"Jacob's Room\n\nVIRGINIA WOOLF\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ONE\n\n\n\"So of course,\" wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper\nin the sand, \"there was nothing for it but to leave.\"\n\nSlowly welling from the point of her gold nib, pale blue ink dissolved\nthe full stop; for there her pen stuck; her eyes fixed, and tears slowly\nfilled them. The entire bay quivered; the lighthouse wobbled; and she\nhad the illusion that the mast of Mr. Connor's little yacht was bending\nlike a wax candle in the sun. She winked quickly. Accidents were awful\nthings. She winked again. The mast was straight; the waves were regular;\nthe lighthouse was upright; but the blot had spread.\n\n\"... nothing for it but to leave,\" she read.\n\n\"Well, if Jacob doesn't want to play\" (the shadow of Archer, her eldest\nson, fell across the notepaper and looked blue on the sand, and she felt\nchilly--it was the third of September already), \"if Jacob doesn't want\nto play\"--what a horrid blot! It must be getting late.\n\n\"Where IS that tiresome little boy?\" she said. \"I don't see him. Run and\nfind him. Tell him to come at once.\" \"... but mercifully,\" she\nscribbled, ignoring the full stop, \"everything seems satisfactorily\narranged, packed though we are like herrings in a barrel, and forced to\nstand the perambulator which the landlady quite naturally won't\nallow....\"\n\nSuch were Betty Flanders's letters to Captain Barfoot--many-paged,\ntear-stained. Scarborough is seven hundred miles from Cornwall: Captain\nBarfoot is in Scarborough: Seabrook is dead. Tears made all the dahlias\nin her garden undulate in red waves and flashed the glass house in her\neyes, and spangled the kitchen with bright knives, and made Mrs. Jarvis,\nthe rector's wife, think at church, while the hymn-tune played and Mrs.\nFlanders bent low over her little boys' heads, that marriage is a\nfortress and widows stray solitary in the open fields, picking up\nstones, gleaning a few golden straws, lonely, unprotected, poor\ncreatures. Mrs. Flanders had been a widow for these two years.\n\n\"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!\" Archer shouted.\n\n\"Scarborough,\" Mrs. Flanders wrote on the envelope, and dashed a bold\nline beneath; it was her native town; the hub of the universe. But a\nstamp? She ferreted in her bag; then held it up mouth downwards; then\nfumbled in her lap, all so vigorously that Charles Steele in the Panama\nhat suspended his paint-brush.\n\nLike the antennae of some irritable insect it positively trembled. Here\nwas that woman moving--actually going to get up--confound her! He struck\nthe canvas a hasty violet-black dab. For the landscape needed it. It was\ntoo pale--greys flowing into lavenders, and one star or a white gull\nsuspended just so--too pale as usual. The critics would say it was too\npale, for he was an unknown man exhibiting obscurely, a favourite with\nhis landladies' children, wearing a cross on his watch chain, and much\ngratified if his landladies liked his pictures--which they often did.\n\n\"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!\" Archer shouted.\n\nExasperated by the noise, yet loving children, Steele picked nervously\nat the dark little coils on his palette.\n\n\"I saw your brother--I saw your brother,\" he said, nodding his head, as\nArcher lagged past him, trailing his spade, and scowling at the old\ngentleman in spectacles.\n\n\"Over there--by the rock,\" Steele muttered, with his brush between his\nteeth, squeezing out raw sienna, and keeping his eyes fixed on Betty\nFlanders's back.\n\n\"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!\" shouted Archer, lagging on after a second.\n\nThe voice had an extraordinary sadness. Pure from all body, pure from\nall passion, going out into the world, solitary, unanswered, breaking\nagainst rocks--so it sounded.\n\nSteele frowned; but was pleased by the effect of the black--it was just\nTHAT note which brought the rest together. \"Ah, one may learn to paint\nat fifty! There's Titian...\" and so, having found the right tint, up he\nlooked and saw to his horror a cloud over the bay.\n\nMrs. Flanders rose, slapped her coat this side and that to get the sand\noff, and picked up her black parasol.\n\nThe rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black,\nrocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive. Rough with\ncrinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a\nsmall boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather\nheroic, before he gets to the top.\n\nBut there, on the very top, is a hollow full of water, with a sandy\nbottom; with a blob of jelly stuck to the side, and some mussels. A fish\ndarts across. The fringe of yellow-brown seaweed flutters, and out\npushes an opal-shelled crab--\n\n\"Oh, a huge crab,\" Jacob murmured--and begins his journey on weakly legs\non the sandy bottom. Now! Jacob plunged his hand. The crab was cool and\nvery light. But the water was thick with sand, and so, scrambling down,\nJacob was about to jump, holding his bucket in front of him, when he\nsaw, stretched entirely rigid, side by side, their faces very red, an\nenormous man and woman.\n\nAn enormous man and woman (it was early-closing day) were stretched\nmotionless, with their heads on pocket-handkerchiefs, side by side,\nwithin a few feet of the sea, while two or three gulls gracefully\nskirted the incoming waves, and settled near their boots.\n\nThe large red faces lying on the bandanna handkerchiefs stared up at\nJacob. Jacob stared down at them. Holding his bucket very carefully,\nJacob then jumped deliberately and trotted away very nonchalantly at\nfirst, but faster and faster as the waves came creaming up to him and he\nhad to swerve to avoid them, and the gulls rose in front of him and\nfloated out and settled again a little farther on. A large black woman\nwas sitting on the sand. He ran towards her.\n\n\"Nanny! Nanny!\" he cried, sobbing the words out on the crest of each\ngasping breath.\n\nThe waves came round her. She was a rock. She was covered with the\nseaweed which pops when it is pressed. He was lost.\n\nThere he stood. His face composed itself. He was about to roar when,\nlying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole\nskull--perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it.\nSobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he\nheld the skull in his arms.\n\n\"There he is!\" cried Mrs. Flanders, coming round the rock and covering\nthe whole space of the beach in a few seconds. \"What has he got hold of?\nPut it down, Jacob! Drop it this moment! Something horrid, I know. Why\ndidn't you stay with us? Naughty little boy! Now put it down. Now come\nalong both of you,\" and she swept round, holding Archer by one hand and\nfumbling for Jacob's arm with the other. But he ducked down and picked\nup the sheep's jaw, which was loose.\n\nSwinging her bag, clutching her parasol, holding Archer's hand, and\ntelling the story of the gunpowder explosion in which poor Mr. Curnow\nhad lost his eye, Mrs. Flanders hurried up the steep lane, aware all the\ntime in the depths of her mind of some buried discomfort.\n\nThere on the sand not far from the lovers lay the old sheep's skull\nwithout its jaw. Clean, white, wind-swept, sand-rubbed, a more\nunpolluted piece of bone existed nowhere on the coast of Cornwall. The\nsea holly would grow through the eye-sockets; it would turn to powder,\nor some golfer, hitting his ball one fine day, would disperse a little\ndust--No, but not in lodgings, thought Mrs. Flanders. It's a great\nexperiment coming so far with young children. There's no man to help\nwith the perambulator. And Jacob is such a handful; so obstinate\nalready.\n\n\"Throw it away, dear, do,\" she said, as they got into the road; but\nJacob squirmed away from her; and the wind rising, she took out her\nbonnet-pin, looked at the sea, and stuck it in afresh. The wind was\nrising. The waves showed that uneasiness, like something alive, restive,\nexpecting the whip, of waves before a storm. The fishing-boats were\nleaning to the water's brim. A pale yellow light shot across the purple\nsea; and shut. The lighthouse was lit. \"Come along,\" said Betty\nFlanders. The sun blazed in their faces and gilded the great\nblackberries trembling out from the hedge which Archer tried to strip as\nthey passed.\n\n\"Don't lag, boys. You've got nothing to change into,\" said Betty,\npulling them along, and looking with uneasy emotion at the earth\ndisplayed so luridly, with sudden sparks of light from greenhouses in\ngardens, with a sort of yellow and black mutability, against this\nblazing sunset, this astonishing agitation and vitality of colour, which\nstirred Betty Flanders and made her think of responsibility and danger.\nShe gripped Archer's hand. On she plodded up the hill.\n\n\"What did I ask you to remember?\" she said.\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Archer.\n\n\"Well, I don't know either,\" said Betty, humorously and simply, and who\nshall deny that this blankness of mind, when combined with profusion,\nmother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard ways, moments of astonishing\ndaring, humour, and sentimentality--who shall deny that in these\nrespects every woman is nicer than any man?\n\nWell, Betty Flanders, to begin with.\n\nShe had her hand upon the garden gate.\n\n\"The meat!\" she exclaimed, striking the latch down.\n\nShe had forgotten the meat.\n\nThere was Rebecca at the window.\n\nThe bareness of Mrs. Pearce's front room was fully displayed at ten\no'clock at night when a powerful oil lamp stood on the middle of the\ntable. The harsh light fell on the garden; cut straight across the lawn;\nlit up a child's bucket and a purple aster and reached the hedge. Mrs.\nFlanders had left her sewing on the table. There were her large reels of\nwhite cotton and her steel spectacles; her needle-case; her brown wool\nwound round an old postcard. There were the bulrushes and the Strand\nmagazines; and the linoleum sandy from the boys' boots. A\ndaddy-long-legs shot from corner to corner and hit the lamp globe. The\nwind blew straight dashes of rain across the window, which flashed\nsilver as they passed through the light. A single leaf tapped hurriedly,\npersistently, upon the glass. There was a hurricane out at sea.\n\nArcher could not sleep.\n\nMrs. Flanders stooped over him. \"Think of the fairies,\" said Betty\nFlanders. \"Think of the lovely, lovely birds settling down on their\nnests. Now shut your eyes and see the old mother bird with a worm in her\nbeak. Now turn and shut your eyes,\" she murmured, \"and shut your eyes.\"\n\nThe lodging-house seemed full of gurgling and rushing; the cistern\noverflowing; water bubbling and squeaking and running along the pipes\nand streaming down the windows.\n\n\"What's all that water rushing in?\" murmured Archer.\n\n\"It's only the bath water running away,\" said Mrs. Flanders.\n\nSomething snapped out of doors.\n\n\"I say, won't that steamer sink?\" said Archer, opening his eyes.\n\n\"Of course it won't,\" said Mrs. Flanders. \"The Captain's in bed long\nago. Shut your eyes, and think of the fairies, fast asleep, under the\nflowers.\"\n\n\"I thought he'd never get off--such a hurricane,\" she whispered to\nRebecca, who was bending over a spirit-lamp in the small room next door.\nThe wind rushed outside, but the small flame of the spirit-lamp burnt\nquietly, shaded from the cot by a book stood on edge.\n\n\"Did he take his bottle well?\" Mrs. Flanders whispered, and Rebecca\nnodded and went to the cot and turned down the quilt, and Mrs. Flanders\nbent over and looked anxiously at the baby, asleep, but frowning. The\nwindow shook, and Rebecca stole like a cat and wedged it.\n\nThe two women murmured over the spirit-lamp, plotting the eternal\nconspiracy of hush and clean bottles while the wind raged and gave a\nsudden wrench at the cheap fastenings.\n\nBoth looked round at the cot. Their lips were pursed. Mrs. Flanders\ncrossed over to the cot.\n\n\"Asleep?\" whispered Rebecca, looking at the cot.\n\nMrs. Flanders nodded.\n\n\"Good-night, Rebecca,\" Mrs. Flanders murmured, and Rebecca called her\nma'm, though they were conspirators plotting the eternal conspiracy of\nhush and clean bottles.\n\nMrs. Flanders had left the lamp burning in the front room. There were\nher spectacles, her sewing; and a letter with the Scarborough postmark.\nShe had not drawn the curtains either.\n\nThe light blazed out across the patch of grass; fell on the child's\ngreen bucket with the gold line round it, and upon the aster which\ntrembled violently beside it. For the wind was tearing across the coast,\nhurling itself at the hills, and leaping, in sudden gusts, on top of its\nown back. How it spread over the town in the hollow! How the lights\nseemed to wink and quiver in its fury, lights in the harbour, lights in\nbedroom windows high up! And rolling dark waves before it, it raced over\nthe Atlantic, jerking the stars above the ships this way and that.\n\nThere was a click in the front sitting-room. Mr. Pearce had extinguished\nthe lamp. The garden went out. It was but a dark patch. Every inch was\nrained upon. Every blade of grass was bent by rain. Eyelids would have\nbeen fastened down by the rain. Lying on one's back one would have seen\nnothing but muddle and confusion--clouds turning and turning, and\nsomething yellow-tinted and sulphurous in the darkness.\n\nThe little boys in the front bedroom had thrown off their blankets and\nlay under the sheets. It was hot; rather sticky and steamy. Archer lay\nspread out, with one arm striking across the pillow. He was flushed; and\nwhen the heavy curtain blew out a little he turned and half-opened his\neyes. The wind actually stirred the cloth on the chest of drawers, and\nlet in a little light, so that the sharp edge of the chest of drawers\nwas visible, running straight up, until a white shape bulged out; and a\nsilver streak showed in the looking-glass.\n\nIn the other bed by the door Jacob lay asleep, fast asleep, profoundly\nunconscious. The sheep's jaw with the big yellow teeth in it lay at his\nfeet. He had kicked it against the iron bed-rail.\n\nOutside the rain poured down more directly and powerfully as the wind\nfell in the early hours of the morning. The aster was beaten to the\nearth. The child's bucket was half-full of rainwater; and the\nopal-shelled crab slowly circled round the bottom, trying with its\nweakly legs to climb the steep side; trying again and falling back, and\ntrying again and again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWO\n\n\n\"MRS. FLANDERS\"--\"Poor Betty Flanders\"--\"Dear Betty\"--\"She's very\nattractive still\"--\"Odd she don't marry again!\" \"There's Captain Barfoot\nto be sure--calls every Wednesday as regular as clockwork, and never\nbrings his wife.\"\n\n\"But that's Ellen Barfoot's fault,\" the ladies of Scarborough said. \"She\ndon't put herself out for no one.\"\n\n\"A man likes to have a son--that we know.\"\n\n\"Some tumours have to be cut; but the sort my mother had you bear with\nfor years and years, and never even have a cup of tea brought up to you\nin bed.\"\n\n(Mrs. Barfoot was an invalid.)\n\nElizabeth Flanders, of whom this and much more than this had been said\nand would be said, was, of course, a widow in her prime. She was\nhalf-way between forty and fifty. Years and sorrow between them; the\ndeath of Seabrook, her husband; three boys; poverty; a house on the\noutskirts of Scarborough; her brother, poor Morty's, downfall and\npossible demise--for where was he? what was he? Shading her eyes, she\nlooked along the road for Captain Barfoot--yes, there he was, punctual\nas ever; the attentions of the Captain--all ripened Betty Flanders,\nenlarged her figure, tinged her face with jollity, and flooded her eyes\nfor no reason that any one could see perhaps three times a day.\n\nTrue, there's no harm in crying for one's husband, and the tombstone,\nthough plain, was a solid piece of work, and on summer's days when the\nwidow brought her boys to stand there one felt kindly towards her. Hats\nwere raised higher than usual; wives tugged their husbands' arms.\nSeabrook lay six foot beneath, dead these many years; enclosed in three\nshells; the crevices sealed with lead, so that, had earth and wood been\nglass, doubtless his very face lay visible beneath, the face of a young\nman whiskered, shapely, who had gone out duck-shooting and refused to\nchange his boots.\n\n\"Merchant of this city,\" the tombstone said; though why Betty Flanders\nhad chosen so to call him when, as many still remembered, he had only\nsat behind an office window for three months, and before that had broken\nhorses, ridden to hounds, farmed a few fields, and run a little\nwild--well, she had to call him something. An example for the boys.\n\nHad he, then, been nothing? An unanswerable question, since even if it\nweren't the habit of the undertaker to close the eyes, the light so soon\ngoes out of them. At first, part of herself; now one of a company, he\nhad merged in the grass, the sloping hillside, the thousand white\nstones, some slanting, others upright, the decayed wreaths, the crosses\nof green tin, the narrow yellow paths, and the lilacs that drooped in\nApril, with a scent like that of an invalid's bedroom, over the\nchurchyard wall. Seabrook was now all that; and when, with her skirt\nhitched up, feeding the chickens, she heard the bell for service or\nfuneral, that was Seabrook's voice--the voice of the dead.\n\nThe rooster had been known to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so\nthat now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when\nshe went to feed the fowls.\n\n\"Wouldn't you like my knife, mother?\" said Archer.\n\nSounding at the same moment as the bell, her son's voice mixed life and\ndeath inextricably, exhilaratingly.\n\n\"What a big knife for a small boy!\" she said. She took it to please him.\nThen the rooster flew out of the hen-house, and, shouting to Archer to\nshut the door into the kitchen garden, Mrs. Flanders set her meal down,\nclucked for the hens, went bustling about the orchard, and was seen from\nover the way by Mrs. Cranch, who, beating her mat against the wall, held\nit for a moment suspended while she observed to Mrs. Page next door that\nMrs. Flanders was in the orchard with the chickens.\n\nMrs. Page, Mrs. Cranch, and Mrs. Garfit could see Mrs. Flanders in the\norchard because the orchard was a piece of Dods Hill enclosed; and Dods\nHill dominated the village. No words can exaggerate the importance of\nDods Hill. It was the earth; the world against the sky; the horizon of\nhow many glances can best be computed by those who have lived all their\nlives in the same village, only leaving it once to fight in the Crimea,\nlike old George Garfit, leaning over his garden gate smoking his pipe.\nThe progress of the sun was measured by it; the tint of the day laid\nagainst it to be judged.\n\n\"Now she's going up the hill with little John,\" said Mrs. Cranch to Mrs.\nGarfit, shaking her mat for the last time, and bustling indoors. Opening\nthe orchard gate, Mrs. Flanders walked to the top of Dods Hill, holding\nJohn by the hand. Archer and Jacob ran in front or lagged behind; but\nthey were in the Roman fortress when she came there, and shouting out\nwhat ships were to be seen in the bay. For there was a magnificent view\n--moors behind, sea in front, and the whole of Scarborough from one end\nto the other laid out flat like a puzzle. Mrs. Flanders, who was growing\nstout, sat down in the fortress and looked about her.\n\nThe entire gamut of the view's changes should have been known to her;\nits winter aspect, spring, summer and autumn; how storms came up from\nthe sea; how the moors shuddered and brightened as the clouds went over;\nshe should have noted the red spot where the villas were building; and\nthe criss-cross of lines where the allotments were cut; and the diamond\nflash of little glass houses in the sun. Or, if details like these\nescaped her, she might have let her fancy play upon the gold tint of the\nsea at sunset, and thought how it lapped in coins of gold upon the\nshingle. Little pleasure boats shoved out into it; the black arm of the\npier hoarded it up. The whole city was pink and gold; domed;\nmist-wreathed; resonant; strident. Banjoes strummed; the parade smelt of\ntar which stuck to the heels; goats suddenly cantered their carriages\nthrough crowds. It was observed how well the Corporation had laid out\nthe flower-beds. Sometimes a straw hat was blown away. Tulips burnt in\nthe sun. Numbers of sponge-bag trousers were stretched in rows. Purple\nbonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs.\nTriangular hoardings were wheeled along by men in white coats. Captain\nGeorge Boase had caught a monster shark. One side of the triangular\nhoarding said so in red, blue, and yellow letters; and each line ended\nwith three differently coloured notes of exclamation.\n\nSo that was a reason for going down into the Aquarium, where the sallow\nblinds, the stale smell of spirits of salt, the bamboo chairs, the\ntables with ash-trays, the revolving fish, the attendant knitting behind\nsix or seven chocolate boxes (often she was quite alone with the fish\nfor hours at a time) remained in the mind as part of the monster shark,\nhe himself being only a flabby yellow receptacle, like an empty\nGladstone bag in a tank. No one had ever been cheered by the Aquarium;\nbut the faces of those emerging quickly lost their dim, chilled\nexpression when they perceived that it was only by standing in a queue\nthat one could be admitted to the pier. Once through the turnstiles,\nevery one walked for a yard or two very briskly; some flagged at this\nstall; others at that.\n\nBut it was the band that drew them all to it finally; even the fishermen\non the lower pier taking up their pitch within its range.\n\nThe band played in the Moorish kiosk. Number nine went up on the board.\nIt was a waltz tune. The pale girls, the old widow lady, the three Jews\nlodging in the same boarding-house, the dandy, the major, the\nhorse-dealer, and the gentleman of independent means, all wore the same\nblurred, drugged expression, and through the chinks in the planks at\ntheir feet they could see the green summer waves, peacefully, amiably,\nswaying round the iron pillars of the pier.\n\nBut there was a time when none of this had any existence (thought the\nyoung man leaning against the railings). Fix your eyes upon the lady's\nskirt; the grey one will do--above the pink silk stockings. It changes;\ndrapes her ankles--the nineties; then it amplifies--the seventies; now\nit's burnished red and stretched above a crinoline--the sixties; a tiny\nblack foot wearing a white cotton stocking peeps out. Still sitting\nthere? Yes--she's still on the pier. The silk now is sprigged with\nroses, but somehow one no longer sees so clearly. There's no pier\nbeneath us. The heavy chariot may swing along the turnpike road, but\nthere's no pier for it to stop at, and how grey and turbulent the sea is\nin the seventeenth century! Let's to the museum. Cannon-balls;\narrow-heads; Roman glass and a forceps green with verdigris. The Rev.\nJaspar Floyd dug them up at his own expense early in the forties in the\nRoman camp on Dods Hill--see the little ticket with the faded writing on\nit.\n\nAnd now, what's the next thing to see in Scarborough?\n\nMrs. Flanders sat on the raised circle of the Roman camp, patching\nJacob's breeches; only looking up as she sucked the end of her cotton,\nor when some insect dashed at her, boomed in her ear, and was gone.\n\nJohn kept trotting up and slapping down in her lap grass or dead leaves\nwhich he called \"tea,\" and she arranged them methodically but\nabsent-mindedly, laying the flowery heads of the grasses together,\nthinking how Archer had been awake again last night; the church clock\nwas ten or thirteen minutes fast; she wished she could buy Garfit's\nacre.\n\n\"That's an orchid leaf, Johnny. Look at the little brown spots. Come, my\ndear. We must go home. Ar-cher! Ja-cob!\"\n\n\"Ar-cher! Ja-cob!\" Johnny piped after her, pivoting round on his heel,\nand strewing the grass and leaves in his hands as if he were sowing\nseed. Archer and Jacob jumped up from behind the mound where they had\nbeen crouching with the intention of springing upon their mother\nunexpectedly, and they all began to walk slowly home.\n\n\"Who is that?\" said Mrs. Flanders, shading her eyes.\n\n\"That old man in the road?\" said Archer, looking below.\n\n\"He's not an old man,\" said Mrs. Flanders. \"He's--no, he's not--I\nthought it was the Captain, but it's Mr. Floyd. Come along, boys.\"\n\n\"Oh, bother Mr. Floyd!\" said Jacob, switching off a thistle's head, for\nhe knew already that Mr. Floyd was going to teach them Latin, as indeed\nhe did for three years in his spare time, out of kindness, for there was\nno other gentleman in the neighbourhood whom Mrs. Flanders could have\nasked to do such a thing, and the elder boys were getting beyond her,\nand must be got ready for school, and it was more than most clergymen\nwould have done, coming round after tea, or having them in his own room\n--as he could fit it in--for the parish was a very large one, and Mr.\nFloyd, like his father before him, visited cottages miles away on the\nmoors, and, like old Mr. Floyd, was a great scholar, which made it so\nunlikely--she had never dreamt of such a thing. Ought she to have\nguessed? But let alone being a scholar he was eight years younger than\nshe was. She knew his mother--old Mrs. Floyd. She had tea there. And it\nwas that very evening when she came back from having tea with old Mrs.\nFloyd that she found the note in the hall and took it into the kitchen\nwith her when she went to give Rebecca the fish, thinking it must be\nsomething about the boys.\n\n\"Mr. Floyd brought it himself, did he?--I think the cheese must be in\nthe parcel in the hall--oh, in the hall--\" for she was reading. No, it\nwas not about the boys.\n\n\"Yes, enough for fish-cakes to-morrow certainly--Perhaps Captain\nBarfoot--\" she had come to the word \"love.\" She went into the garden and\nread, leaning against the walnut tree to steady herself. Up and down\nwent her breast. Seabrook came so vividly before her. She shook her head\nand was looking through her tears at the little shifting leaves against\nthe yellow sky when three geese, half-running, half-flying, scuttled\nacross the lawn with Johnny behind them, brandishing a stick.\n\nMrs. Flanders flushed with anger.\n\n\"How many times have I told you?\" she cried, and seized him and snatched\nhis stick away from him.\n\n\"But they'd escaped!\" he cried, struggling to get free.\n\n\"You're a very naughty boy. If I've told you once, I've told you a\nthousand times. I won't have you chasing the geese!\" she said, and\ncrumpling Mr. Floyd's letter in her hand, she held Johnny fast and\nherded the geese back into the orchard.\n\n\"How could I think of marriage!\" she said to herself bitterly, as she\nfastened the gate with a piece of wire. She had always disliked red hair\nin men, she thought, thinking of Mr. Floyd's appearance, that night when\nthe boys had gone to bed. And pushing her work-box away, she drew the\nblotting-paper towards her, and read Mr. Floyd's letter again, and her\nbreast went up and down when she came to the word \"love,\" but not so\nfast this time, for she saw Johnny chasing the geese, and knew that it\nwas impossible for her to marry any one--let alone Mr. Floyd, who was so\nmuch younger than she was, but what a nice man--and such a scholar too.\n\n\"Dear Mr. Floyd,\" she wrote.--\"Did I forget about the cheese?\" she\nwondered, laying down her pen. No, she had told Rebecca that the cheese\nwas in the hall. \"I am much surprised...\" she wrote.\n\nBut the letter which Mr. Floyd found on the table when he got up early\nnext morning did not begin \"I am much surprised,\" and it was such a\nmotherly, respectful, inconsequent, regretful letter that he kept it for\nmany years; long after his marriage with Miss Wimbush, of Andover; long\nafter he had left the village. For he asked for a parish in Sheffield,\nwhich was given him; and, sending for Archer, Jacob, and John to say\ngood-bye, he told them to choose whatever they liked in his study to\nremember him by. Archer chose a paper-knife, because he did not like to\nchoose anything too good; Jacob chose the works of Byron in one volume;\nJohn, who was still too young to make a proper choice, chose Mr. Floyd's\nkitten, which his brothers thought an absurd choice, but Mr. Floyd\nupheld him when he said: \"It has fur like you.\" Then Mr. Floyd spoke\nabout the King's Navy (to which Archer was going); and about Rugby (to\nwhich Jacob was going); and next day he received a silver salver and\nwent--first to Sheffield, where he met Miss Wimbush, who was on a visit\nto her uncle, then to Hackney--then to Maresfield House, of which he\nbecame the principal, and finally, becoming editor of a well-known\nseries of Ecclesiastical Biographies, he retired to Hampstead with his\nwife and daughter, and is often to be seen feeding the ducks on Leg of\nMutton Pond. As for Mrs. Flanders's letter--when he looked for it the\nother day he could not find it, and did not like to ask his wife whether\nshe had put it away. Meeting Jacob in Piccadilly lately, he recognized\nhim after three seconds. But Jacob had grown such a fine young man that\nMr. Floyd did not like to stop him in the street.\n\n\"Dear me,\" said Mrs. Flanders, when she read in the Scarborough and\nHarrogate Courier that the Rev. Andrew Floyd, etc., etc., had been made\nPrincipal of Maresfield House, \"that must be our Mr. Floyd.\"\n\nA slight gloom fell upon the table. Jacob was helping himself to jam;\nthe postman was talking to Rebecca in the kitchen; there was a bee\nhumming at the yellow flower which nodded at the open window. They were\nall alive, that is to say, while poor Mr. Floyd was becoming Principal\nof Maresfield House.\n\nMrs. Flanders got up and went over to the fender and stroked Topaz on\nthe neck behind the ears.\n\n\"Poor Topaz,\" she said (for Mr. Floyd's kitten was now a very old cat, a\nlittle mangy behind the ears, and one of these days would have to be\nkilled).