knocking, Mr Pelham.” Such a feeble little joke, wasn't it, but down it went into his notebook all the same.'