\n\n\"Poor old Topaz,\" said Mrs. Flanders, as he stretched himself out in the\nsun, and she smiled, thinking how she had had him gelded, and how she\ndid not like red hair in men. Smiling, she went into the kitchen.\n\nJacob drew rather a dirty pocket-handkerchief across his face. He went\nupstairs to his room.\n\nThe stag-beetle dies slowly (it was John who collected the beetles).\nEven on the second day its legs were supple. But the butterflies were\ndead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows\nwhich came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to\nthe moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter in\na broiling sun. A fritillary basked on a white stone in the Roman camp.\nFrom the valley came the sound of church bells. They were all eating\nroast beef in Scarborough; for it was Sunday when Jacob caught the pale\nclouded yellows in the clover field, eight miles from home.\n\nRebecca had caught the death's-head moth in the kitchen.\n\nA strong smell of camphor came from the butterfly boxes.\n\nMixed with the smell of camphor was the unmistakable smell of seaweed.\nTawny ribbons hung on the door. The sun beat straight upon them.\n\nThe upper wings of the moth which Jacob held were undoubtedly marked\nwith kidney-shaped spots of a fulvous hue. But there was no crescent\nupon the underwing. The tree had fallen the night he caught it. There\nhad been a volley of pistol-shots suddenly in the depths of the wood.\nAnd his mother had taken him for a burglar when he came home late. The\nonly one of her sons who never obeyed her, she said.\n\nMorris called it \"an extremely local insect found in damp or marshy\nplaces.\" But Morris is sometimes wrong. Sometimes Jacob, choosing a very\nfine pen, made a correction in the margin.\n\nThe tree had fallen, though it was a windless night, and the lantern,\nstood upon the ground, had lit up the still green leaves and the dead\nbeech leaves. It was a dry place. A toad was there. And the red\nunderwing had circled round the light and flashed and gone. The red\nunderwing had never come back, though Jacob had waited. It was after\ntwelve when he crossed the lawn and saw his mother in the bright room,\nplaying patience, sitting up.\n\n\"How you frightened me!\" she had cried. She thought something dreadful\nhad happened. And he woke Rebecca, who had to be up so early.\n\nThere he stood pale, come out of the depths of darkness, in the hot\nroom, blinking at the light.\n\nNo, it could not be a straw-bordered underwing.\n\nThe mowing-machine always wanted oiling. Barnet turned it under Jacob's\nwindow, and it creaked--creaked, and rattled across the lawn and creaked\nagain.\n\nNow it was clouding over.\n\nBack came the sun, dazzlingly.\n\nIt fell like an eye upon the stirrups, and then suddenly and yet very\ngently rested upon the bed, upon the alarum clock, and upon the\nbutterfly box stood open. The pale clouded yellows had pelted over the\nmoor; they had zigzagged across the purple clover. The fritillaries\nflaunted along the hedgerows. The blues settled on little bones lying on\nthe turf with the sun beating on them, and the painted ladies and the\npeacocks feasted upon bloody entrails dropped by a hawk. Miles away from\nhome, in a hollow among teasles beneath a ruin, he had found the commas.\nHe had seen a white admiral circling higher and higher round an oak\ntree, but he had never caught it. An old cottage woman living alone,\nhigh up, had told him of a purple butterfly which came every summer to\nher garden. The fox cubs played in the gorse in the early morning, she\ntold him. And if you looked out at dawn you could always see two\nbadgers. Sometimes they knocked each other over like two boys fighting,\nshe said.\n\n\"You won't go far this afternoon, Jacob,\" said his mother, popping her\nhead in at the door, \"for the Captain's coming to say good-bye.\" It was\nthe last day of the Easter holidays.\n\nWednesday was Captain Barfoot's day. He dressed himself very neatly in\nblue serge, took his rubber-shod stick--for he was lame and wanted two\nfingers on the left hand, having served his country--and set out from\nthe house with the flagstaff precisely at four o'clock in the afternoon.\n\nAt three Mr. Dickens, the bath-chair man, had called for Mrs. Barfoot.\n\n\"Move me,\" she would say to Mr. Dickens, after sitting on the esplanade\nfor fifteen minutes. And again, \"That'll do, thank you, Mr. Dickens.\" At\nthe first command he would seek the sun; at the second he would stay the\nchair there in the bright strip.\n\nAn old inhabitant himself, he had much in common with Mrs.\nBarfoot--James Coppard's daughter. The drinking-fountain, where West\nStreet joins Broad Street, is the gift of James Coppard, who was mayor\nat the time of Queen Victoria's jubilee, and Coppard is painted upon\nmunicipal watering-carts and over shop windows, and upon the zinc blinds\nof solicitors' consulting-room windows. But Ellen Barfoot never visited\nthe Aquarium (though she had known Captain Boase who had caught the\nshark quite well), and when the men came by with the posters she eyed\nthem superciliously, for she knew that she would never see the Pierrots,\nor the brothers Zeno, or Daisy Budd and her troupe of performing seals.\nFor Ellen Barfoot in her bath-chair on the esplanade was a\nprisoner--civilization's prisoner--all the bars of her cage falling\nacross the esplanade on sunny days when the town hall, the drapery\nstores, the swimming-bath, and the memorial hall striped the ground with\nshadow.\n\nAn old inhabitant himself, Mr. Dickens would stand a little behind her,\nsmoking his pipe. She would ask him questions--who people were--who now\nkept Mr. Jones's shop--then about the season--and had Mrs. Dickens\ntried, whatever it might be--the words issuing from her lips like crumbs\nof dry biscuit.\n\nShe closed her eyes. Mr. Dickens took a turn. The feelings of a man had\nnot altogether deserted him, though as you saw him coming towards you,\nyou noticed how one knobbed black boot swung tremulously in front of the\nother; how there was a shadow between his waistcoat and his trousers;\nhow he leant forward unsteadily, like an old horse who finds himself\nsuddenly out of the shafts drawing no cart. But as Mr. Dickens sucked in\nthe smoke and puffed it out again, the feelings of a man were\nperceptible in his eyes. He was thinking how Captain Barfoot was now on\nhis way to Mount Pleasant; Captain Barfoot, his master. For at home in\nthe little sitting-room above the mews, with the canary in the window,\nand the girls at the sewing-machine, and Mrs. Dickens huddled up with\nthe rheumatics--at home where he was made little of, the thought of\nbeing in the employ of Captain Barfoot supported him. He liked to think\nthat while he chatted with Mrs. Barfoot on the front, he helped the\nCaptain on his way to Mrs. Flanders. He, a man, was in charge of Mrs.\nBarfoot, a woman.\n\nTurning, he saw that she was chatting with Mrs. Rogers. Turning again,\nhe saw that Mrs. Rogers had moved on. So he came back to the bath-chair,\nand Mrs. Barfoot asked him the time, and he took out his great silver\nwatch and told her the time very obligingly, as if he knew a great deal\nmore about the time and everything than she did. But Mrs. Barfoot knew\nthat Captain Barfoot was on his way to Mrs. Flanders.\n\nIndeed he was well on his way there, having left the tram, and seeing\nDods Hill to the south-east, green against a blue sky that was suffused\nwith dust colour on the horizon. He was marching up the hill. In spite\nof his lameness there was something military in his approach. Mrs.\nJarvis, as she came out of the Rectory gate, saw him coming, and her\nNewfoundland dog, Nero, slowly swept his tail from side to side.\n\n\"Oh, Captain Barfoot!\" Mrs. Jarvis exclaimed.\n\n\"Good-day, Mrs. Jarvis,\" said the Captain.\n\nThey walked on together, and when they reached Mrs. Flanders's gate\nCaptain Barfoot took off his tweed cap, and said, bowing very\ncourteously:\n\n\"Good-day to you, Mrs. Jarvis.\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Jarvis walked on alone.\n\nShe was going to walk on the moor. Had she again been pacing her lawn\nlate at night? Had she again tapped on the study window and cried: \"Look\nat the moon, look at the moon, Herbert!\"\n\nAnd Herbert looked at the moon.\n\nMrs. Jarvis walked on the moor when she was unhappy, going as far as a\ncertain saucer-shaped hollow, though she always meant to go to a more\ndistant ridge; and there she sat down, and took out the little book\nhidden beneath her cloak and read a few lines of poetry, and looked\nabout her. She was not very unhappy, and, seeing that she was\nforty-five, never perhaps would be very unhappy, desperately unhappy\nthat is, and leave her husband, and ruin a good man's career, as she\nsometimes threatened.\n\nStill there is no need to say what risks a clergyman's wife runs when\nshe walks on the moor. Short, dark, with kindling eyes, a pheasant's\nfeather in her hat, Mrs. Jarvis was just the sort of woman to lose her\nfaith upon the moors--to confound her God with the universal that\nis--but she did not lose her faith, did not leave her husband, never\nread her poem through, and went on walking the moors, looking at the\nmoon behind the elm trees, and feeling as she sat on the grass high\nabove Scarborough... Yes, yes, when the lark soars; when the sheep,\nmoving a step or two onwards, crop the turf, and at the same time set\ntheir bells tinkling; when the breeze first blows, then dies down,\nleaving the cheek kissed; when the ships on the sea below seem to cross\neach other and pass on as if drawn by an invisible hand; when there are\ndistant concussions in the air and phantom horsemen galloping, ceasing;\nwhen the horizon swims blue, green, emotional--then Mrs. Jarvis, heaving\na sigh, thinks to herself, \"If only some one could give me... if I could\ngive some one....\" But she does not know what she wants to give, nor who\ncould give it her.\n\n\"Mrs. Flanders stepped out only five minutes ago, Captain,\" said\nRebecca. Captain Barfoot sat him down in the arm-chair to wait. Resting\nhis elbows on the arms, putting one hand over the other, sticking his\nlame leg straight out, and placing the stick with the rubber ferrule\nbeside it, he sat perfectly still. There was something rigid about him.\nDid he think? Probably the same thoughts again and again. But were they\n\"nice\" thoughts, interesting thoughts? He was a man with a temper;\ntenacious, faithful. Women would have felt, \"Here is law. Here is order.\nTherefore we must cherish this man. He is on the Bridge at night,\" and,\nhanding him his cup, or whatever it might be, would run on to visions of\nshipwreck and disaster, in which all the passengers come tumbling from\ntheir cabins, and there is the captain, buttoned in his pea-jacket,\nmatched with the storm, vanquished by it but by none other. \"Yet I have\na soul,\" Mrs. Jarvis would bethink her, as Captain Barfoot suddenly blew\nhis nose in a great red bandanna handkerchief, \"and it's the man's\nstupidity that's the cause of this, and the storm's my storm as well as\nhis\"... so Mrs. Jarvis would bethink her when the Captain dropped in to\nsee them and found Herbert out, and spent two or three hours, almost\nsilent, sitting in the arm-chair. But Betty Flanders thought nothing of\nthe kind.\n\n\"Oh, Captain,\" said Mrs. Flanders, bursting into the drawing-room, \"I\nhad to run after Barker's man... I hope Rebecca... I hope Jacob...\"\n\nShe was very much out of breath, yet not at all upset, and as she put\ndown the hearth-brush which she had bought of the oil-man, she said it\nwas hot, flung the window further open, straightened a cover, picked up\na book, as if she were very confident, very fond of the Captain, and a\ngreat many years younger than he was. Indeed, in her blue apron she did\nnot look more than thirty-five. He was well over fifty.\n\nShe moved her hands about the table; the Captain moved his head from\nside to side, and made little sounds, as Betty went on chattering,\ncompletely at his ease--after twenty years.\n\n\"Well,\" he said at length, \"I've heard from Mr. Polegate.\"\n\nHe had heard from Mr. Polegate that he could advise nothing better than\nto send a boy to one of the universities.\n\n\"Mr. Floyd was at Cambridge... no, at Oxford... well, at one or the\nother,\" said Mrs. Flanders.\n\nShe looked out of the window. Little windows, and the lilac and green of\nthe garden were reflected in her eyes.\n\n\"Archer is doing very well,\" she said. \"I have a very nice report from\nCaptain Maxwell.\"\n\n\"I will leave you the letter to show Jacob,\" said the Captain, putting\nit clumsily back in its envelope.\n\n\"Jacob is after his butterflies as usual,\" said Mrs. Flanders irritably,\nbut was surprised by a sudden afterthought, \"Cricket begins this week,\nof course.\"\n\n\"Edward Jenkinson has handed in his resignation,\" said Captain Barfoot.\n\n\"Then you will stand for the Council?\" Mrs. Flanders exclaimed, looking\nthe Captain full in the face.\n\n\"Well, about that,\" Captain Barfoot began, settling himself rather\ndeeper in his chair.\n\nJacob Flanders, therefore, went up to Cambridge in October, 1906.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THREE\n\n\n\"This is not a smoking-carriage,\" Mrs. Norman protested, nervously but\nvery feebly, as the door swung open and a powerfully built young man\njumped in. He seemed not to hear her. The train did not stop before it\nreached Cambridge, and here she was shut up alone, in a railway\ncarriage, with a young man.\n\nShe touched the spring of her dressing-case, and ascertained that the\nscent-bottle and a novel from Mudie's were both handy (the young man was\nstanding up with his back to her, putting his bag in the rack). She\nwould throw the scent-bottle with her right hand, she decided, and tug\nthe communication cord with her left. She was fifty years of age, and\nhad a son at college. Nevertheless, it is a fact that men are dangerous.\nShe read half a column of her newspaper; then stealthily looked over the\nedge to decide the question of safety by the infallible test of\nappearance.... She would like to offer him her paper. But do young men\nread the Morning Post? She looked to see what he was reading--the Daily\nTelegraph.\n\nTaking note of socks (loose), of tie (shabby), she once more reached his\nface. She dwelt upon his mouth. The lips were shut. The eyes bent down,\nsince he was reading. All was firm, yet youthful, indifferent,\nunconscious--as for knocking one down! No, no, no! She looked out of the\nwindow, smiling slightly now, and then came back again, for he didn't\nnotice her. Grave, unconscious... now he looked up, past her... he\nseemed so out of place, somehow, alone with an elderly lady... then he\nfixed his eyes--which were blue--on the landscape. He had not realized\nher presence, she thought. Yet it was none of HER fault that this was\nnot a smoking-carriage--if that was what he meant.\n\nNobody sees any one as he is, let alone an elderly lady sitting opposite\na strange young man in a railway carriage. They see a whole--they see\nall sorts of things--they see themselves.... Mrs. Norman now read three\npages of one of Mr. Norris's novels. Should she say to the young man\n(and after all he was just the same age as her own boy): \"If you want to\nsmoke, don't mind me\"? No: he seemed absolutely indifferent to her\npresence... she did not wish to interrupt.\n\nBut since, even at her age, she noted his indifference, presumably he\nwas in some way or other--to her at least--nice, handsome, interesting,\ndistinguished, well built, like her own boy? One must do the best one\ncan with her report. Anyhow, this was Jacob Flanders, aged nineteen. It\nis no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly\nwhat is said, nor yet entirely what is done--for instance, when the\ntrain drew into the station, Mr. Flanders burst open the door, and put\nthe lady's dressing-case out for her, saying, or rather mumbling: \"Let\nme\" very shyly; indeed he was rather clumsy about it.\n\n\"Who...\" said the lady, meeting her son; but as there was a great crowd\non the platform and Jacob had already gone, she did not finish her\nsentence. As this was Cambridge, as she was staying there for the\nweek-end, as she saw nothing but young men all day long, in streets and\nround tables, this sight of her fellow-traveller was completely lost in\nher mind, as the crooked pin dropped by a child into the wishing-well\ntwirls in the water and disappears for ever.\n\nThey say the sky is the same everywhere. Travellers, the shipwrecked,\nexiles, and the dying draw comfort from the thought, and no doubt if you\nare of a mystical tendency, consolation, and even explanation, shower\ndown from the unbroken surface. But above Cambridge--anyhow above the\nroof of King's College Chapel--there is a difference. Out at sea a great\ncity will cast a brightness into the night. Is it fanciful to suppose\nthe sky, washed into the crevices of King's College Chapel, lighter,\nthinner, more sparkling than the sky elsewhere? Does Cambridge burn not\nonly into the night, but into the day?\n\nLook, as they pass into service, how airily the gowns blow out, as\nthough nothing dense and corporeal were within. What sculptured faces,\nwhat certainty, authority controlled by piety, although great boots\nmarch under the gowns. In what orderly procession they advance. Thick\nwax candles stand upright; young men rise in white gowns; while the\nsubservient eagle bears up for inspection the great white book.\n\nAn inclined plane of light comes accurately through each window, purple\nand yellow even in its most diffused dust, while, where it breaks upon\nstone, that stone is softly chalked red, yellow, and purple. Neither\nsnow nor greenery, winter nor summer, has power over the old stained\nglass. As the sides of a lantern protect the flame so that it burns\nsteady even in the wildest night--burns steady and gravely illumines the\ntree-trunks--so inside the Chapel all was orderly. Gravely sounded the\nvoices; wisely the organ replied, as if buttressing human faith with the\nassent of the elements. The white-robed figures crossed from side to\nside; now mounted steps, now descended, all very orderly.\n\n... If you stand a lantern under a tree every insect in the forest\ncreeps up to it--a curious assembly, since though they scramble and\nswing and knock their heads against the glass, they seem to have no\npurpose--something senseless inspires them. One gets tired of watching\nthem, as they amble round the lantern and blindly tap as if for\nadmittance, one large toad being the most besotted of any and\nshouldering his way through the rest. Ah, but what's that? A terrifying\nvolley of pistol-shots rings out--cracks sharply; ripples\nspread--silence laps smooth over sound. A tree--a tree has fallen, a\nsort of death in the forest. After that, the wind in the trees sounds\nmelancholy.\n\nBut this service in King's College Chapel--why allow women to take part\nin it? Surely, if the mind wanders (and Jacob looked extraordinarily\nvacant, his head thrown back, his hymn-book open at the wrong place), if\nthe mind wanders it is because several hat shops and cupboards upon\ncupboards of coloured dresses are displayed upon rush-bottomed chairs.\nThough heads and bodies may be devout enough, one has a sense of\nindividuals--some like blue, others brown; some feathers, others pansies\nand forget-me-nots. No one would think of bringing a dog into church.\nFor though a dog is all very well on a gravel path, and shows no\ndisrespect to flowers, the way he wanders down an aisle, looking,\nlifting a paw, and approaching a pillar with a purpose that makes the\nblood run cold with horror (should you be one of a congregation--alone,\nshyness is out of the question), a dog destroys the service completely.\nSo do these women--though separately devout, distinguished, and vouched\nfor by the theology, mathematics, Latin, and Greek of their husbands.\nHeaven knows why it is. For one thing, thought Jacob, they're as ugly as\nsin.\n\nNow there was a scraping and murmuring. He caught Timmy Durrant's eye;\nlooked very sternly at him; and then, very solemnly, winked.\n\n\"Waverley,\" the villa on the road to Girton was called, not that Mr.\nPlumer admired Scott or would have chosen any name at all, but names are\nuseful when you have to entertain undergraduates, and as they sat\nwaiting for the fourth undergraduate, on Sunday at lunch-time, there was\ntalk of names upon gates.\n\n\"How tiresome,\" Mrs. Plumer interrupted impulsively. \"Does anybody know\nMr. Flanders?\"\n\nMr. Durrant knew him; and therefore blushed slightly, and said,\nawkwardly, something about being sure--looking at Mr. Plumer and\nhitching the right leg of his trouser as he spoke. Mr. Plumer got up and\nstood in front of the fireplace. Mrs. Plumer laughed like a\nstraightforward friendly fellow. In short, anything more horrible than\nthe scene, the setting, the prospect, even the May garden being\nafflicted with chill sterility and a cloud choosing that moment to cross\nthe sun, cannot be imagined. There was the garden, of course. Every one\nat the same moment looked at it. Owing to the cloud, the leaves ruffled\ngrey, and the sparrows--there were two sparrows.\n\n\"I think,\" said Mrs. Plumer, taking advantage of the momentary respite,\nwhile the young men stared at the garden, to look at her husband, and\nhe, not accepting full responsibility for the act, nevertheless touched\nthe bell.\n\nThere can be no excuse for this outrage upon one hour of human life,\nsave the reflection which occurred to Mr. Plumer as he carved the\nmutton, that if no don ever gave a luncheon party, if Sunday after\nSunday passed, if men went down, became lawyers, doctors, members of\nParliament, business men--if no don ever gave a luncheon party--\n\n\"Now, does lamb make the mint sauce, or mint sauce make the lamb?\" he\nasked the young man next him, to break a silence which had already\nlasted five minutes and a half.\n\n\"I don't know, sir,\" said the young man, blushing very vividly.\n\nAt this moment in came Mr. Flanders. He had mistaken the time.\n\nNow, though they had finished their meat, Mrs. Plumer took a second\nhelping of cabbage. Jacob determined, of course, that he would eat his\nmeat in the time it took her to finish her cabbage, looking once or\ntwice to measure his speed--only he was infernally hungry. Seeing this,\nMrs. Plumer said that she was sure Mr. Flanders would not mind--and the\ntart was brought in. Nodding in a peculiar way, she directed the maid to\ngive Mr. Flanders a second helping of mutton. She glanced at the mutton.\nNot much of the leg would be left for luncheon.\n\nIt was none of her fault--since how could she control her father\nbegetting her forty years ago in the suburbs of Manchester? and once\nbegotten, how could she do other than grow up cheese-paring, ambitious,\nwith an instinctively accurate notion of the rungs of the ladder and an\nant-like assiduity in pushing George Plumer ahead of her to the top of\nthe ladder? What was at the top of the ladder? A sense that all the\nrungs were beneath one apparently; since by the time that George Plumer\nbecame Professor of Physics, or whatever it might be, Mrs. Plumer could\nonly be in a condition to cling tight to her eminence, peer down at the\nground, and goad her two plain daughters to climb the rungs of the\nladder.\n\n\"I was down at the races yesterday,\" she said, \"with my two little\ngirls.\"\n\nIt was none of THEIR fault either. In they came to the drawing-room, in\nwhite frocks and blue sashes. They handed the cigarettes. Rhoda had\ninherited her father's cold grey eyes. Cold grey eyes George Plumer had,\nbut in them was an abstract light. He could talk about Persia and the\nTrade winds, the Reform Bill and the cycle of the harvests. Books were\non his shelves by Wells and Shaw; on the table serious six-penny\nweeklies written by pale men in muddy boots--the weekly creak and\nscreech of brains rinsed in cold water and wrung dry--melancholy papers.\n\n\"I don't feel that I know the truth about anything till I've read them\nboth!\" said Mrs. Plumer brightly, tapping the table of contents with her\nbare red hand, upon which the ring looked so incongruous.\n\n\"Oh God, oh God, oh God!\" exclaimed Jacob, as the four undergraduates\nleft the house. \"Oh, my God!\"\n\n\"Bloody beastly!\" he said, scanning the street for lilac or\nbicycle--anything to restore his sense of freedom.\n\n\"Bloody beastly,\" he said to Timmy Durrant, summing up his discomfort at\nthe world shown him at lunch-time, a world capable of existing--there\nwas no doubt about that--but so unnecessary, such a thing to believe\nin--Shaw and Wells and the serious sixpenny weeklies! What were they\nafter, scrubbing and demolishing, these elderly people? Had they never\nread Homer, Shakespeare, the Elizabethans? He saw it clearly outlined\nagainst the feelings he drew from youth and natural inclination. The\npoor devils had rigged up this meagre object. Yet something of pity was\nin him. Those wretched little girls--\n\nThe extent to which he was disturbed proves that he was already agog.\nInsolent he was and inexperienced, but sure enough the cities which the\nelderly of the race have built upon the skyline showed like brick\nsuburbs, barracks, and places of discipline against a red and yellow\nflame. He was impressionable; but the word is contradicted by the\ncomposure with which he hollowed his hand to screen a match. He was a\nyoung man of substance.\n\nAnyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as\na shock about the age of twenty--the world of the elderly--thrown up in\nsuch black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and\nByron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth\nin it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so\nintolerably disagreeable--\"I am what I am, and intend to be it,\" for\nwhich there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for\nhimself. The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it. Wells and\nShaw and the serious sixpenny weeklies will sit on its head. Every time\nhe lunches out on Sunday--at dinner parties and tea parties--there will\nbe this same shock--horror--discomfort--then pleasure, for he draws into\nhim at every step as he walks by the river such steady certainty, such\nreassurance from all sides, the trees bowing, the grey spires soft in\nthe blue, voices blowing and seeming suspended in the air, the springy\nair of May, the elastic air with its particles--chestnut bloom, pollen,\nwhatever it is that gives the May air its potency, blurring the trees,\ngumming the buds, daubing the green. And the river too runs past, not at\nflood, nor swiftly, but cloying the oar that dips in it and drops white\ndrops from the blade, swimming green and deep over the bowed rushes, as\nif lavishly caressing them.\n\nWhere they moored their boat the trees showered down, so that their\ntopmost leaves trailed in the ripples and the green wedge that lay in\nthe water being made of leaves shifted in leaf-breadths as the real\nleaves shifted. Now there was a shiver of wind--instantly an edge of\nsky; and as Durrant ate cherries he dropped the stunted yellow cherries\nthrough the green wedge of leaves, their stalks twinkling as they\nwriggled in and out, and sometimes one half-bitten cherry would go down\nred into the green. The meadow was on a level with Jacob's eyes as he\nlay back; gilt with buttercups, but the grass did not run like the thin\ngreen water of the graveyard grass about to overflow the tombstones, but\nstood juicy and thick. Looking up, backwards, he saw the legs of\nchildren deep in the grass, and the legs of cows. Munch, munch, he\nheard; then a short step through the grass; then again munch, munch,\nmunch, as they tore the grass short at the roots. In front of him two\nwhite butterflies circled higher and higher round the elm tree.\n\n\"Jacob's off,\" thought Durrant looking up from his novel. He kept\nreading a few pages and then looking up in a curiously methodical\nmanner, and each time he looked up he took a few cherries out of the bag\nand ate them abstractedly. Other boats passed them, crossing the\nbackwater from side to side to avoid each other, for many were now\nmoored, and there were now white dresses and a flaw in the column of air\nbetween two trees, round which curled a thread of blue--Lady Miller's\npicnic party. Still more boats kept coming, and Durrant, without getting\nup, shoved their boat closer to the bank.\n\n\"Oh-h-h-h,\" groaned Jacob, as the boat rocked, and the trees rocked, and\nthe white dresses and the white flannel trousers drew out long and\nwavering up the bank.\n\n\"Oh-h-h-h!\" He sat up, and felt as if a piece of elastic had snapped in\nhis face.\n\n\"They're friends of my mother's,\" said Durrant. \"So old Bow took no end\nof trouble about the boat.\"\n\nAnd this boat had gone from Falmouth to St. Ives Bay, all round the\ncoast. A larger boat, a ten-ton yacht, about the twentieth of June,\nproperly fitted out, Durrant said...\n\n\"There's the cash difficulty,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"My people'll see to that,\" said Durrant (the son of a banker,\ndeceased).\n\n\"I intend to preserve my economic independence,\" said Jacob stiffly. (He\nwas getting excited.)\n\n\"My mother said something about going to Harrogate,\" he said with a\nlittle annoyance, feeling the pocket where he kept his letters.\n\n\"Was that true about your uncle becoming a Mohammedan?\" asked Timmy\nDurrant.\n\nJacob had told the story of his Uncle Morty in Durrant's room the night\nbefore.\n\n\"I expect he's feeding the sharks, if the truth were known,\" said Jacob.\n\"I say, Durrant, there's none left!\" he exclaimed, crumpling the bag\nwhich had held the cherries, and throwing it into the river. He saw Lady\nMiller's picnic party on the island as he threw the bag into the river.\n\nA sort of awkwardness, grumpiness, gloom came into his eyes.\n\n\"Shall we move on... this beastly crowd...\" he said.\n\nSo up they went, past the island.\n\nThe feathery white moon never let the sky grow dark; all night the\nchestnut blossoms were white in the green; dim was the cow-parsley in\nthe meadows.\n\nThe waiters at Trinity must have been shuffling china plates like cards,\nfrom the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court. Jacob's rooms,\nhowever, were in Neville's Court; at the top; so that reaching his door\none went in a little out of breath; but he wasn't there. Dining in Hall,\npresumably. It will be quite dark in Neville's Court long before\nmidnight, only the pillars opposite will always be white, and the\nfountains. A curious effect the gate has, like lace upon pale green.\nEven in the window you hear the plates; a hum of talk, too, from the\ndiners; the Hall lit up, and the swing-doors opening and shutting with a\nsoft thud. Some are late.\n\nJacob's room had a round table and two low chairs. There were yellow\nflags in a jar on the mantelpiece; a photograph of his mother; cards\nfrom societies with little raised crescents, coats of arms, and\ninitials; notes and pipes; on the table lay paper ruled with a red\nmargin--an essay, no doubt--\"Does History consist of the Biographies of\nGreat Men?\" There were books enough; very few French books; but then any\none who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes\nhim, with extravagant enthusiasm. Lives of the Duke of Wellington, for\nexample; Spinoza; the works of Dickens; the Faery Queen; a Greek\ndictionary with the petals of poppies pressed to silk between the pages;\nall the Elizabethans. His slippers were incredibly shabby, like boats\nburnt to the water's rim. Then there were photographs from the Greeks,\nand a mezzotint from Sir Joshua--all very English. The works of Jane\nAusten, too, in deference, perhaps, to some one else's standard. Carlyle\nwas a prize. There were books upon the Italian painters of the\nRenaissance, a Manual of the Diseases of the Horse, and all the usual\ntext-books. Listless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the\ncurtain; the flowers in the jar shift. One fibre in the wicker arm-chair\ncreaks, though no one sits there.\n\nComing down the steps a little sideways [Jacob sat on the window-seat\ntalking to Durrant; he smoked, and Durrant looked at the map], the old\nman, with his hands locked behind him, his gown floating black, lurched,\nunsteadily, near the wall; then, upstairs he went into his room. Then\nanother, who raised his hand and praised the columns, the gate, the sky;\nanother, tripping and smug. Each went up a staircase; three lights were\nlit in the dark windows.\n\nIf any light burns above Cambridge, it must be from three such rooms;\nGreek burns here; science there; philosophy on the ground floor. Poor\nold Huxtable can't walk straight;--Sopwith, too, has praised the sky any\nnight these twenty years; and Cowan still chuckles at the same stories.\nIt is not simple, or pure, or wholly splendid, the lamp of learning,\nsince if you see them there under its light (whether Rossetti's on the\nwall, or Van Gogh reproduced, whether there are lilacs in the bowl or\nrusty pipes), how priestly they look! How like a suburb where you go to\nsee a view and eat a special cake! \"We are the sole purveyors of this\ncake.\" Back you go to London; for the treat is over.\n\nOld Professor Huxtable, performing with the method of a clock his change\nof dress, let himself down into his chair; filled his pipe; chose his\npaper; crossed his feet; and extracted his glasses. The whole flesh of\nhis face then fell into folds as if props were removed. Yet strip a\nwhole seat of an underground railway carriage of its heads and old\nHuxtable's head will hold them all. Now, as his eye goes down the print,\nwhat a procession tramps through the corridors of his brain, orderly,\nquick-stepping, and reinforced, as the march goes on, by fresh runnels,\ntill the whole hall, dome, whatever one calls it, is populous with\nideas. Such a muster takes place in no other brain. Yet sometimes there\nhe'll sit for hours together, gripping the arm of the chair, like a man\nholding fast because stranded, and then, just because his corn twinges,\nor it may be the gout, what execrations, and, dear me, to hear him talk\nof money, taking out his leather purse and grudging even the smallest\nsilver coin, secretive and suspicious as an old peasant woman with all\nher lies. Strange paralysis and constriction--marvellous illumination.\nSerene over it all rides the great full brow, and sometimes asleep or in\nthe quiet spaces of the night you might fancy that on a pillow of stone\nhe lay triumphant.\n\nSopwith, meanwhile, advancing with a curious trip from the fire-place,\ncut the chocolate cake into segments. Until midnight or later there\nwould be undergraduates in his room, sometimes as many as twelve,\nsometimes three or four; but nobody got up when they went or when they\ncame; Sopwith went on talking. Talking, talking, talking--as if\neverything could be talked--the soul itself slipped through the lips in\nthin silver disks which dissolve in young men's minds like silver, like\nmoonlight. Oh, far away they'd remember it, and deep in dulness gaze\nback on it, and come to refresh themselves again.\n\n\"Well, I never. That's old Chucky. My dear boy, how's the world treating\nyou?\" And in came poor little Chucky, the unsuccessful provincial,\nStenhouse his real name, but of course Sopwith brought back by using the\nother everything, everything, \"all I could never be\"--yes, though next\nday, buying his newspaper and catching the early train, it all seemed to\nhim childish, absurd; the chocolate cake, the young men; Sopwith summing\nthings up; no, not all; he would send his son there. He would save every\npenny to send his son there.\n\nSopwith went on talking; twining stiff fibres of awkward speech--things\nyoung men blurted out--plaiting them round his own smooth garland,\nmaking the bright side show, the vivid greens, the sharp thorns,\nmanliness. He loved it. Indeed to Sopwith a man could say anything,\nuntil perhaps he'd grown old, or gone under, gone deep, when the silver\ndisks would tinkle hollow, and the inscription read a little too simple,\nand the old stamp look too pure, and the impress always the same--a\nGreek boy's head. But he would respect still. A woman, divining the\npriest, would, involuntarily, despise.\n\nCowan, Erasmus Cowan, sipped his port alone, or with one rosy little\nman, whose memory held precisely the same span of time; sipped his port,\nand told his stories, and without book before him intoned Latin, Virgil\nand Catullus, as if language were wine upon his lips. Only--sometimes it\nwill come over one--what if the poet strode in? \"THIS my image?\" he\nmight ask, pointing to the chubby man, whose brain is, after all,\nVirgil's representative among us, though the body gluttonize, and as for\narms, bees, or even the plough, Cowan takes his trips abroad with a\nFrench novel in his pocket, a rug about his knees, and is thankful to be\nhome again in his place, in his line, holding up in his snug little\nmirror the image of Virgil, all rayed round with good stories of the\ndons of Trinity and red beams of port. But language is wine upon his\nlips. Nowhere else would Virgil hear the like. And though, as she goes\nsauntering along the Backs, old Miss Umphelby sings him melodiously\nenough, accurately too, she is always brought up by this question as she\nreaches Clare Bridge: \"But if I met him, what should I wear?\"--and then,\ntaking her way up the avenue towards Newnham, she lets her fancy play\nupon other details of men's meeting with women which have never got into\nprint. Her lectures, therefore, are not half so well attended as those\nof Cowan, and the thing she might have said in elucidation of the text\nfor ever left out. In short, face a teacher with the image of the taught\nand the mirror breaks. But Cowan sipped his port, his exaltation over,\nno longer the representative of Virgil. No, the builder, assessor,\nsurveyor, rather; ruling lines between names, hanging lists above doors.\nSuch is the fabric through which the light must shine, if shine it\ncan--the light of all these languages, Chinese and Russian, Persian and\nArabic, of symbols and figures, of history, of things that are known and\nthings that are about to be known. So that if at night, far out at sea\nover the tumbling waves, one saw a haze on the waters, a city\nilluminated, a whiteness even in the sky, such as that now over the Hall\nof Trinity where they're still dining, or washing up plates, that would\nbe the light burning there--the light of Cambridge.\n\n\"Let's go round to Simeon's room,\" said Jacob, and they rolled up the\nmap, having got the whole thing settled.\n\nAll the lights were coming out round the court, and falling on the\ncobbles, picking out dark patches of grass and single daisies. The young\nmen were now back in their rooms. Heaven knows what they were doing.\nWhat was it that could DROP like that? And leaning down over a foaming\nwindow-box, one stopped another hurrying past, and upstairs they went\nand down they went, until a sort of fulness settled on the court, the\nhive full of bees, the bees home thick with gold, drowsy, humming,\nsuddenly vocal; the Moonlight Sonata answered by a waltz.\n\nThe Moonlight Sonata tinkled away; the waltz crashed. Although young men\nstill went in and out, they walked as if keeping engagements. Now and\nthen there was a thud, as if some heavy piece of furniture had fallen,\nunexpectedly, of its own accord, not in the general stir of life after\ndinner. One supposed that young men raised their eyes from their books\nas the furniture fell. Were they reading? Certainly there was a sense of\nconcentration in the air. Behind the grey walls sat so many young men,\nsome undoubtedly reading, magazines, shilling shockers, no doubt; legs,\nperhaps, over the arms of chairs; smoking; sprawling over tables, and\nwriting while their heads went round in a circle as the pen\nmoved--simple young men, these, who would--but there is no need to think\nof them grown old; others eating sweets; here they boxed; and, well, Mr.\nHawkins must have been mad suddenly to throw up his window and bawl:\n\"Jo--seph! Jo--seph!\" and then he ran as hard as ever he could across\nthe court, while an elderly man, in a green apron, carrying an immense\npile of tin covers, hesitated, balanced, and then went on. But this was\na diversion. There were young men who read, lying in shallow arm-chairs,\nholding their books as if they had hold in their hands of something that\nwould see them through; they being all in a torment, coming from midland\ntowns, clergymen's sons. Others read Keats. And those long histories in\nmany volumes--surely some one was now beginning at the beginning in\norder to understand the Holy Roman Empire, as one must. That was part of\nthe concentration, though it would be dangerous on a hot spring\nnight--dangerous, perhaps, to concentrate too much upon single books,\nactual chapters, when at any moment the door opened and Jacob appeared;\nor Richard Bonamy, reading Keats no longer, began making long pink\nspills from an old newspaper, bending forward, and looking eager and\ncontented no more, but almost fierce. Why? Only perhaps that Keats died\nyoung--one wants to write poetry too and to love--oh, the brutes! It's\ndamnably difficult. But, after all, not so difficult if on the next\nstaircase, in the large room, there are two, three, five young men all\nconvinced of this--of brutality, that is, and the clear division between\nright and wrong. There was a sofa, chairs, a square table, and the\nwindow being open, one could see how they sat--legs issuing here, one\nthere crumpled in a corner of the sofa; and, presumably, for you could\nnot see him, somebody stood by the fender, talking. Anyhow, Jacob, who\nsat astride a chair and ate dates from a long box, burst out laughing.\nThe answer came from the sofa corner; for his pipe was held in the air,\nthen replaced. Jacob wheeled round. He had something to say to THAT,\nthough the sturdy red-haired boy at the table seemed to deny it, wagging\nhis head slowly from side to side; and then, taking out his penknife, he\ndug the point of it again and again into a knot in the table, as if\naffirming that the voice from the fender spoke the truth--which Jacob\ncould not deny. Possibly, when he had done arranging the date-stones, he\nmight find something to say to it--indeed his lips opened--only then\nthere broke out a roar of laughter.\n\nThe laughter died in the air. The sound of it could scarcely have\nreached any one standing by the Chapel, which stretched along the\nopposite side of the court. The laughter died out, and only gestures of\narms, movements of bodies, could be seen shaping something in the room.\nWas it an argument? A bet on the boat races? Was it nothing of the sort?\nWhat was shaped by the arms and bodies moving in the twilight room?\n\nA step or two beyond the window there was nothing at all, except the\nenclosing buildings--chimneys upright, roofs horizontal; too much brick\nand building for a May night, perhaps. And then before one's eyes would\ncome the bare hills of Turkey--sharp lines, dry earth, coloured flowers,\nand colour on the shoulders of the women, standing naked-legged in the\nstream to beat linen on the stones. The stream made loops of water round\ntheir ankles. But none of that could show clearly through the swaddlings\nand blanketings of the Cambridge night. The stroke of the clock even was\nmuffled; as if intoned by somebody reverent from a pulpit; as if\ngenerations of learned men heard the last hour go rolling through their\nranks and issued it, already smooth and time-worn, with their blessing,\nfor the use of the living.\n\nWas it to receive this gift from the past that the young man came to the\nwindow and stood there, looking out across the court? It was Jacob. He\nstood smoking his pipe while the last stroke of the clock purred softly\nround him. Perhaps there had been an argument. He looked satisfied;\nindeed masterly; which expression changed slightly as he stood there,\nthe sound of the clock conveying to him (it may be) a sense of old\nbuildings and time; and himself the inheritor; and then to-morrow; and\nfriends; at the thought of whom, in sheer confidence and pleasure, it\nseemed, he yawned and stretched himself.\n\nMeanwhile behind him the shape they had made, whether by argument or\nnot, the spiritual shape, hard yet ephemeral, as of glass compared with\nthe dark stone of the Chapel, was dashed to splinters, young men rising\nfrom chairs and sofa corners, buzzing and barging about the room, one\ndriving another against the bedroom door, which giving way, in they\nfell. Then Jacob was left there, in the shallow arm-chair, alone with\nMasham? Anderson? Simeon? Oh, it was Simeon. The others had all gone.\n\n\"... Julian the Apostate....\" Which of them said that and the other\nwords murmured round it? But about midnight there sometimes rises, like\na veiled figure suddenly woken, a heavy wind; and this now flapping\nthrough Trinity lifted unseen leaves and blurred everything. \"Julian the\nApostate\"--and then the wind. Up go the elm branches, out blow the\nsails, the old schooners rear and plunge, the grey waves in the hot\nIndian Ocean tumble sultrily, and then all falls flat again.\n\nSo, if the veiled lady stepped through the Courts of Trinity, she now\ndrowsed once more, all her draperies about her, her head against a\npillar.\n\n\"Somehow it seems to matter.\"\n\nThe low voice was Simeon's.\n\nThe voice was even lower that answered him. The sharp tap of a pipe on\nthe mantelpiece cancelled the words. And perhaps Jacob only said \"hum,\"\nor said nothing at all. True, the words were inaudible. It was the\nintimacy, a sort of spiritual suppleness, when mind prints upon mind\nindelibly.\n\n\"Well, you seem to have studied the subject,\" said Jacob, rising and\nstanding over Simeon's chair. He balanced himself; he swayed a little.\nHe appeared extraordinarily happy, as if his pleasure would brim and\nspill down the sides if Simeon spoke.\n\nSimeon said nothing. Jacob remained standing. But intimacy--the room was\nfull of it, still, deep, like a pool. Without need of movement or speech\nit rose softly and washed over everything, mollifying, kindling, and\ncoating the mind with the lustre of pearl, so that if you talk of a\nlight, of Cambridge burning, it's not languages only. It's Julian the\nApostate.\n\nBut Jacob moved. He murmured good-night. He went out into the court. He\nbuttoned his jacket across his chest. He went back to his rooms, and\nbeing the only man who walked at that moment back to his rooms, his\nfootsteps rang out, his figure loomed large. Back from the Chapel, back\nfrom the Hall, back from the Library, came the sound of his footsteps,\nas if the old stone echoed with magisterial authority: \"The young\nman--the young man--the young man-back to his rooms.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOUR\n\n\nWhat's the use of trying to read Shakespeare, especially in one of those\nlittle thin paper editions whose pages get ruffled, or stuck together\nwith sea-water? Although the plays of Shakespeare had frequently been\npraised, even quoted, and placed higher than the Greek, never since they\nstarted had Jacob managed to read one through. Yet what an opportunity!\n\nFor the Scilly Isles had been sighted by Timmy Durrant lying like\nmountain-tops almost a-wash in precisely the right place. His\ncalculations had worked perfectly, and really the sight of him sitting\nthere, with his hand on the tiller, rosy gilled, with a sprout of beard,\nlooking sternly at the stars, then at a compass, spelling out quite\ncorrectly his page of the eternal lesson-book, would have moved a woman.\nJacob, of course, was not a woman. The sight of Timmy Durrant was no\nsight for him, nothing to set against the sky and worship; far from it.\nThey had quarrelled. Why the right way to open a tin of beef, with\nShakespeare on board, under conditions of such splendour, should have\nturned them to sulky schoolboys, none can tell. Tinned beef is cold\neating, though; and salt water spoils biscuits; and the waves tumble and\nlollop much the same hour after hour--tumble and lollop all across the\nhorizon. Now a spray of seaweed floats past-now a log of wood. Ships\nhave been wrecked here. One or two go past, keeping their own side of\nthe road. Timmy knew where they were bound, what their cargoes were,\nand, by looking through his glass, could tell the name of the line, and\neven guess what dividends it paid its shareholders. Yet that was no\nreason for Jacob to turn sulky.\n\nThe Scilly Isles had the look of mountain-tops almost a-wash....\nUnfortunately, Jacob broke the pin of the Primus stove.\n\nThe Scilly Isles might well be obliterated by a roller sweeping straight\nacross.\n\nBut one must give young men the credit of admitting that, though\nbreakfast eaten under these circumstances is grim, it is sincere enough.\nNo need to make conversation. They got out their pipes.\n\nTimmy wrote up some scientific observations; and--what was the question\nthat broke the silence--the exact time or the day of the month? anyhow,\nit was spoken without the least awkwardness; in the most matter-of-fact\nway in the world; and then Jacob began to unbutton his clothes and sat\nnaked, save for his shirt, intending, apparently, to bathe.\n\nThe Scilly Isles were turning bluish; and suddenly blue, purple, and\ngreen flushed the sea; left it grey; struck a stripe which vanished; but\nwhen Jacob had got his shirt over his head the whole floor of the waves\nwas blue and white, rippling and crisp, though now and again a broad\npurple mark appeared, like a bruise; or there floated an entire emerald\ntinged with yellow. He plunged. He gulped in water, spat it out, struck\nwith his right arm, struck with his left, was towed by a rope, gasped,\nsplashed, and was hauled on board.\n\nThe seat in the boat was positively hot, and the sun warmed his back as\nhe sat naked with a towel in his hand, looking at the Scilly Isles\nwhich--confound it! the sail flapped. Shakespeare was knocked overboard.\nThere you could see him floating merrily away, with all his pages\nruffling innumerably; and then he went under.\n\nStrangely enough, you could smell violets, or if violets were impossible\nin July, they must grow something very pungent on the mainland then. The\nmainland, not so very far off--you could see clefts in the cliffs, white\ncottages, smoke going up--wore an extraordinary look of calm, of sunny\npeace, as if wisdom and piety had descended upon the dwellers there. Now\na cry sounded, as of a man calling pilchards in a main street. It wore\nan extraordinary look of piety and peace, as if old men smoked by the\ndoor, and girls stood, hands on hips, at the well, and horses stood; as\nif the end of the world had come, and cabbage fields and stone walls,\nand coast-guard stations, and, above all, the white sand bays with the\nwaves breaking unseen by any one, rose to heaven in a kind of ecstasy.\n\nBut imperceptibly the cottage smoke droops, has the look of a mourning\nemblem, a flag floating its caress over a grave. The gulls, making their\nbroad flight and then riding at peace, seem to mark the grave.\n\nNo doubt if this were Italy, Greece, or even the shores of Spain,\nsadness would be routed by strangeness and excitement and the nudge of a\nclassical education. But the Cornish hills have stark chimneys standing\non them; and, somehow or other, loveliness is infernally sad. Yes, the\nchimneys and the coast-guard stations and the little bays with the waves\nbreaking unseen by any one make one remember the overpowering sorrow.\nAnd what can this sorrow be?\n\nIt is brewed by the earth itself. It comes from the houses on the coast.\nWe start transparent, and then the cloud thickens. All history backs our\npane of glass. To escape is vain.\n\nBut whether this is the right interpretation of Jacob's gloom as he sat\nnaked, in the sun, looking at the Land's End, it is impossible to say;\nfor he never spoke a word. Timmy sometimes wondered (only for a second)\nwhether his people bothered him.... No matter. There are things that\ncan't be said. Let's shake it off. Let's dry ourselves, and take up the\nfirst thing that comes handy.... Timmy Durrant's notebook of scientific\nobservations.\n\n\"Now...\" said Jacob.\n\nIt is a tremendous argument.\n\nSome people can follow every step of the way, and even take a little\none, six inches long, by themselves at the end; others remain observant\nof the external signs.\n\nThe eyes fix themselves upon the poker; the right hand takes the poker\nand lifts it; turns it slowly round, and then, very accurately, replaces\nit. The left hand, which lies on the knee, plays some stately but\nintermittent piece of march music. A deep breath is taken; but allowed\nto evaporate unused. The cat marches across the hearth-rug. No one\nobserves her.\n\n\"That's about as near as I can get to it,\" Durrant wound up.\n\nThe next minute is quiet as the grave.\n\n\"It follows...\" said Jacob.\n\nOnly half a sentence followed; but these half-sentences are like flags\nset on tops of buildings to the observer of external sights down below.\nWhat was the coast of Cornwall, with its violet scents, and mourning\nemblems, and tranquil piety, but a screen happening to hang straight\nbehind as his mind marched up?\n\n\"It follows...\" said Jacob.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Timmy, after reflection. \"That is so.\"\n\nNow Jacob began plunging about, half to stretch himself, half in a kind\nof jollity, no doubt, for the strangest sound issued from his lips as he\nfurled the sail, rubbed the plates--gruff, tuneless--a sort of pasan,\nfor having grasped the argument, for being master of the situation,\nsunburnt, unshaven, capable into the bargain of sailing round the world\nin a ten-ton yacht, which, very likely, he would do one of these days\ninstead of settling down in a lawyer's office, and wearing spats.\n\n\"Our friend Masham,\" said Timmy Durrant, \"would rather not be seen in\nour company as we are now.\" His buttons had come off.\n\n\"D'you know Masham's aunt?\" said Jacob.\n\n\"Never knew he had one,\" said Timmy.\n\n\"Masham has millions of aunts,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"Masham is mentioned in Domesday Book,\" said Timmy.\n\n\"So are his aunts,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"His sister,\" said Timmy, \"is a very pretty girl.\"\n\n\"That's what'll happen to you, Timmy,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"It'll happen to you first,\" said Timmy.\n\n\"But this woman I was telling you about--Masham's aunt--\"\n\n\"Oh, do get on,\" said Timmy, for Jacob was laughing so much that he\ncould not speak.\n\n\"Masham's aunt...\"\n\nTimmy laughed so much that he could not speak.\n\n\"Masham's aunt...\"\n\n\"What is there about Masham that makes one laugh?\" said Timmy.\n\n\"Hang it all--a man who swallows his tie-pin,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"Lord Chancellor before he's fifty,\" said Timmy.\n\n\"He's a gentleman,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"The Duke of Wellington was a gentleman,\" said Timmy.\n\n\"Keats wasn't.\"\n\n\"Lord Salisbury was.\"\n\n\"And what about God?\" said Jacob.\n\nThe Scilly Isles now appeared as if directly pointed at by a golden\nfinger issuing from a cloud; and everybody knows how portentous that\nsight is, and how these broad rays, whether they light upon the Scilly\nIsles or upon the tombs of crusaders in cathedrals, always shake the\nvery foundations of scepticism and lead to jokes about God.\n\n/*\n\"Abide with me:\n Fast falls the eventide;\n The shadows deepen;\n Lord, with me abide,\"\n*/\n\nsang Timmy Durrant.\n\n\"At my place we used to have a hymn which began\n\n/*\nGreat God, what do I see and hear?\"\n*/\n\nsaid Jacob.\n\nGulls rode gently swaying in little companies of two or three quite near\nthe boat; the cormorant, as if following his long strained neck in\neternal pursuit, skimmed an inch above the water to the next rock; and\nthe drone of the tide in the caves came across the water, low,\nmonotonous, like the voice of some one talking to himself.\n\n/*\n\"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,\n Let me hide myself in thee,\"\n*/\n\nsang Jacob.\n\nLike the blunt tooth of some monster, a rock broke the surface; brown;\noverflown with perpetual waterfalls.\n\n/*\n\"Rock of Ages,\"\n*/\n\nJacob sang, lying on his back, looking up into the sky at midday, from\nwhich every shred of cloud had been withdrawn, so that it was like\nsomething permanently displayed with the cover off.\n\nBy six o'clock a breeze blew in off an icefield; and by seven the water\nwas more purple than blue; and by half-past seven there was a patch of\nrough gold-beater's skin round the Scilly Isles, and Durrant's face, as\nhe sat steering, was of the colour of a red lacquer box polished for\ngenerations. By nine all the fire and confusion had gone out of the sky,\nleaving wedges of apple-green and plates of pale yellow; and by ten the\nlanterns on the boat were making twisted colours upon the waves,\nelongated or squat, as the waves stretched or humped themselves. The\nbeam from the lighthouse strode rapidly across the water. Infinite\nmillions of miles away powdered stars twinkled; but the waves slapped\nthe boat, and crashed, with regular and appalling solemnity, against the\nrocks.\n\nAlthough it would be possible to knock at the cottage door and ask for a\nglass of milk, it is only thirst that would compel the intrusion. Yet\nperhaps Mrs. Pascoe would welcome it. The summer's day may be wearing\nheavy. Washing in her little scullery, she may hear the cheap clock on\nthe mantelpiece tick, tick, tick ... tick, tick, tick. She is alone in\nthe house. Her husband is out helping Farmer Hosken; her daughter\nmarried and gone to America. Her elder son is married too, but she does\nnot agree with his wife. The Wesleyan minister came along and took the\nyounger boy. She is alone in the house. A steamer, probably bound for\nCardiff, now crosses the horizon, while near at hand one bell of a\nfoxglove swings to and fro with a bumble-bee for clapper. These white\nCornish cottages are built on the edge of the cliff; the garden grows\ngorse more readily than cabbages; and for hedge, some primeval man has\npiled granite boulders. In one of these, to hold, an historian\nconjectures, the victim's blood, a basin has been hollowed, but in our\ntime it serves more tamely to seat those tourists who wish for an\nuninterrupted view of the Gurnard's Head. Not that any one objects to a\nblue print dress and a white apron in a cottage garden.\n\n\"Look--she has to draw her water from a well in the garden.\"\n\n\"Very lonely it must be in winter, with the wind sweeping over those\nhills, and the waves dashing on the rocks.\"\n\nEven on a summer's day you hear them murmuring.\n\nHaving drawn her water, Mrs. Pascoe went in. The tourists regretted that\nthey had brought no glasses, so that they might have read the name of\nthe tramp steamer. Indeed, it was such a fine day that there was no\nsaying what a pair of field-glasses might not have fetched into view.\nTwo fishing luggers, presumably from St. Ives Bay, were now sailing in\nan opposite direction from the steamer, and the floor of the sea became\nalternately clear and opaque. As for the bee, having sucked its fill of\nhoney, it visited the teasle and thence made a straight line to Mrs.\nPascoe's patch, once more directing the tourists' gaze to the old\nwoman's print dress and white apron, for she had come to the door of the\ncottage and was standing there.\n\nThere she stood, shading her eyes and looking out to sea.\n\nFor the millionth time, perhaps, she looked at the sea. A peacock\nbutterfly now spread himself upon the teasle, fresh and newly emerged,\nas the blue and chocolate down on his wings testified. Mrs. Pascoe went\nindoors, fetched a cream pan, came out, and stood scouring it. Her face\nwas assuredly not soft, sensual, or lecherous, but hard, wise, wholesome\nrather, signifying in a room full of sophisticated people the flesh and\nblood of life. She would tell a lie, though, as soon as the truth.\nBehind her on the wall hung a large dried skate. Shut up in the parlour\nshe prized mats, china mugs, and photographs, though the mouldy little\nroom was saved from the salt breeze only by the depth of a brick, and\nbetween lace curtains you saw the gannet drop like a stone, and on\nstormy days the gulls came shuddering through the air, and the steamers'\nlights were now high, now deep. Melancholy were the sounds on a winter's\nnight.\n\nThe picture papers were delivered punctually on Sunday, and she pored\nlong over Lady Cynthia's wedding at the Abbey. She, too, would have\nliked to ride in a carriage with springs. The soft, swift syllables of\neducated speech often shamed her few rude ones. And then all night to\nhear the grinding of the Atlantic upon the rocks instead of hansom cabs\nand footmen whistling for motor cars.... So she may have dreamed,\nscouring her cream pan. But the talkative, nimble-witted people have\ntaken themselves to towns. Like a miser, she has hoarded her feelings\nwithin her own breast. Not a penny piece has she changed all these\nyears, and, watching her enviously, it seems as if all within must be\npure gold.\n\nThe wise old woman, having fixed her eyes upon the sea, once more\nwithdrew. The tourists decided that it was time to move on to the\nGurnard's Head.\n\nThree seconds later Mrs. Durrant rapped upon the door.\n\n\"Mrs. Pascoe?\" she said.\n\nRather haughtily, she watched the tourists cross the field path. She\ncame of a Highland race, famous for its chieftains.\n\nMrs. Pascoe appeared.\n\n\"I envy you that bush, Mrs. Pascoe,\" said Mrs. Durrant, pointing the\nparasol with which she had rapped on the door at the fine clump of St.\nJohn's wort that grew beside it. Mrs. Pascoe looked at the bush\ndeprecatingly.\n\n\"I expect my son in a day or two,\" said Mrs. Durrant. \"Sailing from\nFalmouth with a friend in a little boat.... Any news of Lizzie yet, Mrs.\nPascoe?\"\n\nHer long-tailed ponies stood twitching their ears on the road twenty\nyards away. The boy, Curnow, flicked flies off them occasionally. He saw\nhis mistress go into the cottage; come out again; and pass, talking\nenergetically to judge by the movements of her hands, round the\nvegetable plot in front of the cottage. Mrs. Pascoe was his aunt. Both\nwomen surveyed a bush. Mrs. Durrant stooped and picked a sprig from it.\nNext she pointed (her movements were peremptory; she held herself very\nupright) at the potatoes. They had the blight. All potatoes that year\nhad the blight. Mrs. Durrant showed Mrs. Pascoe how bad the blight was\non her potatoes. Mrs. Durrant talked energetically; Mrs. Pascoe listened\nsubmissively. The boy Curnow knew that Mrs. Durrant was saying that it\nis perfectly simple; you mix the powder in a gallon of water; \"I have\ndone it with my own hands in my own garden,\" Mrs. Durrant was saying.\n\n\"You won't have a potato left--you won't have a potato left,\" Mrs.\nDurrant was saying in her emphatic voice as they reached the gate. The\nboy Curnow became as immobile as stone.\n\nMrs. Durrant took the reins in her hands and settled herself on the\ndriver's seat.\n\n\"Take care of that leg, or I shall send the doctor to you,\" she called\nback over her shoulder; touched the ponies; and the carriage started\nforward. The boy Curnow had only just time to swing himself up by the\ntoe of his boot. The boy Curnow, sitting in the middle of the back seat,\nlooked at his aunt.\n\nMrs. Pascoe stood at the gate looking after them; stood at the gate till\nthe trap was round the corner; stood at the gate, looking now to the\nright, now to the left; then went back to her cottage.\n\nSoon the ponies attacked the swelling moor road with striving forelegs.\nMrs. Durrant let the reins fall slackly, and leant backwards. Her\nvivacity had left her. Her hawk nose was thin as a bleached bone through\nwhich you almost see the light. Her hands, lying on the reins in her\nlap, were firm even in repose. The upper lip was cut so short that it\nraised itself almost in a sneer from the front teeth. Her mind skimmed\nleagues where Mrs. Pascoe's mind adhered to its solitary patch. Her mind\nskimmed leagues as the ponies climbed the hill road. Forwards and\nbackwards she cast her mind, as if the roofless cottages, mounds of\nslag, and cottage gardens overgrown with foxglove and bramble cast shade\nupon her mind. Arrived at the summit, she stopped the carriage. The pale\nhills were round her, each scattered with ancient stones; beneath was\nthe sea, variable as a southern sea; she herself sat there looking from\nhill to sea, upright, aquiline, equally poised between gloom and\nlaughter. Suddenly she flicked the ponies so that the boy Curnow had to\nswing himself up by the toe of his boot.\n\nThe rooks settled; the rooks rose. The trees which they touched so\ncapriciously seemed insufficient to lodge their numbers. The tree-tops\nsang with the breeze in them; the branches creaked audibly and dropped\nnow and then, though the season was midsummer, husks or twigs. Up went\nthe rooks and down again, rising in lesser numbers each time as the\nsager birds made ready to settle, for the evening was already spent\nenough to make the air inside the wood almost dark. The moss was soft;\nthe tree-trunks spectral. Beyond them lay a silvery meadow. The pampas\ngrass raised its feathery spears from mounds of green at the end of the\nmeadow. A breadth of water gleamed. Already the convolvulus moth was\nspinning over the flowers. Orange and purple, nasturtium and cherry pie,\nwere washed into the twilight, but the tobacco plant and the passion\nflower, over which the great moth spun, were white as china. The rooks\ncreaked their wings together on the tree-tops, and were settling down\nfor sleep when, far off, a familiar sound shook and trembled--increased\n--fairly dinned in their ears--scared sleepy wings into the air\nagain--the dinner bell at the house.\n\nAfter six days of salt wind, rain, and sun, Jacob Flanders had put on a\ndinner jacket. The discreet black object had made its appearance now and\nthen in the boat among tins, pickles, preserved meats, and as the voyage\nwent on had become more and more irrelevant, hardly to be believed in.\nAnd now, the world being stable, lit by candle-light, the dinner jacket\nalone preserved him. He could not be sufficiently thankful. Even so his\nneck, wrists, and face were exposed without cover, and his whole person,\nwhether exposed or not, tingled and glowed so as to make even black\ncloth an imperfect screen. He drew back the great red hand that lay on\nthe table-cloth. Surreptitiously it closed upon slim glasses and curved\nsilver forks. The bones of the cutlets were decorated with pink\nfrills-and yesterday he had gnawn ham from the bone! Opposite him were\nhazy, semi-transparent shapes of yellow and blue. Behind them, again,\nwas the grey-green garden, and among the pear-shaped leaves of the\nescallonia fishing-boats seemed caught and suspended. A sailing ship\nslowly drew past the women's backs. Two or three figures crossed the\nterrace hastily in the dusk. The door opened and shut. Nothing settled\nor stayed unbroken. Like oars rowing now this side, now that, were the\nsentences that came now here, now there, from either side of the table.\n\n\"Oh, Clara, Clara!\" exclaimed Mrs. Durrant, and Timothy Durrant adding,\n\"Clara, Clara,\" Jacob named the shape in yellow gauze Timothy's sister,\nClara. The girl sat smiling and flushed. With her brother's dark eyes,\nshe was vaguer and softer than he was. When the laugh died down she\nsaid: \"But, mother, it was true. He said so, didn't he? Miss Eliot\nagreed with us....\"\n\nBut Miss Eliot, tall, grey-headed, was making room beside her for the\nold man who had come in from the terrace. The dinner would never end,\nJacob thought, and he did not wish it to end, though the ship had sailed\nfrom one corner of the window-frame to the other, and a light marked the\nend of the pier. He saw Mrs. Durrant gaze at the light. She turned to\nhim.\n\n\"Did you take command, or Timothy?\" she said. \"Forgive me if I call you\nJacob. I've heard so much of you.\" Then her eyes went back to the sea.\nHer eyes glazed as she looked at the view.\n\n\"A little village once,\" she said, \"and now grown....\" She rose, taking\nher napkin with her, and stood by the window.\n\n\"Did you quarrel with Timothy?\" Clara asked shyly. \"I should have.\"\n\nMrs. Durrant came back from the window.\n\n\"It gets later and later,\" she said, sitting upright, and looking down\nthe table. \"You ought to be ashamed--all of you. Mr. Clutterbuck, you\nought to be ashamed.\" She raised her voice, for Mr. Clutterbuck was\ndeaf.\n\n\"We ARE ashamed,\" said a girl. But the old man with the beard went on\neating plum tart. Mrs. Durrant laughed and leant back in her chair, as\nif indulging him.\n\n\"We put it to you, Mrs. Durrant,\" said a young man with thick spectacles\nand a fiery moustache. \"I say the conditions were fulfilled. She owes me\na sovereign.\"\n\n\"Not BEFORE the fish--with it, Mrs. Durrant,\" said Charlotte Wilding.\n\n\"That was the bet; with the fish,\" said Clara seriously. \"Begonias,\nmother. To eat them with his fish.\"\n\n\"Oh dear,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"Charlotte won't pay you,\" said Timothy.\n\n\"How dare you ...\" said Charlotte.\n\n\"That privilege will be mine,\" said the courtly Mr. Wortley, producing a\nsilver case primed with sovereigns and slipping one coin on to the\ntable. Then Mrs. Durrant got up and passed down the room, holding\nherself very straight, and the girls in yellow and blue and silver gauze\nfollowed her, and elderly Miss Eliot in her velvet; and a little rosy\nwoman, hesitating at the door, clean, scrupulous, probably a governess.\nAll passed out at the open door.\n\n\"When you are as old as I am, Charlotte,\" said Mrs. Durrant, drawing the\ngirl's arm within hers as they paced up and down the terrace.\n\n\"Why are you so sad?\" Charlotte asked impulsively.\n\n\"Do I seem to you sad? I hope not,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"Well, just now. You're NOT old.\"\n\n\"Old enough to be Timothy's mother.\" They stopped.\n\nMiss Eliot was looking through Mr. Clutterbuck's telescope at the edge\nof the terrace. The deaf old man stood beside her, fondling his beard,\nand reciting the names of the constellations: \"Andromeda, Bootes,\nSidonia, Cassiopeia....\"\n\n\"Andromeda,\" murmured Miss Eliot, shifting the telescope slightly.\n\nMrs. Durrant and Charlotte looked along the barrel of the instrument\npointed at the skies.\n\n\"There are MILLIONS of stars,\" said Charlotte with conviction. Miss\nEliot turned away from the telescope. The young men laughed suddenly in\nthe dining-room.\n\n\"Let ME look,\" said Charlotte eagerly.\n\n\"The stars bore me,\" said Mrs. Durrant, walking down the terrace with\nJulia Eliot. \"I read a book once about the stars.... What are they\nsaying?\" She stopped in front of the dining-room window. \"Timothy,\" she\nnoted.\n\n\"The silent young man,\" said Miss Eliot.\n\n\"Yes, Jacob Flanders,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"Oh, mother! I didn't recognize you!\" exclaimed Clara Durrant, coming\nfrom the opposite direction with Elsbeth. \"How delicious,\" she breathed,\ncrushing a verbena leaf.\n\nMrs. Durrant turned and walked away by herself.\n\n\"Clara!\" she called. Clara went to her.\n\n\"How unlike they are!\" said Miss Eliot.\n\nMr. Wortley passed them, smoking a cigar.\n\n\"Every day I live I find myself agreeing ...\" he said as he passed them.\n\n\"It's so interesting to guess ...\" murmured Julia Eliot.\n\n\"When first we came out we could see the flowers in that bed,\" said\nElsbeth.\n\n\"We see very little now,\" said Miss Eliot.\n\n\"She must have been so beautiful, and everybody loved her, of course,\"\nsaid Charlotte. \"I suppose Mr. Wortley ...\" she paused.\n\n\"Edward's death was a tragedy,\" said Miss Eliot decidedly.\n\nHere Mr. Erskine joined them.\n\n\"There's no such thing as silence,\" he said positively. \"I can hear\ntwenty different sounds on a night like this without counting your\nvoices.\"\n\n\"Make a bet of it?\" said Charlotte.\n\n\"Done,\" said Mr. Erskine. \"One, the sea; two, the wind; three, a dog;\nfour ...\"\n\nThe others passed on.\n\n\"Poor Timothy,\" said Elsbeth.\n\n\"A very fine night,\" shouted Miss Eliot into Mr. Clutterbuck's ear.\n\n\"Like to look at the stars?\" said the old man, turning the telescope\ntowards Elsbeth.\n\n\"Doesn't it make you melancholy--looking at the stars?\" shouted Miss\nEliot.\n\n\"Dear me no, dear me no,\" Mr. Clutterbuck chuckled when he understood\nher. \"Why should it make me melancholy? Not for a moment--dear me no.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Timothy, but I'm coming in,\" said Miss Eliot. \"Elsbeth,\nhere's a shawl.\"\n\n\"I'm coming in,\" Elsbeth murmured with her eye to the telescope.\n\"Cassiopeia,\" she murmured. \"Where are you all?\" she asked, taking her\neye away from the telescope. \"How dark it is!\"\n\nMrs. Durrant sat in the drawing-room by a lamp winding a ball of wool.\nMr. Clutterbuck read the Times. In the distance stood a second lamp, and\nround it sat the young ladies, flashing scissors over silver-spangled\nstuff for private theatricals. Mr. Wortley read a book.\n\n\"Yes; he is perfectly right,\" said Mrs. Durrant, drawing herself up and\nceasing to wind her wool. And while Mr. Clutterbuck read the rest of\nLord Lansdowne's speech she sat upright, without touching her ball.\n\n\"Ah, Mr. Flanders,\" she said, speaking proudly, as if to Lord Lansdowne\nhimself. Then she sighed and began to wind her wool again.\n\n\"Sit THERE,\" she said.\n\nJacob came out from the dark place by the window where he had hovered.\nThe light poured over him, illuminating every cranny of his skin; but\nnot a muscle of his face moved as he sat looking out into the garden.\n\n\"I want to hear about your voyage,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"Twenty years ago we did the same thing.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. She looked at him sharply.\n\n\"He is extraordinarily awkward,\" she thought, noticing how he fingered\nhis socks. \"Yet so distinguished-looking.\"\n\n\"In those days ...\" she resumed, and told him how they had sailed ...\n\"my husband, who knew a good deal about sailing, for he kept a yacht\nbefore we married\" ... and then how rashly they had defied the\nfishermen, \"almost paid for it with our lives, but so proud of\nourselves!\" She flung the hand out that held the ball of wool.\n\n\"Shall I hold your wool?\" Jacob asked stiffly.\n\n\"You do that for your mother,\" said Mrs. Durrant, looking at him again\nkeenly, as she transferred the skein. \"Yes, it goes much better.\"\n\nHe smiled; but said nothing.\n\nElsbeth Siddons hovered behind them with something silver on her arm.\n\n\"We want,\" she said.... \"I've come ...\" she paused.\n\n\"Poor Jacob,\" said Mrs. Durrant, quietly, as if she had known him all\nhis life. \"They're going to make you act in their play.\"\n\n\"How I love you!\" said Elsbeth, kneeling beside Mrs. Durrant's chair.\n\n\"Give me the wool,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"He's come--he's come!\" cried Charlotte Wilding. \"I've won my bet!\"\n\n\"There's another bunch higher up,\" murmured Clara Durrant, mounting\nanother step of the ladder. Jacob held the ladder as she stretched out\nto reach the grapes high up on the vine.\n\n\"There!\" she said, cutting through the stalk. She looked\nsemi-transparent, pale, wonderfully beautiful up there among the vine\nleaves and the yellow and purple bunches, the lights swimming over her\nin coloured islands. Geraniums and begonias stood in pots along planks;\ntomatoes climbed the walls.\n\n\"The leaves really want thinning,\" she considered, and one green one,\nspread like the palm of a hand, circled down past Jacob's head.\n\n\"I have more than I can eat already,\" he said, looking up.\n\n\"It does seem absurd ...\" Clara began, \"going back to London....\"\n\n\"Ridiculous,\" said Jacob, firmly.\n\n\"Then ...\" said Clara, \"you must come next year, properly,\" she said,\nsnipping another vine leaf, rather at random.\n\n\"If ... if ...\"\n\nA child ran past the greenhouse shouting. Clara slowly descended the\nladder with her basket of grapes.\n\n\"One bunch of white, and two of purple,\" she said, and she placed two\ngreat leaves over them where they lay curled warm in the basket.\n\n\"I have enjoyed myself,\" said Jacob, looking down the greenhouse.\n\n\"Yes, it's been delightful,\" she said vaguely.\n\n\"Oh, Miss Durrant,\" he said, taking the basket of grapes; but she walked\npast him towards the door of the greenhouse.\n\n\"You're too good--too good,\" she thought, thinking of Jacob, thinking\nthat he must not say that he loved her. No, no, no.\n\nThe children were whirling past the door, throwing things high into the\nair.\n\n\"Little demons!\" she cried. \"What have they got?\" she asked Jacob.\n\n\"Onions, I think,\" said Jacob. He looked at them without moving.\n\n\"Next August, remember, Jacob,\" said Mrs. Durrant, shaking hands with\nhim on the terrace where the fuchsia hung, like a scarlet ear-ring,\nbehind her head. Mr. Wortley came out of the window in yellow slippers,\ntrailing the Times and holding out his hand very cordially.\n\n\"Good-bye,\" said Jacob. \"Good-bye,\" he repeated. \"Good-bye,\" he said\nonce more. Charlotte Wilding flung up her bedroom window and cried out:\n\"Good-bye, Mr. Jacob!\"\n\n\"Mr. Flanders!\" cried Mr. Clutterbuck, trying to extricate himself from\nhis beehive chair. \"Jacob Flanders!\"\n\n\"Too late, Joseph,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"Not to sit for me,\" said Miss Eliot, planting her tripod upon the lawn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIVE\n\n\n\"I rather think,\" said Jacob, taking his pipe from his mouth, \"it's in\nVirgil,\" and pushing back his chair, he went to the window.\n\nThe rashest drivers in the world are, certainly, the drivers of\npost-office vans. Swinging down Lamb's Conduit Street, the scarlet van\nrounded the corner by the pillar box in such a way as to graze the kerb\nand make the little girl who was standing on tiptoe to post a letter\nlook up, half frightened, half curious. She paused with her hand in the\nmouth of the box; then dropped her letter and ran away. It is seldom\nonly that we see a child on tiptoe with pity--more often a dim\ndiscomfort, a grain of sand in the shoe which it's scarcely worth while\nto remove--that's our feeling, and so--Jacob turned to the bookcase.\n\nLong ago great people lived here, and coming back from Court past\nmidnight stood, huddling their satin skirts, under the carved door-posts\nwhile the footman roused himself from his mattress on the floor,\nhurriedly fastened the lower buttons of his waistcoat, and let them in.\nThe bitter eighteenth-century rain rushed down the kennel. Southampton\nRow, however, is chiefly remarkable nowadays for the fact that you will\nalways find a man there trying to sell a tortoise to a tailor. \"Showing\noff the tweed, sir; what the gentry wants is something singular to catch\nthe eye, sir--and clean in their habits, sir!\" So they display their\ntortoises.\n\nAt Mudie's corner in Oxford Street all the red and blue beads had run\ntogether on the string. The motor omnibuses were locked. Mr. Spalding\ngoing to the city looked at Mr. Charles Budgeon bound for Shepherd's\nBush. The proximity of the omnibuses gave the outside passengers an\nopportunity to stare into each other's faces. Yet few took advantage of\nit. Each had his own business to think of. Each had his past shut in him\nlike the leaves of a book known to him by heart; and his friends could\nonly read the title, James Spalding, or Charles Budgeon, and the\npassengers going the opposite way could read nothing at all--save \"a man\nwith a red moustache,\" \"a young man in grey smoking a pipe.\" The October\nsunlight rested upon all these men and women sitting immobile; and\nlittle Johnnie Sturgeon took the chance to swing down the staircase,\ncarrying his large mysterious parcel, and so dodging a zigzag course\nbetween the wheels he reached the pavement, started to whistle a tune\nand was soon out of sight--for ever. The omnibuses jerked on, and every\nsingle person felt relief at being a little nearer to his journey's end,\nthough some cajoled themselves past the immediate engagement by promise\nof indulgence beyond--steak and kidney pudding, drink or a game of\ndominoes in the smoky corner of a city restaurant. Oh yes, human life is\nvery tolerable on the top of an omnibus in Holborn, when the policeman\nholds up his arm and the sun beats on your back, and if there is such a\nthing as a shell secreted by man to fit man himself here we find it, on\nthe banks of the Thames, where the great streets join and St. Paul's\nCathedral, like the volute on the top of the snail shell, finishes it\noff. Jacob, getting off his omnibus, loitered up the steps, consulted\nhis watch, and finally made up his mind to go in.... Does it need an\neffort? Yes. These changes of mood wear us out.\n\nDim it is, haunted by ghosts of white marble, to whom the organ for ever\nchaunts. If a boot creaks, it's awful; then the order; the discipline.\nThe verger with his rod has life ironed out beneath him. Sweet and holy\nare the angelic choristers. And for ever round the marble shoulders, in\nand out of the folded fingers, go the thin high sounds of voice and\norgan. For ever requiem--repose. Tired with scrubbing the steps of the\nPrudential Society's office, which she did year in year out, Mrs.\nLidgett took her seat beneath the great Duke's tomb, folded her hands,\nand half closed her eyes. A magnificent place for an old woman to rest\nin, by the very side of the great Duke's bones, whose victories mean\nnothing to her, whose name she knows not, though she never fails to\ngreet the little angels opposite, as she passes out, wishing the like on\nher own tomb, for the leathern curtain of the heart has flapped wide,\nand out steal on tiptoe thoughts of rest, sweet melodies.... Old Spicer,\njute merchant, thought nothing of the kind though. Strangely enough he'd\nnever been in St. Paul's these fifty years, though his office windows\nlooked on the churchyard. \"So that's all? Well, a gloomy old place....\nWhere's Nelson's tomb? No time now--come again--a coin to leave in the\nbox.... Rain or fine is it? Well, if it would only make up its mind!\"\nIdly the children stray in--the verger dissuades them--and another and\nanother ... man, woman, man, woman, boy ... casting their eyes up,\npursing their lips, the same shadow brushing the same faces; the\nleathern curtain of the heart flaps wide.\n\nNothing could appear more certain from the steps of St. Paul's than that\neach person is miraculously provided with coat, skirt, and boots; an\nincome; an object. Only Jacob, carrying in his hand Finlay's Byzantine\nEmpire, which he had bought in Ludgate Hill, looked a little different;\nfor in his hand he carried a book, which book he would at nine-thirty\nprecisely, by his own fireside, open and study, as no one else of all\nthese multitudes would do. They have no houses. The streets belong to\nthem; the shops; the churches; theirs the innumerable desks; the\nstretched office lights; the vans are theirs, and the railway slung high\nabove the street. If you look closer you will see that three elderly men\nat a little distance from each other run spiders along the pavement as\nif the street were their parlour, and here, against the wall, a woman\nstares at nothing, boot-laces extended, which she does not ask you to\nbuy. The posters are theirs too; and the news on them. A town destroyed;\na race won. A homeless people, circling beneath the sky whose blue or\nwhite is held off by a ceiling cloth of steel filings and horse dung\nshredded to dust.\n\nThere, under the green shade, with his head bent over white paper, Mr.\nSibley transferred figures to folios, and upon each desk you observe,\nlike provender, a bunch of papers, the day's nutriment, slowly consumed\nby the industrious pen. Innumerable overcoats of the quality prescribed\nhung empty all day in the corridors, but as the clock struck six each\nwas exactly filled, and the little figures, split apart into trousers or\nmoulded into a single thickness, jerked rapidly with angular forward\nmotion along the pavement; then dropped into darkness. Beneath the\npavement, sunk in the earth, hollow drains lined with yellow light for\never conveyed them this way and that, and large letters upon enamel\nplates represented in the underworld the parks, squares, and circuses of\nthe upper. \"Marble Arch--Shepherd's Bush\"--to the majority the Arch and\nthe Bush are eternally white letters upon a blue ground. Only at one\npoint--it may be Acton, Holloway, Kensal Rise, Caledonian Road--does the\nname mean shops where you buy things, and houses, in one of which, down\nto the right, where the pollard trees grow out of the paving stones,\nthere is a square curtained window, and a bedroom.\n\nLong past sunset an old blind woman sat on a camp-stool with her back to\nthe stone wall of the Union of London and Smith's Bank, clasping a brown\nmongrel tight in her arms and singing out loud, not for coppers, no,\nfrom the depths of her gay wild heart--her sinful, tanned heart--for the\nchild who fetches her is the fruit of sin, and should have been in bed,\ncurtained, asleep, instead of hearing in the lamplight her mother's wild\nsong, where she sits against the Bank, singing not for coppers, with her\ndog against her breast.\n\nHome they went. The grey church spires received them; the hoary city,\nold, sinful, and majestic. One behind another, round or pointed,\npiercing the sky or massing themselves, like sailing ships, like granite\ncliffs, spires and offices, wharves and factories crowd the bank;\neternally the pilgrims trudge; barges rest in mid stream heavy laden; as\nsome believe, the city loves her prostitutes.\n\nBut few, it seems, are admitted to that degree. Of all the carriages\nthat leave the arch of the Opera House, not one turns eastward, and when\nthe little thief is caught in the empty market-place no one in\nblack-and-white or rose-coloured evening dress blocks the way by pausing\nwith a hand upon the carriage door to help or condemn--though Lady\nCharles, to do her justice, sighs sadly as she ascends her staircase,\ntakes down Thomas a Kempis, and does not sleep till her mind has lost\nitself tunnelling into the complexity of things. \"Why? Why? Why?\" she\nsighs. On the whole it's best to walk back from the Opera House. Fatigue\nis the safest sleeping draught.\n\nThe autumn season was in full swing. Tristan was twitching his rug up\nunder his armpits twice a week; Isolde waved her scarf in miraculous\nsympathy with the conductor's baton. In all parts of the house were to\nbe found pink faces and glittering breasts. When a Royal hand attached\nto an invisible body slipped out and withdrew the red and white bouquet\nreposing on the scarlet ledge, the Queen of England seemed a name worth\ndying for. Beauty, in its hothouse variety (which is none of the worst),\nflowered in box after box; and though nothing was said of profound\nimportance, and though it is generally agreed that wit deserted\nbeautiful lips about the time that Walpole died--at any rate when\nVictoria in her nightgown descended to meet her ministers, the lips\n(through an opera glass) remained red, adorable. Bald distinguished men\nwith gold-headed canes strolled down the crimson avenues between the\nstalls, and only broke from intercourse with the boxes when the lights\nwent down, and the conductor, first bowing to the Queen, next to the\nbald-headed men, swept round on his feet and raised his wand.\n\nThen two thousand hearts in the semi-darkness remembered, anticipated,\ntravelled dark labyrinths; and Clara Durrant said farewell to Jacob\nFlanders, and tasted the sweetness of death in effigy; and Mrs. Durrant,\nsitting behind her in the dark of the box, sighed her sharp sigh; and\nMr. Wortley, shifting his position behind the Italian Ambassador's wife,\nthought that Brangaena was a trifle hoarse; and suspended in the gallery\nmany feet above their heads, Edward Whittaker surreptitiously held a\ntorch to his miniature score; and ... and ...\n\nIn short, the observer is choked with observations. Only to prevent us\nfrom being submerged by chaos, nature and society between them have\narranged a system of classification which is simplicity itself; stalls,\nboxes, amphitheatre, gallery. The moulds are filled nightly. There is no\nneed to distinguish details. But the difficulty remains--one has to\nchoose. For though I have no wish to be Queen of England or only for a\nmoment--I would willingly sit beside her; I would hear the Prime\nMinister's gossip; the countess whisper, and share her memories of halls\nand gardens; the massive fronts of the respectable conceal after all\ntheir secret code; or why so impermeable? And then, doffing one's own\nheadpiece, how strange to assume for a moment some one's--any one's--to\nbe a man of valour who has ruled the Empire; to refer while Brangaena\nsings to the fragments of Sophocles, or see in a flash, as the shepherd\npipes his tune, bridges and aqueducts. But no--we must choose. Never was\nthere a harsher necessity! or one which entails greater pain, more\ncertain disaster; for wherever I seat myself, I die in exile: Whittaker\nin his lodging-house; Lady Charles at the Manor.\n\nA young man with a Wellington nose, who had occupied a\nseven-and-sixpenny seat, made his way down the stone stairs when the\nopera ended, as if he were still set a little apart from his fellows by\nthe influence of the music.\n\nAt midnight Jacob Flanders heard a rap on his door.\n\n\"By Jove!\" he exclaimed. \"You're the very man I want!\" and without more\nado they discovered the lines which he had been seeking all day; only\nthey come not in Virgil, but in Lucretius.\n\n\"Yes; that should make him sit up,\" said Bonamy, as Jacob stopped\nreading. Jacob was excited. It was the first time he had read his essay\naloud.\n\n\"Damned swine!\" he said, rather too extravagantly; but the praise had\ngone to his head. Professor Bulteel, of Leeds, had issued an edition of\nWycherley without stating that he had left out, disembowelled, or\nindicated only by asterisks, several indecent words and some indecent\nphrases. An outrage, Jacob said; a breach of faith; sheer prudery; token\nof a lewd mind and a disgusting nature. Aristophanes and Shakespeare\nwere cited. Modern life was repudiated. Great play was made with the\nprofessional title, and Leeds as a seat of learning was laughed to\nscorn. And the extraordinary thing was that these young men were\nperfectly right--extraordinary, because, even as Jacob copied his pages,\nhe knew that no one would ever print them; and sure enough back they\ncame from the Fortnightly, the Contemporary, the Nineteenth\nCentury--when Jacob threw them into the black wooden box where he kept\nhis mother's letters, his old flannel trousers, and a note or two with\nthe Cornish postmark. The lid shut upon the truth.\n\nThis black wooden box, upon which his name was still legible in white\npaint, stood between the long windows of the sitting-room. The street\nran beneath. No doubt the bedroom was behind. The furniture--three\nwicker chairs and a gate-legged table--came from Cambridge. These houses\n(Mrs. Garfit's daughter, Mrs. Whitehorn, was the landlady of this one)\nwere built, say, a hundred and fifty years ago. The rooms are shapely,\nthe ceilings high; over the doorway a rose, or a ram's skull, is carved\nin the wood. The eighteenth century has its distinction. Even the\npanels, painted in raspberry-coloured paint, have their distinction....\n\n\"Distinction\"--Mrs. Durrant said that Jacob Flanders was\n\"distinguished-looking.\" \"Extremely awkward,\" she said, \"but so\ndistinguished-looking.\" Seeing him for the first time that no doubt is\nthe word for him. Lying back in his chair, taking his pipe from his\nlips, and saying to Bonamy: \"About this opera now\" (for they had done\nwith indecency). \"This fellow Wagner\" ... distinction was one of the\nwords to use naturally, though, from looking at him, one would have\nfound it difficult to say which seat in the opera house was his, stalls,\ngallery, or dress circle. A writer? He lacked self-consciousness. A\npainter? There was something in the shape of his hands (he was descended\non his mother's side from a family of the greatest antiquity and deepest\nobscurity) which indicated taste. Then his mouth--but surely, of all\nfutile occupations this of cataloguing features is the worst. One word\nis sufficient. But if one cannot find it?\n\n\"I like Jacob Flanders,\" wrote Clara Durrant in her diary. \"He is so\nunworldly. He gives himself no airs, and one can say what one likes to\nhim, though he's frightening because ...\" But Mr. Letts allows little\nspace in his shilling diaries. Clara was not the one to encroach upon\nWednesday. Humblest, most candid of women! \"No, no, no,\" she sighed,\nstanding at the greenhouse door, \"don't break--don't spoil\"--what?\nSomething infinitely wonderful.\n\nBut then, this is only a young woman's language, one, too, who loves, or\nrefrains from loving. She wished the moment to continue for ever\nprecisely as it was that July morning. And moments don't. Now, for\ninstance, Jacob was telling a story about some walking tour he'd taken,\nand the inn was called \"The Foaming Pot,\" which, considering the\nlandlady's name ... They shouted with laughter. The joke was indecent.\n\nThen Julia Eliot said \"the silent young man,\" and as she dined with\nPrime Ministers, no doubt she meant: \"If he is going to get on in the\nworld, he will have to find his tongue.\"\n\nTimothy Durrant never made any comment at all.\n\nThe housemaid found herself very liberally rewarded.\n\nMr. Sopwith's opinion was as sentimental as Clara's, though far more\nskilfully expressed.\n\nBetty Flanders was romantic about Archer and tender about John; she was\nunreasonably irritated by Jacob's clumsiness in the house.\n\nCaptain Barfoot liked him best of the boys; but as for saying why ...\n\nIt seems then that men and women are equally at fault. It seems that a\nprofound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures\nis utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are\ncold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any\ncase life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that\nwe embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being\nshadows. And why, if this--and much more than this is true, why are we\nyet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man\nin the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most\nsolid, the best known to us--why indeed? For the moment after we know\nnothing about him.\n\nSuch is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love.\n\n(\"I'm twenty-two. It's nearly the end of October. Life is thoroughly\npleasant, although unfortunately there are a great number of fools\nabout. One must apply oneself to something or other--God knows what.\nEverything is really very jolly--except getting up in the morning and\nwearing a tail coat.\")\n\n\"I say, Bonamy, what about Beethoven?\"\n\n(\"Bonamy is an amazing fellow. He knows practically everything--not more\nabout English literature than I do--but then he's read all those\nFrenchmen.\")\n\n\"I rather suspect you're talking rot, Bonamy. In spite of what you say,\npoor old Tennyson....\"\n\n(\"The truth is one ought to have been taught French. Now, I suppose, old\nBarfoot is talking to my mother. That's an odd affair to be sure. But I\ncan't see Bonamy down there. Damn London!\") for the market carts were\nlumbering down the street.\n\n\"What about a walk on Saturday?\"\n\n(\"What's happening on Saturday?\")\n\nThen, taking out his pocket-book, he assured himself that the night of\nthe Durrants' party came next week.\n\nBut though all this may very well be true--so Jacob thought and\nspoke--so he crossed his legs--filled his pipe--sipped his whisky, and\nonce looked at his pocket-book, rumpling his hair as he did so, there\nremains over something which can never be conveyed to a second person\nsave by Jacob himself. Moreover, part of this is not Jacob but Richard\nBonamy--the room; the market carts; the hour; the very moment of\nhistory. Then consider the effect of sex--how between man and woman it\nhangs wavy, tremulous, so that here's a valley, there's a peak, when in\ntruth, perhaps, all's as flat as my hand. Even the exact words get the\nwrong accent on them. But something is always impelling one to hum\nvibrating, like the hawk moth, at the mouth of the cavern of mystery,\nendowing Jacob Flanders with all sorts of qualities he had not at\nall--for though, certainly, he sat talking to Bonamy, half of what he\nsaid was too dull to repeat; much unintelligible (about unknown people\nand Parliament); what remains is mostly a matter of guess work. Yet over\nhim we hang vibrating.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Captain Barfoot, knocking out his pipe on Betty Flanders's\nhob, and buttoning his coat. \"It doubles the work, but I don't mind\nthat.\"\n\nHe was now town councillor. They looked at the night, which was the same\nas the London night, only a good deal more transparent. Church bells\ndown in the town were striking eleven o'clock. The wind was off the sea.\nAnd all the bedroom windows were dark--the Pages were asleep; the\nGarfits were asleep; the Cranches were asleep--whereas in London at this\nhour they were burning Guy Fawkes on Parliament Hill.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SIX\n\n\nThe flames had fairly caught.\n\n\"There's St. Paul's!\" some one cried.\n\nAs the wood caught the city of London was lit up for a second; on other\nsides of the fire there were trees. Of the faces which came out fresh\nand vivid as though painted in yellow and red, the most prominent was a\ngirl's face. By a trick of the firelight she seemed to have no body. The\noval of the face and hair hung beside the fire with a dark vacuum for\nbackground. As if dazed by the glare, her green-blue eyes stared at the\nflames. Every muscle of her face was taut. There was something tragic in\nher thus staring--her age between twenty and twenty-five.\n\nA hand descending from the chequered darkness thrust on her head the\nconical white hat of a pierrot. Shaking her head, she still stared. A\nwhiskered face appeared above her. They dropped two legs of a table upon\nthe fire and a scattering of twigs and leaves. All this blazed up and\nshowed faces far back, round, pale, smooth, bearded, some with billycock\nhats on; all intent; showed too St. Paul's floating on the uneven white\nmist, and two or three narrow, paper-white, extinguisher-shaped spires.\n\nThe flames were struggling through the wood and roaring up when,\ngoodness knows where from, pails flung water in beautiful hollow shapes,\nas of polished tortoiseshell; flung again and again; until the hiss was\nlike a swarm of bees; and all the faces went out.\n\n\"Oh Jacob,\" said the girl, as they pounded up the hill in the dark, \"I'm\nso frightfully unhappy!\"\n\nShouts of laughter came from the others--high, low; some before, others\nafter.\n\nThe hotel dining-room was brightly lit. A stag's head in plaster was at\none end of the table; at the other some Roman bust blackened and\nreddened to represent Guy Fawkes, whose night it was. The diners were\nlinked together by lengths of paper roses, so that when it came to\nsinging \"Auld Lang Syne\" with their hands crossed a pink and yellow line\nrose and fell the entire length of the table. There was an enormous\ntapping of green wine-glasses. A young man stood up, and Florinda,\ntaking one of the purplish globes that lay on the table, flung it\nstraight at his head. It crushed to powder.\n\n\"I'm so frightfully unhappy!\" she said, turning to Jacob, who sat beside\nher.\n\nThe table ran, as if on invisible legs, to the side of the room, and a\nbarrel organ decorated with a red cloth and two pots of paper flowers\nreeled out waltz music.\n\nJacob could not dance. He stood against the wall smoking a pipe.\n\n\"We think,\" said two of the dancers, breaking off from the rest, and\nbowing profoundly before him, \"that you are the most beautiful man we\nhave ever seen.\"\n\nSo they wreathed his head with paper flowers. Then somebody brought out\na white and gilt chair and made him sit on it. As they passed, people\nhung glass grapes on his shoulders, until he looked like the figure-head\nof a wrecked ship. Then Florinda got upon his knee and hid her face in\nhis waistcoat. With one hand he held her; with the other, his pipe.\n\n\"Now let us talk,\" said Jacob, as he walked down Haverstock Hill between\nfour and five o'clock in the morning of November the sixth arm-in-arm\nwith Timmy Durrant, \"about something sensible.\"\n\nThe Greeks--yes, that was what they talked about--how when all's said\nand done, when one's rinsed one's mouth with every literature in the\nworld, including Chinese and Russian (but these Slavs aren't civilized),\nit's the flavour of Greek that remains. Durrant quoted Aeschylus--Jacob\nSophocles. It is true that no Greek could have understood or professor\nrefrained from pointing out--Never mind; what is Greek for if not to be\nshouted on Haverstock Hill in the dawn? Moreover, Durrant never listened\nto Sophocles, nor Jacob to Aeschylus. They were boastful, triumphant; it\nseemed to both that they had read every book in the world; known every\nsin, passion, and joy. Civilizations stood round them like flowers ready\nfor picking. Ages lapped at their feet like waves fit for sailing. And\nsurveying all this, looming through the fog, the lamplight, the shades\nof London, the two young men decided in favour of Greece.\n\n\"Probably,\" said Jacob, \"we are the only people in the world who know\nwhat the Greeks meant.\"\n\nThey drank coffee at a stall where the urns were burnished and little\nlamps burnt along the counter.\n\nTaking Jacob for a military gentleman, the stall-keeper told him about\nhis boy at Gibraltar, and Jacob cursed the British army and praised the\nDuke of Wellington. So on again they went down the hill talking about\nthe Greeks.\n\nA strange thing--when you come to think of it--this love of Greek,\nflourishing in such obscurity, distorted, discouraged, yet leaping out,\nall of a sudden, especially on leaving crowded rooms, or after a surfeit\nof print, or when the moon floats among the waves of the hills, or in\nhollow, sallow, fruitless London days, like a specific; a clean blade;\nalways a miracle. Jacob knew no more Greek than served him to stumble\nthrough a play. Of ancient history he knew nothing. However, as he\ntramped into London it seemed to him that they were making the\nflagstones ring on the road to the Acropolis, and that if Socrates saw\nthem coming he would bestir himself and say \"my fine fellows,\" for the\nwhole sentiment of Athens was entirely after his heart; free,\nventuresome, high-spirited.... She had called him Jacob without asking\nhis leave. She had sat upon his knee. Thus did all good women in the\ndays of the Greeks.\n\nAt this moment there shook out into the air a wavering, quavering,\ndoleful lamentation which seemed to lack strength to unfold itself, and\nyet flagged on; at the sound of which doors in back streets burst\nsullenly open; workmen stumped forth.\n\nFlorinda was sick.\n\nMrs. Durrant, sleepless as usual, scored a mark by the side of certain\nlines in the Inferno.\n\nClara slept buried in her pillows; on her dressing-table dishevelled\nroses and a pair of long white gloves.\n\nStill wearing the conical white hat of a pierrot, Florinda was sick.\n\nThe bedroom seemed fit for these catastrophes--cheap, mustard-coloured,\nhalf attic, half studio, curiously ornamented with silver paper stars,\nWelshwomen's hats, and rosaries pendent from the gas brackets. As for\nFlorinda's story, her name had been bestowed upon her by a painter who\nhad wished it to signify that the flower of her maidenhood was still\nunplucked. Be that as it may, she was without a surname, and for parents\nhad only the photograph of a tombstone beneath which, she said, her\nfather lay buried. Sometimes she would dwell upon the size of it, and\nrumour had it that Florinda's father had died from the growth of his\nbones which nothing could stop; just as her mother enjoyed the\nconfidence of a Royal master, and now and again Florinda herself was a\nPrincess, but chiefly when drunk. Thus deserted, pretty into the\nbargain, with tragic eyes and the lips of a child, she talked more about\nvirginity than women mostly do; and had lost it only the night before,\nor cherished it beyond the heart in her breast, according to the man she\ntalked to. But did she always talk to men? No, she had her confidante:\nMother Stuart. Stuart, as the lady would point out, is the name of a\nRoyal house; but what that signified, and what her business way, no one\nknew; only that Mrs. Stuart got postal orders every Monday morning, kept\na parrot, believed in the transmigration of souls, and could read the\nfuture in tea leaves. Dirty lodging-house wallpaper she was behind the\nchastity of Florinda.\n\nNow Florinda wept, and spent the day wandering the streets; stood at\nChelsea watching the river swim past; trailed along the shopping\nstreets; opened her bag and powdered her cheeks in omnibuses; read love\nletters, propping them against the milk pot in the A.B.C. shop; detected\nglass in the sugar bowl; accused the waitress of wishing to poison her;\ndeclared that young men stared at her; and found herself towards evening\nslowly sauntering down Jacob's street, when it struck her that she liked\nthat man Jacob better than dirty Jews, and sitting at his table (he was\ncopying his essay upon the Ethics of Indecency), drew off her gloves and\ntold him how Mother Stuart had banged her on the head with the tea-cosy.\n\nJacob took her word for it that she was chaste. She prattled, sitting by\nthe fireside, of famous painters. The tomb of her father was mentioned.\nWild and frail and beautiful she looked, and thus the women of the\nGreeks were, Jacob thought; and this was life; and himself a man and\nFlorinda chaste.\n\nShe left with one of Shelley's poems beneath her arm. Mrs. Stuart, she\nsaid, often talked of him.\n\nMarvellous are the innocent. To believe that the girl herself transcends\nall lies (for Jacob was not such a fool as to believe implicitly), to\nwonder enviously at the unanchored life--his own seeming petted and even\ncloistered in comparison--to have at hand as sovereign specifics for all\ndisorders of the soul Adonais and the plays of Shakespeare; to figure\nout a comradeship all spirited on her side, protective on his, yet equal\non both, for women, thought Jacob, are just the same as men--innocence\nsuch as this is marvellous enough, and perhaps not so foolish after all.\n\nFor when Florinda got home that night she first washed her head; then\nate chocolate creams; then opened Shelley. True, she was horribly bored.\nWhat on earth was it ABOUT? She had to wager with herself that she would\nturn the page before she ate another. In fact she slept. But then her\nday had been a long one, Mother Stuart had thrown the tea-cosy;--there\nare formidable sights in the streets, and though Florinda was ignorant\nas an owl, and would never learn to read even her love letters\ncorrectly, still she had her feelings, liked some men better than\nothers, and was entirely at the beck and call of life. Whether or not\nshe was a virgin seems a matter of no importance whatever. Unless,\nindeed, it is the only thing of any importance at all.\n\nJacob was restless when she left him.\n\nAll night men and women seethed up and down the well-known beats. Late\nhome-comers could see shadows against the blinds even in the most\nrespectable suburbs. Not a square in snow or fog lacked its amorous\ncouple. All plays turned on the same subject. Bullets went through heads\nin hotel bedrooms almost nightly on that account. When the body escaped\nmutilation, seldom did the heart go to the grave unscarred. Little else\nwas talked of in theatres and popular novels. Yet we say it is a matter\nof no importance at all.\n\nWhat with Shakespeare and Adonais, Mozart and Bishop Berkeley--choose\nwhom you like--the fact is concealed and the evenings for most of us\npass reputably, or with only the sort of tremor that a snake makes\nsliding through the grass. But then concealment by itself distracts the\nmind from the print and the sound. If Florinda had had a mind, she might\nhave read with clearer eyes than we can. She and her sort have solved\nthe question by turning it to a trifle of washing the hands nightly\nbefore going to bed, the only difficulty being whether you prefer your\nwater hot or cold, which being settled, the mind can go about its\nbusiness unassailed.\n\nBut it did occur to Jacob, half-way through dinner, to wonder whether\nshe had a mind.\n\nThey sat at a little table in the restaurant.\n\nFlorinda leant the points of her elbows on the table and held her chin\nin the cup of her hands. Her cloak had slipped behind her. Gold and\nwhite with bright beads on her she emerged, her face flowering from her\nbody, innocent, scarcely tinted, the eyes gazing frankly about her, or\nslowly settling on Jacob and resting there. She talked:\n\n\"You know that big black box the Australian left in my room ever so long\nago? ... I do think furs make a woman look old.... That's Bechstein come\nin now.... I was wondering what you looked like when you were a little\nboy, Jacob.\" She nibbled her roll and looked at him.\n\n\"Jacob. You're like one of those statues.... I think there are lovely\nthings in the British Museum, don't you? Lots of lovely things ...\" she\nspoke dreamily. The room was filling; the heat increasing. Talk in a\nrestaurant is dazed sleep-walkers' talk, so many things to look at--so\nmuch noise--other people talking. Can one overhear? Oh, but they mustn't\noverhear US.\n\n\"That's like Ellen Nagle--that girl ...\" and so on.\n\n\"I'm awfully happy since I've known you, Jacob. You're such a GOOD man.\"\n\nThe room got fuller and fuller; talk louder; knives more clattering.\n\n\"Well, you see what makes her say things like that is ...\"\n\nShe stopped. So did every one.\n\n\"To-morrow ... Sunday ... a beastly ... you tell me ... go then!\" Crash!\nAnd out she swept.\n\nIt was at the table next them that the voice spun higher and higher.\nSuddenly the woman dashed the plates to the floor. The man was left\nthere. Everybody stared. Then--\"Well, poor chap, we mustn't sit staring.\nWhat a go! Did you hear what she said? By God, he looks a fool! Didn't\ncome up to the scratch, I suppose. All the mustard on the tablecloth.\nThe waiters laughing.\"\n\nJacob observed Florinda. In her face there seemed to him something\nhorribly brainless--as she sat staring.\n\nOut she swept, the black woman with the dancing feather in her hat.\n\nYet she had to go somewhere. The night is not a tumultuous black ocean\nin which you sink or sail as a star. As a matter of fact it was a wet\nNovember night. The lamps of Soho made large greasy spots of light upon\nthe pavement. The by-streets were dark enough to shelter man or woman\nleaning against the doorways. One detached herself as Jacob and Florinda\napproached.\n\n\"She's dropped her glove,\" said Florinda.\n\nJacob, pressing forward, gave it her.\n\nEffusively she thanked him; retraced her steps; dropped her glove again.\nBut why? For whom? Meanwhile, where had the other woman got to? And the\nman?\n\nThe street lamps do not carry far enough to tell us. The voices, angry,\nlustful, despairing, passionate, were scarcely more than the voices of\ncaged beasts at night. Only they are not caged, nor beasts. Stop a man;\nask him the way; he'll tell it you; but one's afraid to ask him the way.\nWhat does one fear?--the human eye. At once the pavement narrows, the\nchasm deepens. There! They've melted into it--both man and woman.\nFurther on, blatantly advertising its meritorious solidity, a\nboarding-house exhibits behind uncurtained windows its testimony to the\nsoundness of London. There they sit, plainly illuminated, dressed like\nladies and gentlemen, in bamboo chairs. The widows of business men prove\nlaboriously that they are related to judges. The wives of coal merchants\ninstantly retort that their fathers kept coachmen. A servant brings\ncoffee, and the crochet basket has to be moved. And so on again into the\ndark, passing a girl here for sale, or there an old woman with only\nmatches to offer, passing the crowd from the Tube station, the women\nwith veiled hair, passing at length no one but shut doors, carved\ndoor-posts, and a solitary policeman, Jacob, with Florinda on his arm,\nreached his room and, lighting the lamp, said nothing at all.\n\n\"I don't like you when you look like that,\" said Florinda.\n\nThe problem is insoluble. The body is harnessed to a brain. Beauty goes\nhand in hand with stupidity. There she sat staring at the fire as she\nhad stared at the broken mustard-pot. In spite of defending indecency,\nJacob doubted whether he liked it in the raw. He had a violent reversion\ntowards male society, cloistered rooms, and the works of the classics;\nand was ready to turn with wrath upon whoever it was who had fashioned\nlife thus.\n\nThen Florinda laid her hand upon his knee.\n\nAfter all, it was none of her fault. But the thought saddened him. It's\nnot catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's\nthe way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.\n\nAny excuse, though, serves a stupid woman. He told her his head ached.\n\nBut when she looked at him, dumbly, half-guessing, half-understanding,\napologizing perhaps, anyhow saying as he had said, \"It's none of my\nfault,\" straight and beautiful in body, her face like a shell within its\ncap, then he knew that cloisters and classics are no use whatever. The\nproblem is insoluble.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN\n\n\nAbout this time a firm of merchants having dealings with the East put on\nthe market little paper flowers which opened on touching water. As it\nwas the custom also to use finger-bowls at the end of dinner, the new\ndiscovery was found of excellent service. In these sheltered lakes the\nlittle coloured flowers swam and slid; surmounted smooth slippery waves,\nand sometimes foundered and lay like pebbles on the glass floor. Their\nfortunes were watched by eyes intent and lovely. It is surely a great\ndiscovery that leads to the union of hearts and foundation of homes. The\npaper flowers did no less.\n\nIt must not be thought, though, that they ousted the flowers of nature.\nRoses, lilies, carnations in particular, looked over the rims of vases\nand surveyed the bright lives and swift dooms of their artificial\nrelations. Mr. Stuart Ormond made this very observation; and charming it\nwas thought; and Kitty Craster married him on the strength of it six\nmonths later. But real flowers can never be dispensed with. If they\ncould, human life would be a different affair altogether. For flowers\nfade; chrysanthemums are the worst; perfect over night; yellow and jaded\nnext morning--not fit to be seen. On the whole, though the price is\nsinful, carnations pay best;--it's a question, however, whether it's\nwise to have them wired. Some shops advise it. Certainly it's the only\nway to keep them at a dance; but whether it is necessary at dinner\nparties, unless the rooms are very hot, remains in dispute. Old Mrs.\nTemple used to recommend an ivy leaf--just one--dropped into the bowl.\nShe said it kept the water pure for days and days. But there is some\nreason to think that old Mrs. Temple was mistaken.\n\nThe little cards, however, with names engraved on them, are a more\nserious problem than the flowers. More horses' legs have been worn out,\nmore coachmen's lives consumed, more hours of sound afternoon time\nvainly lavished than served to win us the battle of Waterloo, and pay\nfor it into the bargain. The little demons are the source of as many\nreprieves, calamities, and anxieties as the battle itself. Sometimes\nMrs. Bonham has just gone out; at others she is at home. But, even if\nthe cards should be superseded, which seems unlikely, there are unruly\npowers blowing life into storms, disordering sedulous mornings, and\nuprooting the stability of the afternoon--dressmakers, that is to say,\nand confectioners' shops. Six yards of silk will cover one body; but if\nyou have to devise six hundred shapes for it, and twice as many\ncolours?--in the middle of which there is the urgent question of the\npudding with tufts of green cream and battlements of almond paste. It\nhas not arrived.\n\nThe flamingo hours fluttered softly through the sky. But regularly they\ndipped their wings in pitch black; Notting Hill, for instance, or the\npurlieus of Clerkenwell. No wonder that Italian remained a hidden art,\nand the piano always played the same sonata. In order to buy one pair of\nelastic stockings for Mrs. Page, widow, aged sixty-three, in receipt of\nfive shillings out-door relief, and help from her only son employed in\nMessrs. Mackie's dye-works, suffering in winter with his chest, letters\nmust be written, columns filled up in the same round, simple hand that\nwrote in Mr. Letts's diary how the weather was fine, the children\ndemons, and Jacob Flanders unworldly. Clara Durrant procured the\nstockings, played the sonata, filled the vases, fetched the pudding,\nleft the cards, and when the great invention of paper flowers to swim in\nfinger-bowls was discovered, was one of those who most marvelled at\ntheir brief lives.\n\nNor were there wanting poets to celebrate the theme. Edwin Mallett, for\nexample, wrote his verses ending:\n\n/*\nAnd read their doom in Chloe's eyes,\n*/\n\nwhich caused Clara to blush at the first reading, and to laugh at the\nsecond, saying that it was just like him to call her Chloe when her name\nwas Clara. Ridiculous young man! But when, between ten and eleven on a\nrainy morning, Edwin Mallett laid his life at her feet she ran out of\nthe room and hid herself in her bedroom, and Timothy below could not get\non with his work all that morning on account of her sobs.\n\n\"Which is the result of enjoying yourself,\" said Mrs. Durrant severely,\nsurveying the dance programme all scored with the same initials, or\nrather they were different ones this time--R.B. instead of E.M.; Richard\nBonamy it was now, the young man with the Wellington nose.\n\n\"But I could never marry a man with a nose like that,\" said Clara.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Mrs. Durrant.\n\n\"But I am too severe,\" she thought to herself. For Clara, losing all\nvivacity, tore up her dance programme and threw it in the fender.\n\nSuch were the very serious consequences of the invention of paper\nflowers to swim in bowls.\n\n\"Please,\" said Julia Eliot, taking up her position by the curtain almost\nopposite the door, \"don't introduce me. I like to look on. The amusing\nthing,\" she went on, addressing Mr. Salvin, who, owing to his lameness,\nwas accommodated with a chair, \"the amusing thing about a party is to\nwatch the people--coming and going, coming and going.\"\n\n\"Last time we met,\" said Mr. Salvin, \"was at the Farquhars. Poor lady!\nShe has much to put up with.\"\n\n\"Doesn't she look charming?\" exclaimed Miss Eliot, as Clara Durrant\npassed them.\n\n\"And which of them...?\" asked Mr. Salvin, dropping his voice and\nspeaking in quizzical tones.\n\n\"There are so many ...\" Miss Eliot replied. Three young men stood at the\ndoorway looking about for their hostess.\n\n\"You don't remember Elizabeth as I do,\" said Mr. Salvin, \"dancing\nHighland reels at Banchorie. Clara lacks her mother's spirit. Clara is a\nlittle pale.\"\n\n\"What different people one sees here!\" said Miss Eliot.\n\n\"Happily we are not governed by the evening papers,\" said Mr. Salvin.\n\n\"I never read them,\" said Miss Eliot. \"I know nothing about politics,\"\nshe added.\n\n\"The piano is in tune,\" said Clara, passing them, \"but we may have to\nask some one to move it for us.\"\n\n\"Are they going to dance?\" asked Mr. Salvin.\n\n\"Nobody shall disturb you,\" said Mrs. Durrant peremptorily as she\npassed.\n\n\"Julia Eliot. It IS Julia Eliot!\" said old Lady Hibbert, holding out\nboth her hands. \"And Mr. Salvin. What is going to happen to us, Mr.\nSalvin? With all my experience of English politics--My dear, I was\nthinking of your father last night--one of my oldest friends, Mr.\nSalvin. Never tell me that girls often are incapable of love! I had all\nShakespeare by heart before I was in my teens, Mr. Salvin!\"\n\n\"You don't say so,\" said Mr. Salvin.\n\n\"But I do,\" said Lady Hibbert.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Salvin, I'm so sorry....\"\n\n\"I will remove myself if you'll kindly lend me a hand,\" said Mr. Salvin.\n\n\"You shall sit by my mother,\" said Clara. \"Everybody seems to come in\nhere.... Mr. Calthorp, let me introduce you to Miss Edwards.\"\n\n\"Are you going away for Christmas?\" said Mr. Calthorp.\n\n\"If my brother gets his leave,\" said Miss Edwards.\n\n\"What regiment is he in?\" said Mr. Calthorp.\n\n\"The Twentieth Hussars,\" said Miss Edwards.\n\n\"Perhaps he knows my brother?\" said Mr. Calthorp.\n\n\"I am afraid I did not catch your name,\" said Miss Edwards.\n\n\"Calthorp,\" said Mr. Calthorp.\n\n\"But what proof was there that the marriage service was actually\nperformed?\" said Mr. Crosby.\n\n\"There is no reason to doubt that Charles James Fox ...\" Mr. Burley\nbegan; but here Mrs. Stretton told him that she knew his sister well;\nhad stayed with her not six weeks ago; and thought the house charming,\nbut bleak in winter.\n\n\"Going about as girls do nowadays--\" said Mrs. Forster.\n\nMr. Bowley looked round him, and catching sight of Rose Shaw moved\ntowards her, threw out his hands, and exclaimed: \"Well!\"\n\n\"Nothing!\" she replied. \"Nothing at all--though I left them alone the\nentire afternoon on purpose.\"\n\n\"Dear me, dear me,\" said Mr. Bowley. \"I will ask Jimmy to breakfast.\"\n\n\"But who could resist her?\" cried Rose Shaw. \"Dearest Clara--I know we\nmustn't try to stop you...\"\n\n\"You and Mr. Bowley are talking dreadful gossip, I know,\" said Clara.\n\n\"Life is wicked--life is detestable!\" cried Rose Shaw.\n\n\"There's not much to be said for this sort of thing, is there?\" said\nTimothy Durrant to Jacob.\n\n\"Women like it.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" said Charlotte Wilding, coming up to them.\n\n\"Where have you come from?\" said Timothy. \"Dining somewhere, I suppose.\"\n\n\"I don't see why not,\" said Charlotte.\n\n\"People must go downstairs,\" said Clara, passing. \"Take Charlotte,\nTimothy. How d'you do, Mr. Flanders.\"\n\n\"How d'you do, Mr. Flanders,\" said Julia Eliot, holding out her hand.\n\"What's been happening to you?\"\n\n/*\n\"Who is Silvia? what is she?\nThat all our swains commend her?\"\n*/\n\nsang Elsbeth Siddons.\n\nEvery one stood where they were, or sat down if a chair was empty.\n\n\"Ah,\" sighed Clara, who stood beside Jacob, half-way through.\n\n/*\n\"Then to Silvia let us sing,\n That Silvia is excelling;\n She excels each mortal thing\n Upon the dull earth dwelling.\n To her let us garlands bring,\"\n*/\n\nsang Elsbeth Siddons.\n\n\"Ah!\" Clara exclaimed out loud, and clapped her gloved hands; and Jacob\nclapped his bare ones; and then she moved forward and directed people to\ncome in from the doorway.\n\n\"You are living in London?\" asked Miss Julia Eliot.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"In rooms?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"There is Mr. Clutterbuck. You always see Mr. Clutterbuck here. He is\nnot very happy at home, I am afraid. They say that Mrs. Clutterbuck ...\"\nshe dropped her voice. \"That's why he stays with the Durrants. Were you\nthere when they acted Mr. Wortley's play? Oh, no, of course not--at the\nlast moment, did you hear--you had to go to join your mother, I\nremember, at Harrogate--At the last moment, as I was saying, just as\neverything was ready, the clothes finished and everything--Now Elsbeth\nis going to sing again. Clara is playing her accompaniment or turning\nover for Mr. Carter, I think. No, Mr. Carter is playing by himself--This\nis BACH,\" she whispered, as Mr. Carter played the first bars.\n\n\"Are you fond of music?\" said Mr. Durrant.\n\n\"Yes. I like hearing it,\" said Jacob. \"I know nothing about it.\"\n\n\"Very few people do that,\" said Mrs. Durrant. \"I daresay you were never\ntaught. Why is that, Sir Jasper?--Sir Jasper Bigham--Mr. Flanders. Why\nis nobody taught anything that they ought to know, Sir Jasper?\" She left\nthem standing against the wall.\n\nNeither of the gentlemen said anything for three minutes, though Jacob\nshifted perhaps five inches to the left, and then as many to the right.\nThen Jacob grunted, and suddenly crossed the room.\n\n\"Will you come and have something to eat?\" he said to Clara Durrant.\n\n\"Yes, an ice. Quickly. Now,\" she said.\n\nDownstairs they went.\n\nBut half-way down they met Mr. and Mrs. Gresham, Herbert Turner, Sylvia\nRashleigh, and a friend, whom they had dared to bring, from America,\n\"knowing that Mrs. Durrant--wishing to show Mr. Pilcher.--Mr. Pilcher\nfrom New York--This is Miss Durrant.\"\n\n\"Whom I have heard so much of,\" said Mr. Pilcher, bowing low.\n\nSo Clara left him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT\n\n\nAbout half-past nine Jacob left the house, his door slamming, other\ndoors slamming, buying his paper, mounting his omnibus, or, weather\npermitting, walking his road as other people do. Head bent down, a desk,\na telephone, books bound in green leather, electric light.... \"Fresh\ncoals, sir?\" ... \"Your tea, sir.\"... Talk about football, the Hotspurs,\nthe Harlequins; six-thirty Star brought in by the office boy; the rooks\nof Gray's Inn passing overhead; branches in the fog thin and brittle;\nand through the roar of traffic now and again a voice shouting:\n\"Verdict--verdict--winner--winner,\" while letters accumulate in a\nbasket, Jacob signs them, and each evening finds him, as he takes his\ncoat down, with some muscle of the brain new stretched.\n\nThen, sometimes a game of chess; or pictures in Bond Street, or a long\nway home to take the air with Bonamy on his arm, meditatively marching,\nhead thrown back, the world a spectacle, the early moon above the\nsteeples coming in for praise, the sea-gulls flying high, Nelson on his\ncolumn surveying the horizon, and the world our ship.\n\nMeanwhile, poor Betty Flanders's letter, having caught the second post,\nlay on the hall table--poor Betty Flanders writing her son's name, Jacob\nAlan Flanders, Esq., as mothers do, and the ink pale, profuse,\nsuggesting how mothers down at Scarborough scribble over the fire with\ntheir feet on the fender, when tea's cleared away, and can never, never\nsay, whatever it may be--probably this--Don't go with bad women, do be a\ngood boy; wear your thick shirts; and come back, come back, come back to\nme.\n\nBut she said nothing of the kind. \"Do you remember old Miss Wargrave,\nwho used to be so kind when you had the whooping-cough?\" she wrote;\n\"she's dead at last, poor thing. They would like it if you wrote. Ellen\ncame over and we spent a nice day shopping. Old Mouse gets very stiff,\nand we have to walk him up the smallest hill. Rebecca, at last, after I\ndon't know how long, went into Mr. Adamson's. Three teeth, he says, must\ncome out. Such mild weather for the time of year, the little buds\nactually on the pear trees. And Mrs. Jarvis tells me--\"Mrs. Flanders\nliked Mrs. Jarvis, always said of her that she was too good for such a\nquiet place, and, though she never listened to her discontent and told\nher at the end of it (looking up, sucking her thread, or taking off her\nspectacles) that a little peat wrapped round the iris roots keeps them\nfrom the frost, and Parrot's great white sale is Tuesday next, \"do\nremember,\"--Mrs. Flanders knew precisely how Mrs. Jarvis felt; and how\ninteresting her letters were, about Mrs. Jarvis, could one read them\nyear in, year out--the unpublished works of women, written by the\nfireside in pale profusion, dried by the flame, for the blotting-paper's\nworn to holes and the nib cleft and clotted. Then Captain Barfoot. Him\nshe called \"the Captain,\" spoke of frankly, yet never without reserve.\nThe Captain was enquiring for her about Garfit's acre; advised chickens;\ncould promise profit; or had the sciatica; or Mrs. Barfoot had been\nindoors for weeks; or the Captain says things look bad, politics that\nis, for as Jacob knew, the Captain would sometimes talk, as the evening\nwaned, about Ireland or India; and then Mrs. Flanders would fall musing\nabout Morty, her brother, lost all these years--had the natives got him,\nwas his ship sunk--would the Admiralty tell her?--the Captain knocking\nhis pipe out, as Jacob knew, rising to go, stiffly stretching to pick up\nMrs. Flanders's wool which had rolled beneath the chair. Talk of the\nchicken farm came back and back, the women, even at fifty, impulsive at\nheart, sketching on the cloudy future flocks of Leghorns, Cochin Chinas,\nOrpingtons; like Jacob in the blur of her outline; but powerful as he\nwas; fresh and vigorous, running about the house, scolding Rebecca.\n\nThe letter lay upon the hall table; Florinda coming in that night took\nit up with her, put it on the table as she kissed Jacob, and Jacob\nseeing the hand, left it there under the lamp, between the biscuit-tin\nand the tobacco-box. They shut the bedroom door behind them.\n\nThe sitting-room neither knew nor cared. The door was shut; and to\nsuppose that wood, when it creaks, transmits anything save that rats are\nbusy and wood dry is childish. These old houses are only brick and wood,\nsoaked in human sweat, grained with human dirt. But if the pale blue\nenvelope lying by the biscuit-box had the feelings of a mother, the\nheart was torn by the little creak, the sudden stir. Behind the door was\nthe obscene thing, the alarming presence, and terror would come over her\nas at death, or the birth of a child. Better, perhaps, burst in and face\nit than sit in the antechamber listening to the little creak, the sudden\nstir, for her heart was swollen, and pain threaded it. My son, my\nson--such would be her cry, uttered to hide her vision of him stretched\nwith Florinda, inexcusable, irrational, in a woman with three children\nliving at Scarborough. And the fault lay with Florinda. Indeed, when the\ndoor opened and the couple came out, Mrs. Flanders would have flounced\nupon her--only it was Jacob who came first, in his dressing-gown,\namiable, authoritative, beautifully healthy, like a baby after an\nairing, with an eye clear as running water. Florinda followed, lazily\nstretching; yawning a little; arranging her hair at the\nlooking-glass--while Jacob read his mother's letter.\n\nLet us consider letters--how they come at breakfast, and at night, with\ntheir yellow stamps and their green stamps, immortalized by the\npostmark--for to see one's own envelope on another's table is to realize\nhow soon deeds sever and become alien. Then at last the power of the\nmind to quit the body is manifest, and perhaps we fear or hate or wish\nannihilated this phantom of ourselves, lying on the table. Still, there\nare letters that merely say how dinner's at seven; others ordering coal;\nmaking appointments. The hand in them is scarcely perceptible, let alone\nthe voice or the scowl. Ah, but when the post knocks and the letter\ncomes always the miracle seems repeated--speech attempted. Venerable are\nletters, infinitely brave, forlorn, and lost.\n\nLife would split asunder without them. \"Come to tea, come to dinner,\nwhat's the truth of the story? have you heard the news? life in the\ncapital is gay; the Russian dancers....\" These are our stays and props.\nThese lace our days together and make of life a perfect globe. And yet,\nand yet ... when we go to dinner, when pressing finger-tips we hope to\nmeet somewhere soon, a doubt insinuates itself; is this the way to spend\nour days? the rare, the limited, so soon dealt out to us--drinking tea?\ndining out? And the notes accumulate. And the telephones ring. And\neverywhere we go wires and tubes surround us to carry the voices that\ntry to penetrate before the last card is dealt and the days are over.\n\"Try to penetrate,\" for as we lift the cup, shake the hand, express the\nhope, something whispers, Is this all? Can I never know, share, be\ncertain? Am I doomed all my days to write letters, send voices, which\nfall upon the tea-table, fade upon the passage, making appointments,\nwhile life dwindles, to come and dine? Yet letters are venerable; and\nthe telephone valiant, for the journey is a lonely one, and if bound\ntogether by notes and telephones we went in company, perhaps--who\nknows?--we might talk by the way.\n\nWell, people have tried. Byron wrote letters. So did Cowper. For\ncenturies the writing-desk has contained sheets fit precisely for the\ncommunications of friends. Masters of language, poets of long ages, have\nturned from the sheet that endures to the sheet that perishes, pushing\naside the tea-tray, drawing close to the fire (for letters are written\nwhen the dark presses round a bright red cave), and addressed themselves\nto the task of reaching, touching, penetrating the individual heart.\nWere it possible! But words have been used too often; touched and\nturned, and left exposed to the dust of the street. The words we seek\nhang close to the tree. We come at dawn and find them sweet beneath the\nleaf.\n\nMrs. Flanders wrote letters; Mrs. Jarvis wrote them; Mrs. Durrant too;\nMother Stuart actually scented her pages, thereby adding a flavour which\nthe English language fails to provide; Jacob had written in his day long\nletters about art, morality, and politics to young men at college. Clara\nDurrant's letters were those of a child. Florinda--the impediment\nbetween Florinda and her pen was something impassable. Fancy a\nbutterfly, gnat, or other winged insect, attached to a twig which,\nclogged with mud, it rolls across a page. Her spelling was abominable.\nHer sentiments infantile. And for some reason when she wrote she\ndeclared her belief in God. Then there were crosses--tear stains; and\nthe hand itself rambling and redeemed only by the fact--which always did\nredeem Florinda--by the fact that she cared. Yes, whether it was for\nchocolate creams, hot baths, the shape of her face in the looking-glass,\nFlorinda could no more pretend a feeling than swallow whisky.\nIncontinent was her rejection. Great men are truthful, and these little\nprostitutes, staring in the fire, taking out a powder-puff, decorating\nlips at an inch of looking-glass, have (so Jacob thought) an inviolable\nfidelity.\n\nThen he saw her turning up Greek Street upon another man's arm.\n\nThe light from the arc lamp drenched him from head to toe. He stood for\na minute motionless beneath it. Shadows chequered the street. Other\nfigures, single and together, poured out, wavered across, and\nobliterated Florinda and the man.\n\nThe light drenched Jacob from head to toe. You could see the pattern on\nhis trousers; the old thorns on his stick; his shoe laces; bare hands;\nand face.\n\nIt was as if a stone were ground to dust; as if white sparks flew from a\nlivid whetstone, which was his spine; as if the switchback railway,\nhaving swooped to the depths, fell, fell, fell. This was in his face.\n\nWhether we know what was in his mind is another question. Granted ten\nyears' seniority and a difference of sex, fear of him comes first; this\nis swallowed up by a desire to help--overwhelming sense, reason, and the\ntime of night; anger would follow close on that--with Florinda, with\ndestiny; and then up would bubble an irresponsible optimism. \"Surely\nthere's enough light in the street at this moment to drown all our cares\nin gold!\" Ah, what's the use of saying it? Even while you speak and look\nover your shoulder towards Shaftesbury Avenue, destiny is chipping a\ndent in him. He has turned to go. As for following him back to his\nrooms, no--that we won't do.\n\nYet that, of course, is precisely what one does. He let himself in and\nshut the door, though it was only striking ten on one of the city\nclocks. No one can go to bed at ten. Nobody was thinking of going to\nbed. It was January and dismal, but Mrs. Wagg stood on her doorstep, as\nif expecting something to happen. A barrel-organ played like an obscene\nnightingale beneath wet leaves. Children ran across the road. Here and\nthere one could see brown panelling inside the hall door.... The march\nthat the mind keeps beneath the windows of others is queer enough. Now\ndistracted by brown panelling; now by a fern in a pot; here improvising\na few phrases to dance with the barrel-organ; again snatching a detached\ngaiety from a drunken man; then altogether absorbed by words the poor\nshout across the street at each other (so outright, so lusty)--yet all\nthe while having for centre, for magnet, a young man alone in his room.\n\n\"Life is wicked--life is detestable,\" cried Rose Shaw.\n\nThe strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have\nbeen apparent to every one for hundreds of years, no one has left any\nadequate account of it. The streets of London have their map; but our\npassions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this\ncorner?\n\n\"Holborn straight ahead of you,\" says the policeman. Ah, but where are\nyou going if instead of brushing past the old man with the white beard,\nthe silver medal, and the cheap violin, you let him go on with his\nstory, which ends in an invitation to step somewhere, to his room,\npresumably, off Queen's Square, and there he shows you a collection of\nbirds' eggs and a letter from the Prince of Wales's secretary, and this\n(skipping the intermediate stages) brings you one winter's day to the\nEssex coast, where the little boat makes off to the ship, and the ship\nsails and you behold on the skyline the Azores; and the flamingoes rise;\nand there you sit on the verge of the marsh drinking rum-punch, an\noutcast from civilization, for you have committed a crime, are infected\nwith yellow fever as likely as not, and--fill in the sketch as you like.\nAs frequent as street corners in Holborn are these chasms in the\ncontinuity of our ways. Yet we keep straight on.\n\nRose Shaw, talking in rather an emotional manner to Mr. Bowley at Mrs.\nDurrant's evening party a few nights back, said that life was wicked\nbecause a man called Jimmy refused to marry a woman called (if memory\nserves) Helen Aitken.\n\nBoth were beautiful. Both were inanimate. The oval tea-table invariably\nseparated them, and the plate of biscuits was all he ever gave her. He\nbowed; she inclined her head. They danced. He danced divinely. They sat\nin the alcove; never a word was said. Her pillow was wet with tears.\nKind Mr. Bowley and dear Rose Shaw marvelled and deplored. Bowley had\nrooms in the Albany. Rose was re-born every evening precisely as the\nclock struck eight. All four were civilization's triumphs, and if you\npersist that a command of the English language is part of our\ninheritance, one can only reply that beauty is almost always dumb. Male\nbeauty in association with female beauty breeds in the onlooker a sense\nof fear. Often have I seen them--Helen and Jimmy--and likened them to\nships adrift, and feared for my own little craft. Or again, have you\never watched fine collie dogs couchant at twenty yards' distance? As she\npassed him his cup there was that quiver in her flanks. Bowley saw what\nwas up-asked Jimmy to breakfast. Helen must have confided in Rose. For\nmy own part, I find it exceedingly difficult to interpret songs without\nwords. And now Jimmy feeds crows in Flanders and Helen visits hospitals.\nOh, life is damnable, life is wicked, as Rose Shaw said.\n\nThe lamps of London uphold the dark as upon the points of burning\nbayonets. The yellow canopy sinks and swells over the great four-poster.\nPassengers in the mail-coaches running into London in the eighteenth\ncentury looked through leafless branches and saw it flaring beneath\nthem. The light burns behind yellow blinds and pink blinds, and above\nfanlights, and down in basement windows. The street market in Soho is\nfierce with light. Raw meat, china mugs, and silk stockings blaze in it.\nRaw voices wrap themselves round the flaring gas-jets. Arms akimbo, they\nstand on the pavement bawling--Messrs. Kettle and Wilkinson; their wives\nsit in the shop, furs wrapped round their necks, arms folded, eyes\ncontemptuous. Such faces as one sees. The little man fingering the meat\nmust have squatted before the fire in innumerable lodging-houses, and\nheard and seen and known so much that it seems to utter itself even\nvolubly from dark eyes, loose lips, as he fingers the meat silently, his\nface sad as a poet's, and never a song sung. Shawled women carry babies\nwith purple eyelids; boys stand at street corners; girls look across the\nroad--rude illustrations, pictures in a book whose pages we turn over\nand over as if we should at last find what we look for. Every face,\nevery shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture\nfeverishly turned--in search of what? It is the same with books. What do\nwe seek through millions of pages? Still hopefully turning the\npages--oh, here is Jacob's room.\n\nHe sat at the table reading the Globe. The pinkish sheet was spread flat\nbefore him. He propped his face in his hand, so that the skin of his\ncheek was wrinkled in deep folds. Terribly severe he looked, set, and\ndefiant. (What people go through in half an hour! But nothing could save\nhim. These events are features of our landscape. A foreigner coming to\nLondon could scarcely miss seeing St. Paul's.) He judged life. These\npinkish and greenish newspapers are thin sheets of gelatine pressed\nnightly over the brain and heart of the world. They take the impression\nof the whole. Jacob cast his eye over it. A strike, a murder, football,\nbodies found; vociferation from all parts of England simultaneously. How\nmiserable it is that the Globe newspaper offers nothing better to Jacob\nFlanders! When a child begins to read history one marvels, sorrowfully,\nto hear him spell out in his new voice the ancient words.\n\nThe Prime Minister's speech was reported in something over five columns.\nFeeling in his pocket, Jacob took out a pipe and proceeded to fill it.\nFive minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes passed. Jacob took the paper\nover to the fire. The Prime Minister proposed a measure for giving Home\nRule to Ireland. Jacob knocked out his pipe. He was certainly thinking\nabout Home Rule in Ireland--a very difficult matter. A very cold night.\n\nThe snow, which had been falling all night, lay at three o'clock in the\nafternoon over the fields and the hill. Clumps of withered grass stood\nout upon the hill-top; the furze bushes were black, and now and then a\nblack shiver crossed the snow as the wind drove flurries of frozen\nparticles before it. The sound was that of a broom sweeping--sweeping.\n\nThe stream crept along by the road unseen by any one. Sticks and leaves\ncaught in the frozen grass. The sky was sullen grey and the trees of\nblack iron. Uncompromising was the severity of the country. At four\no'clock the snow was again falling. The day had gone out.\n\nA window tinged yellow about two feet across alone combated the white\nfields and the black trees .... At six o'clock a man's figure carrying a\nlantern crossed the field .... A raft of twig stayed upon a stone,\nsuddenly detached itself, and floated towards the culvert .... A load of\nsnow slipped and fell from a fir branch .... Later there was a mournful\ncry .... A motor car came along the road shoving the dark before it ....\nThe dark shut down behind it....\n\nSpaces of complete immobility separated each of these movements. The\nland seemed to lie dead .... Then the old shepherd returned stiffly\nacross the field. Stiffly and painfully the frozen earth was trodden\nunder and gave beneath pressure like a treadmill. The worn voices of\nclocks repeated the fact of the hour all night long.\n\nJacob, too, heard them, and raked out the fire. He rose. He stretched\nhimself. He went to bed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER NINE\n\n\nThe Countess of Rocksbier sat at the head of the table alone with Jacob.\nFed upon champagne and spices for at least two centuries (four, if you\ncount the female line), the Countess Lucy looked well fed. A\ndiscriminating nose she had for scents, prolonged, as if in quest of\nthem; her underlip protruded a narrow red shelf; her eyes were small,\nwith sandy tufts for eyebrows, and her jowl was heavy. Behind her (the\nwindow looked on Grosvenor Square) stood Moll Pratt on the pavement,\noffering violets for sale; and Mrs. Hilda Thomas, lifting her skirts,\npreparing to cross the road. One was from Walworth; the other from\nPutney. Both wore black stockings, but Mrs. Thomas was coiled in furs.\nThe comparison was much in Lady Rocksbier's favour. Moll had more\nhumour, but was violent; stupid too. Hilda Thomas was mealy-mouthed, all\nher silver frames aslant; egg-cups in the drawing-room; and the windows\nshrouded. Lady Rocksbier, whatever the deficiencies of her profile, had\nbeen a great rider to hounds. She used her knife with authority, tore\nher chicken bones, asking Jacob's pardon, with her own hands.\n\n\"Who is that driving by?\" she asked Boxall, the butler.\n\n\"Lady Firtlemere's carriage, my lady,\" which reminded her to send a card\nto ask after his lordship's health. A rude old lady, Jacob thought. The\nwine was excellent. She called herself \"an old woman\"--\"so kind to lunch\nwith an old woman\"--which flattered him. She talked of Joseph\nChamberlain, whom she had known. She said that Jacob must come and\nmeet--one of our celebrities. And the Lady Alice came in with three dogs\non a leash, and Jackie, who ran to kiss his grandmother, while Boxall\nbrought in a telegram, and Jacob was given a good cigar.\n\nA few moments before a horse jumps it slows, sidles, gathers itself\ntogether, goes up like a monster wave, and pitches down on the further\nside. Hedges and sky swoop in a semicircle. Then as if your own body ran\ninto the horse's body and it was your own forelegs grown with his that\nsprang, rushing through the air you go, the ground resilient, bodies a\nmass of muscles, yet you have command too, upright stillness, eyes\naccurately judging. Then the curves cease, changing to downright hammer\nstrokes, which jar; and you draw up with a jolt; sitting back a little,\nsparkling, tingling, glazed with ice over pounding arteries, gasping:\n\"Ah! ho! Hah!\" the steam going up from the horses as they jostle\ntogether at the cross-roads, where the signpost is, and the woman in the\napron stands and stares at the doorway. The man raises himself from the\ncabbages to stare too.\n\nSo Jacob galloped over the fields of Essex, flopped in the mud, lost the\nhunt, and rode by himself eating sandwiches, looking over the hedges,\nnoticing the colours as if new scraped, cursing his luck.\n\nHe had tea at the Inn; and there they all were, slapping, stamping,\nsaying, \"After you,\" clipped, curt, jocose, red as the wattles of\nturkeys, using free speech until Mrs. Horsefield and her friend Miss\nDudding appeared at the doorway with their skirts hitched up, and hair\nlooping down. Then Tom Dudding rapped at the window with his whip. A\nmotor car throbbed in the courtyard. Gentlemen, feeling for matches,\nmoved out, and Jacob went into the bar with Brandy Jones to smoke with\nthe rustics. There was old Jevons with one eye gone, and his clothes the\ncolour of mud, his bag over his back, and his brains laid feet down in\nearth among the violet roots and the nettle roots; Mary Sanders with her\nbox of wood; and Tom sent for beer, the half-witted son of the\nsexton--all this within thirty miles of London.\n\nMrs. Papworth, of Endell Street, Covent Garden, did for Mr. Bonamy in\nNew Square, Lincoln's Inn, and as she washed up the dinner things in the\nscullery she heard the young gentlemen talking in the room next door.\nMr. Sanders was there again; Flanders she meant; and where an\ninquisitive old woman gets a name wrong, what chance is there that she\nwill faithfully report an argument? As she held the plates under water\nand then dealt them on the pile beneath the hissing gas, she listened:\nheard Sanders speaking in a loud rather overbearing tone of voice:\n\"good,\" he said, and \"absolute\" and \"justice\" and \"punishment,\" and \"the\nwill of the majority.\" Then her gentleman piped up; she backed him for\nargument against Sanders. Yet Sanders was a fine young fellow (here all\nthe scraps went swirling round the sink, scoured after by her purple,\nalmost nailless hands). \"Women\"--she thought, and wondered what Sanders\nand her gentleman did in THAT line, one eyelid sinking perceptibly as\nshe mused, for she was the mother of nine--three still-born and one deaf\nand dumb from birth. Putting the plates in the rack she heard once more\nSanders at it again (\"He don't give Bonamy a chance,\" she thought).\n\"Objective something,\" said Bonamy; and \"common ground\" and something\nelse--all very long words, she noted. \"Book learning does it,\" she\nthought to herself, and, as she thrust her arms into her jacket, heard\nsomething--might be the little table by the fire--fall; and then stamp,\nstamp, stamp--as if they were having at each other--round the room,\nmaking the plates dance.\n\n\"To-morrow's breakfast, sir,\" she said, opening the door; and there were\nSanders and Bonamy like two bulls of Bashan driving each other up and\ndown, making such a racket, and all them chairs in the way. They never\nnoticed her. She felt motherly towards them. \"Your breakfast, sir,\" she\nsaid, as they came near. And Bonamy, all his hair touzled and his tie\nflying, broke off, and pushed Sanders into the arm-chair, and said Mr.\nSanders had smashed the coffee-pot and he was teaching Mr. Sanders--\n\nSure enough, the coffee-pot lay broken on the hearthrug.\n\n\"Any day this week except Thursday,\" wrote Miss Perry, and this was not\nthe first invitation by any means. Were all Miss Perry's weeks blank\nwith the exception of Thursday, and was her only desire to see her old\nfriend's son? Time is issued to spinster ladies of wealth in long white\nribbons. These they wind round and round, round and round, assisted by\nfive female servants, a butler, a fine Mexican parrot, regular meals,\nMudie's library, and friends dropping in. A little hurt she was already\nthat Jacob had not called.\n\n\"Your mother,\" she said, \"is one of my oldest friends.\"\n\nMiss Rosseter, who was sitting by the fire, holding the Spectator\nbetween her cheek and the blaze, refused to have a fire screen, but\nfinally accepted one. The weather was then discussed, for in deference\nto Parkes, who was opening little tables, graver matters were postponed.\nMiss Rosseter drew Jacob's attention to the beauty of the cabinet.\n\n\"So wonderfully clever in picking things up,\" she said. Miss Perry had\nfound it in Yorkshire. The North of England was discussed. When Jacob\nspoke they both listened. Miss Perry was bethinking her of something\nsuitable and manly to say when the door opened and Mr. Benson was\nannounced. Now there were four people sitting in that room. Miss Perry\naged 66; Miss Rosseter 42; Mr. Benson 38; and Jacob 25.\n\n\"My old friend looks as well as ever,\" said Mr. Benson, tapping the bars\nof the parrot's cage; Miss Rosseter simultaneously praised the tea;\nJacob handed the wrong plates; and Miss Perry signified her desire to\napproach more closely. \"Your brothers,\" she began vaguely.\n\n\"Archer and John,\" Jacob supplied her. Then to her pleasure she\nrecovered Rebecca's name; and how one day \"when you were all little\nboys, playing in the drawing-room--\"\n\n\"But Miss Perry has the kettle-holder,\" said Miss Rosseter, and indeed\nMiss Perry was clasping it to her breast. (Had she, then, loved Jacob's\nfather?)\n\n\"So clever\"--\"not so good as usual\"--\"I thought it most unfair,\" said\nMr. Benson and Miss Rosseter, discussing the Saturday Westminster. Did\nthey not compete regularly for prizes? Had not Mr. Benson three times\nwon a guinea, and Miss Rosseter once ten and sixpence? Of course Everard\nBenson had a weak heart, but still, to win prizes, remember parrots,\ntoady Miss Perry, despise Miss Rosseter, give tea-parties in his rooms\n(which were in the style of Whistler, with pretty books on tables), all\nthis, so Jacob felt without knowing him, made him a contemptible ass. As\nfor Miss Rosseter, she had nursed cancer, and now painted water-colours.\n\n\"Running away so soon?\" said Miss Perry vaguely. \"At home every\nafternoon, if you've nothing better to do--except Thursdays.\"\n\n\"I've never known you desert your old ladies once,\" Miss Rosseter was\nsaying, and Mr. Benson was stooping over the parrot's cage, and Miss\nPerry was moving towards the bell....\n\nThe fire burnt clear between two pillars of greenish marble, and on the\nmantelpiece there was a green clock guarded by Britannia leaning on her\nspear. As for pictures--a maiden in a large hat offered roses over the\ngarden gate to a gentleman in eighteenth-century costume. A mastiff lay\nextended against a battered door. The lower panes of the windows were of\nground glass, and the curtains, accurately looped, were of plush and\ngreen too.\n\nLaurette and Jacob sat with their toes in the fender side by side, in\ntwo large chairs covered in green plush. Laurette's skirts were short,\nher legs long, thin, and transparently covered. Her fingers stroked her\nankles.\n\n\"It's not exactly that I don't understand them,\" she was saying\nthoughtfully. \"I must go and try again.\"\n\n\"What time will you be there?\" said Jacob.\n\nShe shrugged her shoulders.\n\n\"To-morrow?\"\n\nNo, not to-morrow.\n\n\"This weather makes me long for the country,\" she said, looking over her\nshoulder at the back view of tall houses through the window.\n\n\"I wish you'd been with me on Saturday,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"I used to ride,\" she said. She got up gracefully, calmly. Jacob got up.\nShe smiled at him. As she shut the door he put so many shillings on the\nmantelpiece.\n\nAltogether a most reasonable conversation; a most respectable room; an\nintelligent girl. Only Madame herself seeing Jacob out had about her\nthat leer, that lewdness, that quake of the surface (visible in the eyes\nchiefly), which threatens to spill the whole bag of ordure, with\ndifficulty held together, over the pavement. In short, something was\nwrong.\n\nNot so very long ago the workmen had gilt the final \"y\" in Lord\nMacaulay's name, and the names stretched in unbroken file round the dome\nof the British Museum. At a considerable depth beneath, many hundreds of\nthe living sat at the spokes of a cart-wheel copying from printed books\ninto manuscript books; now and then rising to consult the catalogue;\nregaining their places stealthily, while from time to time a silent man\nreplenished their compartments.\n\nThere was a little catastrophe. Miss Marchmont's pile overbalanced and\nfell into Jacob's compartment. Such things happened to Miss Marchmont.\nWhat was she seeking through millions of pages, in her old plush dress,\nand her wig of claret-coloured hair, with her gems and her chilblains?\nSometimes one thing, sometimes another, to confirm her philosophy that\ncolour is sound--or, perhaps, it has something to do with music. She\ncould never quite say, though it was not for lack of trying. And she\ncould not ask you back to her room, for it was \"not very clean, I'm\nafraid,\" so she must catch you in the passage, or take a chair in Hyde\nPark to explain her philosophy. The rhythm of the soul depends on\nit--(\"how rude the little boys are!\" she would say), and Mr. Asquith's\nIrish policy, and Shakespeare comes in, \"and Queen Alexandra most\ngraciously once acknowledged a copy of my pamphlet,\" she would say,\nwaving the little boys magnificently away. But she needs funds to\npublish her book, for \"publishers are capitalists--publishers are\ncowards.\" And so, digging her elbow into her pile of books it fell over.\n\nJacob remained quite unmoved.\n\nBut Fraser, the atheist, on the other side, detesting plush, more than\nonce accosted with leaflets, shifted irritably. He abhorred\nvagueness--the Christian religion, for example, and old Dean Parker's\npronouncements. Dean Parker wrote books and Fraser utterly destroyed\nthem by force of logic and left his children unbaptized--his wife did it\nsecretly in the washing basin--but Fraser ignored her, and went on\nsupporting blasphemers, distributing leaflets, getting up his facts in\nthe British Museum, always in the same check suit and fiery tie, but\npale, spotted, irritable. Indeed, what a work--to destroy religion!\n\nJacob transcribed a whole passage from Marlowe.\n\nMiss Julia Hedge, the feminist, waited for her books. They did not come.\nShe wetted her pen. She looked about her. Her eye was caught by the\nfinal letters in Lord Macaulay's name. And she read them all round the\ndome--the names of great men which remind us--\"Oh damn,\" said Julia\nHedge, \"why didn't they leave room for an Eliot or a Bronte?\"\n\nUnfortunate Julia! wetting her pen in bitterness, and leaving her shoe\nlaces untied. When her books came she applied herself to her gigantic\nlabours, but perceived through one of the nerves of her exasperated\nsensibility how composedly, unconcernedly, and with every consideration\nthe male readers applied themselves to theirs. That young man for\nexample. What had he got to do except copy out poetry? And she must\nstudy statistics. There are more women than men. Yes; but if you let\nwomen work as men work, they'll die off much quicker. They'll become\nextinct. That was her argument. Death and gall and bitter dust were on\nher pen-tip; and as the afternoon wore on, red had worked into her\ncheek-bones and a light was in her eyes.\n\nBut what brought Jacob Flanders to read Marlowe in the British Museum?\nYouth, youth--something savage--something pedantic. For example, there\nis Mr. Masefield, there is Mr. Bennett. Stuff them into the flame of\nMarlowe and burn them to cinders. Let not a shred remain. Don't palter\nwith the second rate. Detest your own age. Build a better one. And to\nset that on foot read incredibly dull essays upon Marlowe to your\nfriends. For which purpose one most collate editions in the British\nMuseum. One must do the thing oneself. Useless to trust to the\nVictorians, who disembowel, or to the living, who are mere publicists.\nThe flesh and blood of the future depends entirely upon six young men.\nAnd as Jacob was one of them, no doubt he looked a little regal and\npompous as he turned his page, and Julia Hedge disliked him naturally\nenough.\n\nBut then a pudding-faced man pushed a note towards Jacob, and Jacob,\nleaning back in his chair, began an uneasy murmured conversation, and\nthey went off together (Julia Hedge watched them), and laughed aloud\n(she thought) directly they were in the hall.\n\nNobody laughed in the reading-room. There were shirtings, murmurings,\napologetic sneezes, and sudden unashamed devastating coughs. The lesson\nhour was almost over. Ushers were collecting exercises. Lazy children\nwanted to stretch. Good ones scribbled assiduously--ah, another day over\nand so little done! And now and then was to be heard from the whole\ncollection of human beings a heavy sigh, after which the humiliating old\nman would cough shamelessly, and Miss Marchmont hinnied like a horse.\n\nJacob came back only in time to return his books.\n\nThe books were now replaced. A few letters of the alphabet were\nsprinkled round the dome. Closely stood together in a ring round the\ndome were Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and Shakespeare; the literature\nof Rome, Greece, China, India, Persia. One leaf of poetry was pressed\nflat against another leaf, one burnished letter laid smooth against\nanother in a density of meaning, a conglomeration of loveliness.\n\n\"One does want one's tea,\" said Miss Marchmont, reclaiming her shabby\numbrella.\n\nMiss Marchmont wanted her tea, but could never resist a last look at the\nElgin Marbles. She looked at them sideways, waving her hand and\nmuttering a word or two of salutation which made Jacob and the other man\nturn round. She smiled at them amiably. It all came into her\nphilosophy--that colour is sound, or perhaps it has something to do with\nmusic. And having done her service, she hobbled off to tea. It was\nclosing time. The public collected in the hall to receive their\numbrellas.\n\nFor the most part the students wait their turn very patiently. To stand\nand wait while some one examines white discs is soothing. The umbrella\nwill certainly be found. But the fact leads you on all day through\nMacaulay, Hobbes, Gibbon; through octavos, quartos, folios; sinks deeper\nand deeper through ivory pages and morocco bindings into this density of\nthought, this conglomeration of knowledge.\n\nJacob's walking-stick was like all the others; they had muddled the\npigeon-holes perhaps.\n\nThere is in the British Museum an enormous mind. Consider that Plato is\nthere cheek by jowl with Aristotle; and Shakespeare with Marlowe. This\ngreat mind is hoarded beyond the power of any single mind to possess it.\nNevertheless (as they take so long finding one's walking-stick) one\ncan't help thinking how one might come with a notebook, sit at a desk,\nand read it all through. A learned man is the most venerable of all--a\nman like Huxtable of Trinity, who writes all his letters in Greek, they\nsay, and could have kept his end up with Bentley. And then there is\nscience, pictures, architecture,--an enormous mind.\n\nThey pushed the walking-stick across the counter. Jacob stood beneath\nthe porch of the British Museum. It was raining. Great Russell Street\nwas glazed and shining--here yellow, here, outside the chemist's, red\nand pale blue. People scuttled quickly close to the wall; carriages\nrattled rather helter-skelter down the streets. Well, but a little rain\nhurts nobody. Jacob walked off much as if he had been in the country;\nand late that night there he was sitting at his table with his pipe and\nhis book.\n\nThe rain poured down. The British Museum stood in one solid immense\nmound, very pale, very sleek in the rain, not a quarter of a mile from\nhim. The vast mind was sheeted with stone; and each compartment in the\ndepths of it was safe and dry. The night-watchmen, flashing their\nlanterns over the backs of Plato and Shakespeare, saw that on the\ntwenty-second of February neither flame, rat, nor burglar was going to\nviolate these treasures--poor, highly respectable men, with wives and\nfamilies at Kentish Town, do their best for twenty years to protect\nPlato and Shakespeare, and then are buried at Highgate.\n\nStone lies solid over the British Museum, as bone lies cool over the\nvisions and heat of the brain. Only here the brain is Plato's brain and\nShakespeare's; the brain has made pots and statues, great bulls and\nlittle jewels, and crossed the river of death this way and that\nincessantly, seeking some landing, now wrapping the body well for its\nlong sleep; now laying a penny piece on the eyes; now turning the toes\nscrupulously to the East. Meanwhile, Plato continues his dialogue; in\nspite of the rain; in spite of the cab whistles; in spite of the woman\nin the mews behind Great Ormond Street who has come home drunk and cries\nall night long, \"Let me in! Let me in!\"\n\nIn the street below Jacob's room voices were raised.\n\nBut he read on. For after all Plato continues imperturbably. And Hamlet\nutters his soliloquy. And there the Elgin Marbles lie, all night long,\nold Jones's lantern sometimes recalling Ulysses, or a horse's head; or\nsometimes a flash of gold, or a mummy's sunk yellow cheek. Plato and\nShakespeare continue; and Jacob, who was reading the Phaedrus, heard\npeople vociferating round the lamp-post, and the woman battering at the\ndoor and crying, \"Let me in!\" as if a coal had dropped from the fire, or\na fly, falling from the ceiling, had lain on its back, too weak to turn\nover.\n\nThe Phaedrus is very difficult. And so, when at length one reads\nstraight ahead, falling into step, marching on, becoming (so it seems)\nmomentarily part of this rolling, imperturbable energy, which has driven\ndarkness before it since Plato walked the Acropolis, it is impossible to\nsee to the fire.\n\nThe dialogue draws to its close. Plato's argument is done. Plato's\nargument is stowed away in Jacob's mind, and for five minutes Jacob's\nmind continues alone, onwards, into the darkness. Then, getting up, he\nparted the curtains, and saw, with astonishing clearness, how the\nSpringetts opposite had gone to bed; how it rained; how the Jews and the\nforeign woman, at the end of the street, stood by the pillar-box,\narguing.\n\nEvery time the door opened and fresh people came in, those already in\nthe room shifted slightly; those who were standing looked over their\nshoulders; those who were sitting stopped in the middle of sentences.\nWhat with the light, the wine, the strumming of a guitar, something\nexciting happened each time the door opened. Who was coming in?\n\n\"That's Gibson.\"\n\n\"The painter?\"\n\n\"But go on with what you were saying.\"\n\nThey were saying something that was far, far too intimate to be said\noutright. But the noise of the voices served like a clapper in little\nMrs. Withers's mind, scaring into the air blocks of small birds, and\nthen they'd settle, and then she'd feel afraid, put one hand to her\nhair, bind both round her knees, and look up at Oliver Skelton\nnervously, and say:\n\n\"Promise, PROMISE, you'll tell no one.\" ... so considerate he was, so\ntender. It was her husband's character that she discussed. He was cold,\nshe said.\n\nDown upon them came the splendid Magdalen, brown, warm, voluminous,\nscarcely brushing the grass with her sandalled feet. Her hair flew; pins\nseemed scarcely to attach the flying silks. An actress of course, a line\nof light perpetually beneath her. It was only \"My dear\" that she said,\nbut her voice went jodelling between Alpine passes. And down she tumbled\non the floor, and sang, since there was nothing to be said, round ah's\nand oh's. Mangin, the poet, coming up to her, stood looking down at her,\ndrawing at his pipe. The dancing began.\n\nGrey-haired Mrs. Keymer asked Dick Graves to tell her who Mangin was,\nand said that she had seen too much of this sort of thing in Paris\n(Magdalen had got upon his knees; now his pipe was in her mouth) to be\nshocked. \"Who is that?\" she said, staying her glasses when they came to\nJacob, for indeed he looked quiet, not indifferent, but like some one on\na beach, watching.\n\n\"Oh, my dear, let me lean on you,\" gasped Helen Askew, hopping on one\nfoot, for the silver cord round her ankle had worked loose. Mrs. Keymer\nturned and looked at the picture on the wall.\n\n\"Look at Jacob,\" said Helen (they were binding his eyes for some game).\n\nAnd Dick Graves, being a little drunk, very faithful, and very\nsimple-minded, told her that he thought Jacob the greatest man he had\never known. And down they sat cross-legged upon cushions and talked\nabout Jacob, and Helen's voice trembled, for they both seemed heroes to\nher, and the friendship between them so much more beautiful than women's\nfriendships. Anthony Pollett now asked her to dance, and as she danced\nshe looked at them, over her shoulder, standing at the table, drinking\ntogether.\n\nThe magnificent world--the live, sane, vigorous world .... These words\nrefer to the stretch of wood pavement between Hammersmith and Holborn in\nJanuary between two and three in the morning. That was the ground\nbeneath Jacob's feet. It was healthy and magnificent because one room,\nabove a mews, somewhere near the river, contained fifty excited,\ntalkative, friendly people. And then to stride over the pavement (there\nwas scarcely a cab or policeman in sight) is of itself exhilarating. The\nlong loop of Piccadilly, diamond-stitched, shows to best advantage when\nit is empty. A young man has nothing to fear. On the contrary, though he\nmay not have said anything brilliant, he feels pretty confident he can\nhold his own. He was pleased to have met Mangin; he admired the young\nwoman on the floor; he liked them all; he liked that sort of thing. In\nshort, all the drums and trumpets were sounding. The street scavengers\nwere the only people about at the moment. It is scarcely necessary to\nsay how well-disposed Jacob felt towards them; how it pleased him to let\nhimself in with his latch-key at his own door; how he seemed to bring\nback with him into the empty room ten or eleven people whom he had not\nknown when he set out; how he looked about for something to read, and\nfound it, and never read it, and fell asleep.\n\nIndeed, drums and trumpets is no phrase. Indeed, Piccadilly and Holborn,\nand the empty sitting-room and the sitting-room with fifty people in it\nare liable at any moment to blow music into the air. Women perhaps are\nmore excitable than men. It is seldom that any one says anything about\nit, and to see the hordes crossing Waterloo Bridge to catch the non-stop\nto Surbiton one might think that reason impelled them. No, no. It is the\ndrums and trumpets. Only, should you turn aside into one of those little\nbays on Waterloo Bridge to think the matter over, it will probably seem\nto you all a muddle--all a mystery.\n\nThey cross the Bridge incessantly. Sometimes in the midst of carts and\nomnibuses a lorry will appear with great forest trees chained to it.\nThen, perhaps, a mason's van with newly lettered tombstones recording\nhow some one loved some one who is buried at Putney. Then the motor car\nin front jerks forward, and the tombstones pass too quick for you to\nread more. All the time the stream of people never ceases passing from\nthe Surrey side to the Strand; from the Strand to the Surrey side. It\nseems as if the poor had gone raiding the town, and now trapesed back to\ntheir own quarters, like beetles scurrying to their holes, for that old\nwoman fairly hobbles towards Waterloo, grasping a shiny bag, as if she\nhad been out into the light and now made off with some scraped chicken\nbones to her hovel underground. On the other hand, though the wind is\nrough and blowing in their faces, those girls there, striding hand in\nhand, shouting out a song, seem to feel neither cold nor shame. They are\nhatless. They triumph.\n\nThe wind has blown up the waves. The river races beneath us, and the men\nstanding on the barges have to lean all their weight on the tiller. A\nblack tarpaulin is tied down over a swelling load of gold. Avalanches of\ncoal glitter blackly. As usual, painters are slung on planks across the\ngreat riverside hotels, and the hotel windows have already points of\nlight in them. On the other side the city is white as if with age; St.\nPaul's swells white above the fretted, pointed, or oblong buildings\nbeside it. The cross alone shines rosy-gilt. But what century have we\nreached? Has this procession from the Surrey side to the Strand gone on\nfor ever? That old man has been crossing the Bridge these six hundred\nyears, with the rabble of little boys at his heels, for he is drunk, or\nblind with misery, and tied round with old clouts of clothing such as\npilgrims might have worn. He shuffles on. No one stands still. It seems\nas if we marched to the sound of music; perhaps the wind and the river;\nperhaps these same drums and trumpets--the ecstasy and hubbub of the\nsoul. Why, even the unhappy laugh, and the policeman, far from judging\nthe drunk man, surveys him humorously, and the little boys scamper back\nagain, and the clerk from Somerset House has nothing but tolerance for\nhim, and the man who is reading half a page of Lothair at the bookstall\nmuses charitably, with his eyes off the print, and the girl hesitates at\nthe crossing and turns on him the bright yet vague glance of the young.\n\nBright yet vague. She is perhaps twenty-two. She is shabby. She crosses\nthe road and looks at the daffodils and the red tulips in the florist's\nwindow. She hesitates, and makes off in the direction of Temple Bar. She\nwalks fast, and yet anything distracts her. Now she seems to see, and\nnow to notice nothing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TEN\n\n\nThrough the disused graveyard in the parish of St. Pancras, Fanny Elmer\nstrayed between the white tombs which lean against the wall, crossing\nthe grass to read a name, hurrying on when the grave-keeper approached,\nhurrying into the street, pausing now by a window with blue china, now\nquickly making up for lost time, abruptly entering a baker's shop,\nbuying rolls, adding cakes, going on again so that any one wishing to\nfollow must fairly trot. She was not drably shabby, though. She wore\nsilk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes, only the red feather in her\nhat drooped, and the clasp of her bag was weak, for out fell a copy of\nMadame Tussaud's programme as she walked. She had the ankles of a stag.\nHer face was hidden. Of course, in this dusk, rapid movements, quick\nglances, and soaring hopes come naturally enough. She passed right\nbeneath Jacob's window.\n\nThe house was flat, dark, and silent. Jacob was at home engaged upon a\nchess problem, the board being on a stool between his knees. One hand\nwas fingering the hair at the back of his head. He slowly brought it\nforward and raised the white queen from her square; then put her down\nagain on the same spot. He filled his pipe; ruminated; moved two pawns;\nadvanced the white knight; then ruminated with one finger upon the\nbishop. Now Fanny Elmer passed beneath the window.\n\nShe was on her way to sit to Nick Bramham the painter.\n\nShe sat in a flowered Spanish shawl, holding in her hand a yellow novel.\n\n\"A little lower, a little looser, so--better, that's right,\" Bramham\nmumbled, who was drawing her, and smoking at the same time, and was\nnaturally speechless. His head might have been the work of a sculptor,\nwho had squared the forehead, stretched the mouth, and left marks of his\nthumbs and streaks from his fingers in the clay. But the eyes had never\nbeen shut. They were rather prominent, and rather bloodshot, as if from\nstaring and staring, and when he spoke they looked for a second\ndisturbed, but went on staring. An unshaded electric light hung above\nher head.\n\nAs for the beauty of women, it is like the light on the sea, never\nconstant to a single wave. They all have it; they all lose it. Now she\nis dull and thick as bacon; now transparent as a hanging glass. The\nfixed faces are the dull ones. Here comes Lady Venice displayed like a\nmonument for admiration, but carved in alabaster, to be set on the\nmantelpiece and never dusted. A dapper brunette complete from head to\nfoot serves only as an illustration to lie upon the drawing-room table.\nThe women in the streets have the faces of playing cards; the outlines\naccurately filled in with pink or yellow, and the line drawn tightly\nround them. Then, at a top-floor window, leaning out, looking down, you\nsee beauty itself; or in the corner of an omnibus; or squatted in a\nditch--beauty glowing, suddenly expressive, withdrawn the moment after.\nNo one can count on it or seize it or have it wrapped in paper. Nothing\nis to be won from the shops, and Heaven knows it would be better to sit\nat home than haunt the plate-glass windows in the hope of lifting the\nshining green, the glowing ruby, out of them alive. Sea glass in a\nsaucer loses its lustre no sooner than silks do. Thus if you talk of a\nbeautiful woman you mean only something flying fast which for a second\nuses the eyes, lips, or cheeks of Fanny Elmer, for example, to glow\nthrough.\n\nShe was not beautiful, as she sat stiffly; her underlip too prominent;\nher nose too large; her eyes too near together. She was a thin girl,\nwith brilliant cheeks and dark hair, sulky just now, or stiff with\nsitting. When Bramham snapped his stick of charcoal she started. Bramham\nwas out of temper. He squatted before the gas fire warming his hands.\nMeanwhile she looked at his drawing. He grunted. Fanny threw on a\ndressing-gown and boiled a kettle.\n\n\"By God, it's bad,\" said Bramham.\n\nFanny dropped on to the floor, clasped her hands round her knees, and\nlooked at him, her beautiful eyes--yes, beauty, flying through the room,\nshone there for a second. Fanny's eyes seemed to question, to\ncommiserate, to be, for a second, love itself. But she exaggerated.\nBramham noticed nothing. And when the kettle boiled, up she scrambled,\nmore like a colt or a puppy than a loving woman.\n\nNow Jacob walked over to the window and stood with his hands in his\npockets. Mr. Springett opposite came out, looked at his shop window, and\nwent in again. The children drifted past, eyeing the pink sticks of\nsweetstuff. Pickford's van swung down the street. A small boy twirled\nfrom a rope. Jacob turned away. Two minutes later he opened the front\ndoor, and walked off in the direction of Holborn.\n\nFanny Elmer took down her cloak from the hook. Nick Bramham unpinned his\ndrawing and rolled it under his arm. They turned out the lights and set\noff down the street, holding on their way through all the people, motor\ncars, omnibuses, carts, until they reached Leicester Square, five\nminutes before Jacob reached it, for his way was slightly longer, and he\nhad been stopped by a block in Holborn waiting to see the King drive by,\nso that Nick and Fanny were already leaning over the barrier in the\npromenade at the Empire when Jacob pushed through the swing doors and\ntook his place beside them.\n\n\"Hullo, never noticed you,\" said Nick, five minutes later.\n\n\"Bloody rot,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"Miss Elmer,\" said Nick.\n\nJacob took his pipe out of his mouth very awkwardly.\n\nVery awkward he was. And when they sat upon a plush sofa and let the\nsmoke go up between them and the stage, and heard far off the\nhigh-pitched voices and the jolly orchestra breaking in opportunely he\nwas still awkward, only Fanny thought: \"What a beautiful voice!\" She\nthought how little he said yet how firm it was. She thought how young\nmen are dignified and aloof, and how unconscious they are, and how\nquietly one might sit beside Jacob and look at him. And how childlike he\nwould be, come in tired of an evening, she thought, and how majestic; a\nlittle overbearing perhaps; \"But I wouldn't give way,\" she thought. He\ngot up and leant over the barrier. The smoke hung about him.\n\nAnd for ever the beauty of young men seems to be set in smoke, however\nlustily they chase footballs, or drive cricket balls, dance, run, or\nstride along roads. Possibly they are soon to lose it. Possibly they\nlook into the eyes of faraway heroes, and take their station among us\nhalf contemptuously, she thought (vibrating like a fiddle-string, to be\nplayed on and snapped). Anyhow, they love silence, and speak\nbeautifully, each word falling like a disc new cut, not a hubble-bubble\nof small smooth coins such as girls use; and they move decidedly, as if\nthey knew how long to stay and when to go--oh, but Mr. Flanders was only\ngone to get a programme.\n\n\"The dancers come right at the end,\" he said, coming back to them.\n\nAnd isn't it pleasant, Fanny went on thinking, how young men bring out\nlots of silver coins from their trouser pockets, and look at them,\ninstead of having just so many in a purse?\n\nThen there she was herself, whirling across the stage in white flounces,\nand the music was the dance and fling of her own soul, and the whole\nmachinery, rock and gear of the world was spun smoothly into those swift\neddies and falls, she felt, as she stood rigid leaning over the barrier\ntwo feet from Jacob Flanders.\n\nHer screwed-up black glove dropped to the floor. When Jacob gave it her,\nshe started angrily. For never was there a more irrational passion. And\nJacob was afraid of her for a moment--so violent, so dangerous is it\nwhen young women stand rigid; grasp the barrier; fall in love.\n\nIt was the middle of February. The roofs of Hampstead Garden Suburb lay\nin a tremulous haze. It was too hot to walk. A dog barked, barked,\nbarked down in the hollow. The liquid shadows went over the plain.\n\nThe body after long illness is languid, passive, receptive of sweetness,\nbut too weak to contain it. The tears well and fall as the dog barks in\nthe hollow, the children skim after hoops, the country darkens and\nbrightens. Beyond a veil it seems. Ah, but draw the veil thicker lest I\nfaint with sweetness, Fanny Elmer sighed, as she sat on a bench in\nJudges Walk looking at Hampstead Garden Suburb. But the dog went on\nbarking. The motor cars hooted on the road. She heard a far-away rush\nand humming. Agitation was at her heart. Up she got and walked. The\ngrass was freshly green; the sun hot. All round the pond children were\nstooping to launch little boats; or were drawn back screaming by their\nnurses.\n\nAt mid-day young women walk out into the air. All the men are busy in\nthe town. They stand by the edge of the blue pond. The fresh wind\nscatters the children's voices all about. My children, thought Fanny\nElmer. The women stand round the pond, beating off great prancing shaggy\ndogs. Gently the baby is rocked in the perambulator. The eyes of all the\nnurses, mothers, and wandering women are a little glazed, absorbed. They\ngently nod instead of answering when the little boys tug at their\nskirts, begging them to move on.\n\nAnd Fanny moved, hearing some cry--a workman's whistle perhaps--high in\nmid-air. Now, among the trees, it was the thrush trilling out into the\nwarm air a flutter of jubilation, but fear seemed to spur him, Fanny\nthought; as if he too were anxious with such joy at his heart--as if he\nwere watched as he sang, and pressed by tumult to sing. There! Restless,\nhe flew to the next tree. She heard his song more faintly. Beyond it was\nthe humming of the wheels and the wind rushing.\n\nShe spent tenpence on lunch.\n\n\"Dear, miss, she's left her umbrella,\" grumbled the mottled woman in the\nglass box near the door at the Express Dairy Company's shop.\n\n\"Perhaps I'll catch her,\" answered Milly Edwards, the waitress with the\npale plaits of hair; and she dashed through the door.\n\n\"No good,\" she said, coming back a moment later with Fanny's cheap\numbrella. She put her hand to her plaits.\n\n\"Oh, that door!\" grumbled the cashier.\n\nHer hands were cased in black mittens, and the finger-tips that drew in\nthe paper slips were swollen as sausages.\n\n\"Pie and greens for one. Large coffee and crumpets. Eggs on toast. Two\nfruit cakes.\"\n\nThus the sharp voices of the waitresses snapped. The lunchers heard\ntheir orders repeated with approval; saw the next table served with\nanticipation. Their own eggs on toast were at last delivered. Their eyes\nstrayed no more.\n\nDamp cubes of pastry fell into mouths opened like triangular bags.\n\nNelly Jenkinson, the typist, crumbled her cake indifferently enough.\nEvery time the door opened she looked up. What did she expect to see?\n\nThe coal merchant read the Telegraph without stopping, missed the\nsaucer, and, feeling abstractedly, put the cup down on the table-cloth.\n\n\"Did you ever hear the like of that for impertinence?\" Mrs. Parsons\nwound up, brushing the crumbs from her furs.\n\n\"Hot milk and scone for one. Pot of tea. Roll and butter,\" cried the\nwaitresses.\n\nThe door opened and shut.\n\nSuch is the life of the elderly.\n\nIt is curious, lying in a boat, to watch the waves. Here are three\ncoming regularly one after another, all much of a size. Then, hurrying\nafter them comes a fourth, very large and menacing; it lifts the boat;\non it goes; somehow merges without accomplishing anything; flattens\nitself out with the rest.\n\nWhat can be more violent than the fling of boughs in a gale, the tree\nyielding itself all up the trunk, to the very tip of the branch,\nstreaming and shuddering the way the wind blows, yet never flying in\ndishevelment away? The corn squirms and abases itself as if preparing to\ntug itself free from the roots, and yet is tied down.\n\nWhy, from the very windows, even in the dusk, you see a swelling run\nthrough the street, an aspiration, as with arms outstretched, eyes\ndesiring, mouths agape. And then we peaceably subside. For if the\nexaltation lasted we should be blown like foam into the air. The stars\nwould shine through us. We should go down the gale in salt drops--as\nsometimes happens. For the impetuous spirits will have none of this\ncradling. Never any swaying or aimlessly lolling for them. Never any\nmaking believe, or lying cosily, or genially supposing that one is much\nlike another, fire warm, wine pleasant, extravagance a sin.\n\n\"People are so nice, once you know them.\"\n\n\"I couldn't think ill of her. One must remember--\" But Nick perhaps, or\nFanny Elmer, believing implicitly in the truth of the moment, fling off,\nsting the cheek, are gone like sharp hail.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Fanny, bursting into the studio three-quarters of an hour\nlate because she had been hanging about the neighbourhood of the\nFoundling Hospital merely for the chance of seeing Jacob walk down the\nstreet, take out his latch-key, and open the door, \"I'm afraid I'm\nlate\"; upon which Nick said nothing and Fanny grew defiant.\n\n\"I'll never come again!\" she cried at length.\n\n\"Don't, then,\" Nick replied, and off she ran without so much as\ngood-night.\n\nHow exquisite it was--that dress in Evelina's shop off Shaftesbury\nAvenue! It was four o'clock on a fine day early in April, and was Fanny\nthe one to spend four o'clock on a fine day indoors? Other girls in that\nvery street sat over ledgers, or drew long threads wearily between silk\nand gauze; or, festooned with ribbons in Swan and Edgars, rapidly added\nup pence and farthings on the back of the bill and twisted the yard and\nthree-quarters in tissue paper and asked \"Your pleasure?\" of the next\ncomer.\n\nIn Evelina's shop off Shaftesbury Avenue the parts of a woman were shown\nseparate. In the left hand was her skirt. Twining round a pole in the\nmiddle was a feather boa. Ranged like the heads of malefactors on Temple\nBar were hats--emerald and white, lightly wreathed or drooping beneath\ndeep-dyed feathers. And on the carpet were her feet--pointed gold, or\npatent leather slashed with scarlet.\n\nFeasted upon by the eyes of women, the clothes by four o'clock were\nflyblown like sugar cakes in a baker's window. Fanny eyed them too. But\ncoming along Gerrard Street was a tall man in a shabby coat. A shadow\nfell across Evelina's window--Jacob's shadow, though it was not Jacob.\nAnd Fanny turned and walked along Gerrard Street and wished that she had\nread books. Nick never read books, never talked of Ireland, or the House\nof Lords; and as for his finger-nails! She would learn Latin and read\nVirgil. She had been a great reader. She had read Scott; she had read\nDumas. At the Slade no one read. But no one knew Fanny at the Slade, or\nguessed how empty it seemed to her; the passion for ear-rings, for\ndances, for Tonks and Steer--when it was only the French who could\npaint, Jacob said. For the moderns were futile; painting the least\nrespectable of the arts; and why read anything but Marlowe and\nShakespeare, Jacob said, and Fielding if you must read novels?\n\n\"Fielding,\" said Fanny, when the man in Charing Cross Road asked her\nwhat book she wanted.\n\nShe bought Tom Jones.\n\nAt ten o'clock in the morning, in a room which she shared with a school\nteacher, Fanny Elmer read Tom Jones--that mystic book. For this dull\nstuff (Fanny thought) about people with odd names is what Jacob likes.\nGood people like it. Dowdy women who don't mind how they cross their\nlegs read Tom Jones--a mystic book; for there is something, Fanny\nthought, about books which if I had been educated I could have\nliked--much better than ear-rings and flowers, she sighed, thinking of\nthe corridors at the Slade and the fancy-dress dance next week. She had\nnothing to wear.\n\nThey are real, thought Fanny Elmer, setting her feet on the mantelpiece.\nSome people are. Nick perhaps, only he was so stupid. And women\nnever--except Miss Sargent, but she went off at lunch-time and gave\nherself airs. There they sat quietly of a night reading, she thought.\nNot going to music-halls; not looking in at shop windows; not wearing\neach other's clothes, like Robertson who had worn her shawl, and she had\nworn his waistcoat, which Jacob could only do very awkwardly; for he\nliked Tom Jones.\n\nThere it lay on her lap, in double columns, price three and sixpence;\nthe mystic book in which Henry Fielding ever so many years ago rebuked\nFanny Elmer for feasting on scarlet, in perfect prose, Jacob said. For\nhe never read modern novels. He liked Tom Jones.\n\n\"I do like Tom Jones,\" said Fanny, at five-thirty that same day early in\nApril when Jacob took out his pipe in the arm-chair opposite.\n\nAlas, women lie! But not Clara Durrant. A flawless mind; a candid\nnature; a virgin chained to a rock (somewhere off Lowndes Square)\neternally pouring out tea for old men in white waistcoats, blue-eyed,\nlooking you straight in the face, playing Bach. Of all women, Jacob\nhonoured her most. But to sit at a table with bread and butter, with\ndowagers in velvet, and never say more to Clara Durrant than Benson said\nto the parrot when old Miss Perry poured out tea, was an insufferable\noutrage upon the liberties and decencies of human nature--or words to\nthat effect. For Jacob said nothing. Only he glared at the fire. Fanny\nlaid down Tom Jones.\n\nShe stitched or knitted.\n\n\"What's that?\" asked Jacob.\n\n\"For the dance at the Slade.\"\n\nAnd she fetched her head-dress; her trousers; her shoes with red\ntassels. What should she wear?\n\n\"I shall be in Paris,\" said Jacob.\n\nAnd what is the point of fancy-dress dances? thought Fanny. You meet the\nsame people; you wear the same clothes; Mangin gets drunk; Florinda sits\non his knee. She flirts outrageously--with Nick Bramham just now.\n\n\"In Paris?\" said Fanny.\n\n\"On my way to Greece,\" he replied.\n\nFor, he said, there is nothing so detestable as London in May.\n\nHe would forget her.\n\nA sparrow flew past the window trailing a straw--a straw from a stack\nstood by a barn in a farmyard. The old brown spaniel snuffs at the base\nfor a rat. Already the upper branches of the elm trees are blotted with\nnests. The chestnuts have flirted their fans. And the butterflies are\nflaunting across the rides in the Forest. Perhaps the Purple Emperor is\nfeasting, as Morris says, upon a mass of putrid carrion at the base of\nan oak tree.\n\nFanny thought it all came from Tom Jones. He could go alone with a book\nin his pocket and watch the badgers. He would take a train at\neight-thirty and walk all night. He saw fire-flies, and brought back\nglow-worms in pill-boxes. He would hunt with the New Forest Staghounds.\nIt all came from Tom Jones; and he would go to Greece with a book in his\npocket and forget her.\n\nShe fetched her hand-glass. There was her face. And suppose one wreathed\nJacob in a turban? There was his face. She lit the lamp. But as the\ndaylight came through the window only half was lit up by the lamp. And\nthough he looked terrible and magnificent and would chuck the Forest, he\nsaid, and come to the Slade, and be a Turkish knight or a Roman emperor\n(and he let her blacken his lips and clenched his teeth and scowled in\nthe glass), still--there lay Tom Jones.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ELEVEN\n\n\n\"Archer,\" said Mrs. Flanders with that tenderness which mothers so often\ndisplay towards their eldest sons, \"will be at Gibraltar to-morrow.\"\n\nThe post for which she was waiting (strolling up Dods Hill while the\nrandom church bells swung a hymn tune about her head, the clock striking\nfour straight through the circling notes; the glass purpling under a\nstorm-cloud; and the two dozen houses of the village cowering,\ninfinitely humble, in company under a leaf of shadow), the post, with\nall its variety of messages, envelopes addressed in bold hands, in\nslanting hands, stamped now with English stamps, again with Colonial\nstamps, or sometimes hastily dabbed with a yellow bar, the post was\nabout to scatter a myriad messages over the world. Whether we gain or\nnot by this habit of profuse communication it is not for us to say. But\nthat letter-writing is practised mendaciously nowadays, particularly by\nyoung men travelling in foreign parts, seems likely enough.\n\nFor example, take this scene.\n\nHere was Jacob Flanders gone abroad and staying to break his journey in\nParis. (Old Miss Birkbeck, his mother's cousin, had died last June and\nleft him a hundred pounds.)\n\n\"You needn't repeat the whole damned thing over again, Cruttendon,\" said\nMallinson, the little bald painter who was sitting at a marble table,\nsplashed with coffee and ringed with wine, talking very fast, and\nundoubtedly more than a little drunk.\n\n\"Well, Flanders, finished writing to your lady?\" said Cruttendon, as\nJacob came and took his seat beside them, holding in his hand an\nenvelope addressed to Mrs. Flanders, near Scarborough, England.\n\n\"Do you uphold Velasquez?\" said Cruttendon.\n\n\"By God, he does,\" said Mallinson.\n\n\"He always gets like this,\" said Cruttendon irritably.\n\nJacob looked at Mallinson with excessive composure.\n\n\"I'll tell you the three greatest things that were ever written in the\nwhole of literature,\" Cruttendon burst out. \"'Hang there like fruit my\nsoul.'\" he began....\n\n\"Don't listen to a man who don't like Velasquez,\" said Mallinson.\n\n\"Adolphe, don't give Mr. Mallinson any more wine,\" said Cruttendon.\n\n\"Fair play, fair play,\" said Jacob judicially. \"Let a man get drunk if\nhe likes. That's Shakespeare, Cruttendon. I'm with you there.\nShakespeare had more guts than all these damned frogs put together.\n'Hang there like fruit my soul,'\" he began quoting, in a musical\nrhetorical voice, flourishing his wine-glass. \"The devil damn you black,\nyou cream-faced loon!\" he exclaimed as the wine washed over the rim.\n\n\"'Hang there like fruit my soul,'\" Cruttendon and Jacob both began again\nat the same moment, and both burst out laughing.\n\n\"Curse these flies,\" said Mallinson, flicking at his bald head. \"What do\nthey take me for?\"\n\n\"Something sweet-smelling,\" said Cruttendon.\n\n\"Shut up, Cruttendon,\" said Jacob. \"The fellow has no manners,\" he\nexplained to Mallinson very politely. \"Wants to cut people off their\ndrink. Look here. I want grilled bone. What's the French for grilled\nbone? Grilled bone, Adolphe. Now you juggins, don't you understand?\"\n\n\"And I'll tell you, Flanders, the second most beautiful thing in the\nwhole of literature,\" said Cruttendon, bringing his feet down on to the\nfloor, and leaning right across the table, so that his face almost\ntouched Jacob's face.\n\n\"'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,'\" Mallinson interrupted,\nstrumming his fingers on the table. \"The most ex-qui-sitely beautiful\nthing in the whole of literature.... Cruttendon is a very good fellow,\"\nhe remarked confidentially. \"But he's a bit of a fool.\" And he jerked\nhis head forward.\n\nWell, not a word of this was ever told to Mrs. Flanders; nor what\nhappened when they paid the bill and left the restaurant, and walked\nalong the Boulevard Raspaille.\n\nThen here is another scrap of conversation; the time about eleven in the\nmorning; the scene a studio; and the day Sunday.\n\n\"I tell you, Flanders,\" said Cruttendon, \"I'd as soon have one of\nMallinson's little pictures as a Chardin. And when I say that ...\" he\nsqueezed the tail of an emaciated tube ... \"Chardin was a great swell....\nHe sells 'em to pay his dinner now. But wait till the dealers get\nhold of him. A great swell--oh, a very great swell.\"\n\n\"It's an awfully pleasant life,\" said Jacob, \"messing away up here.\nStill, it's a stupid art, Cruttendon.\" He wandered off across the room.\n\"There's this man, Pierre Louys now.\" He took up a book.\n\n\"Now my good sir, are you going to settle down?\" said Cruttendon.\n\n\"That's a solid piece of work,\" said Jacob, standing a canvas on a\nchair.\n\n\"Oh, that I did ages ago,\" said Cruttendon, looking over his shoulder.\n\n\"You're a pretty competent painter in my opinion,\" said Jacob after a\ntime.\n\n\"Now if you'd like to see what I'm after at the present moment,\" said\nCruttendon, putting a canvas before Jacob. \"There. That's it. That's\nmore like it. That's ...\" he squirmed his thumb in a circle round a lamp\nglobe painted white.\n\n\"A pretty solid piece of work,\" said Jacob, straddling his legs in front\nof it. \"But what I wish you'd explain ...\"\n\nMiss Jinny Carslake, pale, freckled, morbid, came into the room.\n\n\"Oh Jinny, here's a friend. Flanders. An Englishman. Wealthy. Highly\nconnected. Go on, Flanders....\"\n\nJacob said nothing.\n\n\"It's THAT--that's not right,\" said Jinny Carslake.\n\n\"No,\" said Cruttendon decidedly. \"Can't be done.\"\n\nHe took the canvas off the chair and stood it on the floor with its back\nto them.\n\n\"Sit down, ladies and gentlemen. Miss Carslake comes from your part of\nthe world, Flanders. From Devonshire. Oh, I thought you said Devonshire.\nVery well. She's a daughter of the church too. The black sheep of the\nfamily. Her mother writes her such letters. I say--have you one about\nyou? It's generally Sundays they come. Sort of church-bell effect, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Have you met all the painter men?\" said Jinny. \"Was Mallinson drunk? If\nyou go to his studio he'll give you one of his pictures. I say, Teddy....\"\n\n\"Half a jiff,\" said Cruttendon. \"What's the season of the year?\" He\nlooked out of the window.\n\n\"We take a day off on Sundays, Flanders.\"\n\n\"Will he ...\" said Jinny, looking at Jacob. \"You ...\"\n\n\"Yes, he'll come with us,\" said Cruttendon.\n\nAnd then, here is Versailles. Jinny stood on the stone rim and leant\nover the pond, clasped by Cruttendon's arms or she would have fallen in.\n\"There! There!\" she cried. \"Right up to the top!\" Some sluggish,\nsloping-shouldered fish had floated up from the depths to nip her\ncrumbs. \"You look,\" she said, jumping down. And then the dazzling white\nwater, rough and throttled, shot up into the air. The fountain spread\nitself. Through it came the sound of military music far away. All the\nwater was puckered with drops. A blue air-ball gently bumped the\nsurface. How all the nurses and children and old men and young crowded\nto the edge, leant over and waved their sticks! The little girl ran\nstretching her arms towards her air-ball, but it sank beneath the\nfountain.\n\nEdward Cruttendon, Jinny Carslake, and Jacob Flanders walked in a row\nalong the yellow gravel path; got on to the grass; so passed under the\ntrees; and came out at the summer-house where Marie Antoinette used to\ndrink chocolate. In went Edward and Jinny, but Jacob waited outside,\nsitting on the handle of his walking-stick. Out they came again.\n\n\"Well?\" said Cruttendon, smiling at Jacob.\n\nJinny waited; Edward waited; and both looked at Jacob.\n\n\"Well?\" said Jacob, smiling and pressing both hands on his stick.\n\n\"Come along,\" he decided; and started off. The others followed him,\nsmiling.\n\nAnd then they went to the little cafe in the by-street where people sit\ndrinking coffee, watching the soldiers, meditatively knocking ashes into\ntrays.\n\n\"But he's quite different,\" said Jinny, folding her hands over the top\nof her glass. \"I don't suppose you know what Ted means when he says a\nthing like that,\" she said, looking at Jacob. \"But I do. Sometimes I\ncould kill myself. Sometimes he lies in bed all day long--just lies\nthere.... I don't want you right on the table\"; she waved her hands.\nSwollen iridescent pigeons were waddling round their feet.\n\n\"Look at that woman's hat,\" said Cruttendon. \"How do they come to think\nof it? ... No, Flanders, I don't think I could live like you. When one\nwalks down that street opposite the British Museum--what's it\ncalled?--that's what I mean. It's all like that. Those fat women--and\nthe man standing in the middle of the road as if he were going to have a\nfit ...\"\n\n\"Everybody feeds them,\" said Jinny, waving the pigeons away. \"They're\nstupid old things.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know,\" said Jacob, smoking his cigarette. \"There's St.\nPaul's.\"\n\n\"I mean going to an office,\" said Cruttendon.\n\n\"Hang it all,\" Jacob expostulated.\n\n\"But you don't count,\" said Jinny, looking at Cruttendon. \"You're mad. I\nmean, you just think of painting.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. I can't help it. I say, will King George give way about\nthe peers?\"\n\n\"He'll jolly well have to,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"There!\" said Jinny. \"He really knows.\"\n\n\"You see, I would if I could,\" said Cruttendon, \"but I simply can't.\"\n\n\"I THINK I could,\" said Jinny. \"Only, it's all the people one dislikes\nwho do it. At home, I mean. They talk of nothing else. Even people like\nmy mother.\"\n\n\"Now if I came and lived here---\" said Jacob. \"What's my share,\nCruttendon? Oh, very well. Have it your own way. Those silly birds,\ndirectly one wants them--they've flown away.\"\n\nAnd finally under the arc lamps in the Gare des Invalides, with one of\nthose queer movements which are so slight yet so definite, which may\nwound or pass unnoticed but generally inflict a good deal of discomfort,\nJinny and Cruttendon drew together; Jacob stood apart. They had to\nseparate. Something must be said. Nothing was said. A man wheeled a\ntrolley past Jacob's legs so near that he almost grazed them. When Jacob\nrecovered his balance the other two were turning away, though Jinny\nlooked over her shoulder, and Cruttendon, waving his hand, disappeared\nlike the very great genius that he was.\n\nNo--Mrs. Flanders was told none of this, though Jacob felt, it is safe\nto say, that nothing in the world was of greater importance; and as for\nCruttendon and Jinny, he thought them the most remarkable people he had\never met--being of course unable to foresee how it fell out in the\ncourse of time that Cruttendon took to painting orchards; had therefore\nto live in Kent; and must, one would think, see through apple blossom by\nthis time, since his wife, for whose sake he did it, eloped with a\nnovelist; but no; Cruttendon still paints orchards, savagely, in\nsolitude. Then Jinny Carslake, after her affair with Lefanu the American\npainter, frequented Indian philosophers, and now you find her in\npensions in Italy cherishing a little jeweller's box containing ordinary\npebbles picked off the road. But if you look at them steadily, she says,\nmultiplicity becomes unity, which is somehow the secret of life, though\nit does not prevent her from following the macaroni as it goes round the\ntable, and sometimes, on spring nights, she makes the strangest\nconfidences to shy young Englishmen.\n\nJacob had nothing to hide from his mother. It was only that he could\nmake no sense himself of his extraordinary excitement, and as for\nwriting it down---\n\n\"Jacob's letters are so like him,\" said Mrs. Jarvis, folding the sheet.\n\n\"Indeed he seems to be having ...\" said Mrs. Flanders, and paused, for\nshe was cutting out a dress and had to straighten the pattern, \"... a\nvery gay time.\"\n\nMrs. Jarvis thought of Paris. At her back the window was open, for it\nwas a mild night; a calm night; when the moon seemed muffled and the\napple trees stood perfectly still.\n\n\"I never pity the dead,\" said Mrs. Jarvis, shifting the cushion at her\nback, and clasping her hands behind her head. Betty Flanders did not\nhear, for her scissors made so much noise on the table.\n\n\"They are at rest,\" said Mrs. Jarvis. \"And we spend our days doing\nfoolish unnecessary things without knowing why.\"\n\nMrs. Jarvis was not liked in the village.\n\n\"You never walk at this time of night?\" she asked Mrs. Flanders.\n\n\"It is certainly wonderfully mild,\" said Mrs. Flanders.\n\nYet it was years since she had opened the orchard gate and gone out on\nDods Hill after dinner.\n\n\"It is perfectly dry,\" said Mrs. Jarvis, as they shut the orchard door\nand stepped on to the turf.\n\n\"I shan't go far,\" said Betty Flanders. \"Yes, Jacob will leave Paris on\nWednesday.\"\n\n\"Jacob was always my friend of the three,\" said Mrs. Jarvis.\n\n\"Now, my dear, I am going no further,\" said Mrs. Flanders. They had\nclimbed the dark hill and reached the Roman camp.\n\nThe rampart rose at their feet--the smooth circle surrounding the camp\nor the grave. How many needles Betty Flanders had lost there; and her\ngarnet brooch.\n\n\"It is much clearer than this sometimes,\" said Mrs. Jarvis, standing\nupon the ridge. There were no clouds, and yet there was a haze over the\nsea, and over the moors. The lights of Scarborough flashed, as if a\nwoman wearing a diamond necklace turned her head this way and that.\n\n\"How quiet it is!\" said Mrs. Jarvis.\n\nMrs. Flanders rubbed the turf with her toe, thinking of her garnet\nbrooch.\n\nMrs. Jarvis found it difficult to think of herself to-night. It was so\ncalm. There was no wind; nothing racing, flying, escaping. Black shadows\nstood still over the silver moors. The furze bushes stood perfectly\nstill. Neither did Mrs. Jarvis think of God. There was a church behind\nthem, of course. The church clock struck ten. Did the strokes reach the\nfurze bush, or did the thorn tree hear them?\n\nMrs. Flanders was stooping down to pick up a pebble. Sometimes people do\nfind things, Mrs. Jarvis thought, and yet in this hazy moonlight it was\nimpossible to see anything, except bones, and little pieces of chalk.\n\n\"Jacob bought it with his own money, and then I brought Mr. Parker up to\nsee the view, and it must have dropped--\" Mrs. Flanders murmured.\n\nDid the bones stir, or the rusty swords? Was Mrs. Flanders's\ntwopenny-halfpenny brooch for ever part of the rich accumulation? and if\nall the ghosts flocked thick and rubbed shoulders with Mrs. Flanders in\nthe circle, would she not have seemed perfectly in her place, a live\nEnglish matron, growing stout?\n\nThe clock struck the quarter.\n\nThe frail waves of sound broke among the stiff gorse and the hawthorn\ntwigs as the church clock divided time into quarters.\n\nMotionless and broad-backed the moors received the statement \"It is\nfifteen minutes past the hour,\" but made no answer, unless a bramble\nstirred.\n\nYet even in this light the legends on the tombstones could be read,\nbrief voices saying, \"I am Bertha Ruck,\" \"I am Tom Gage.\" And they say\nwhich day of the year they died, and the New Testament says something\nfor them, very proud, very emphatic, or consoling.\n\nThe moors accept all that too.\n\nThe moonlight falls like a pale page upon the church wall, and illumines\nthe kneeling family in the niche, and the tablet set up in 1780 to the\nSquire of the parish who relieved the poor, and believed in God--so the\nmeasured voice goes on down the marble scroll, as though it could impose\nitself upon time and the open air.\n\nNow a fox steals out from behind the gorse bushes.\n\nOften, even at night, the church seems full of people. The pews are worn\nand greasy, and the cassocks in place, and the hymn-books on the ledges.\nIt is a ship with all its crew aboard. The timbers strain to hold the\ndead and the living, the ploughmen, the carpenters, the fox-hunting\ngentlemen and the farmers smelling of mud and brandy. Their tongues join\ntogether in syllabling the sharp-cut words, which for ever slice asunder\ntime and the broad-backed moors. Plaint and belief and elegy, despair\nand triumph, but for the most part good sense and jolly indifference, go\ntrampling out of the windows any time these five hundred years.\n\nStill, as Mrs. Jarvis said, stepping out on to the moors, \"How quiet it\nis!\" Quiet at midday, except when the hunt scatters across it; quiet in\nthe afternoon, save for the drifting sheep; at night the moor is\nperfectly quiet.\n\nA garnet brooch has dropped into its grass. A fox pads stealthily. A\nleaf turns on its edge. Mrs. Jarvis, who is fifty years of age, reposes\nin the camp in the hazy moonlight.\n\n\"... and,\" said Mrs. Flanders, straightening her back, \"I never cared\nfor Mr. Parker.\"\n\n\"Neither did I,\" said Mrs. Jarvis. They began to walk home.\n\nBut their voices floated for a little above the camp. The moonlight\ndestroyed nothing. The moor accepted everything. Tom Gage cries aloud so\nlong as his tombstone endures. The Roman skeletons are in safe keeping.\nBetty Flanders's darning needles are safe too and her garnet brooch. And\nsometimes at midday, in the sunshine, the moor seems to hoard these\nlittle treasures, like a nurse. But at midnight when no one speaks or\ngallops, and the thorn tree is perfectly still, it would be foolish to\nvex the moor with questions--what? and why?\n\nThe church clock, however, strikes twelve.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWELVE\n\n\nThe water fell off a ledge like lead--like a chain with thick white\nlinks. The train ran out into a steep green meadow, and Jacob saw\nstriped tulips growing and heard a bird singing, in Italy.\n\nA motor car full of Italian officers ran along the flat road and kept up\nwith the train, raising dust behind it. There were trees laced together\nwith vines--as Virgil said. Here was a station; and a tremendous\nleave-taking going on, with women in high yellow boots and odd pale boys\nin ringed socks. Virgil's bees had gone about the plains of Lombardy. It\nwas the custom of the ancients to train vines between elms. Then at\nMilan there were sharp-winged hawks, of a bright brown, cutting figures\nover the roofs.\n\nThese Italian carriages get damnably hot with the afternoon sun on them,\nand the chances are that before the engine has pulled to the top of the\ngorge the clanking chain will have broken. Up, up, up, it goes, like a\ntrain on a scenic railway. Every peak is covered with sharp trees, and\namazing white villages are crowded on ledges. There is always a white\ntower on the very summit, flat red-frilled roofs, and a sheer drop\nbeneath. It is not a country in which one walks after tea. For one thing\nthere is no grass. A whole hillside will be ruled with olive trees.\nAlready in April the earth is clotted into dry dust between them. And\nthere are neither stiles nor footpaths, nor lanes chequered with the\nshadows of leaves nor eighteenth-century inns with bow-windows, where\none eats ham and eggs. Oh no, Italy is all fierceness, bareness,\nexposure, and black priests shuffling along the roads. It is strange,\ntoo, how you never get away from villas.\n\nStill, to be travelling on one's own with a hundred pounds to spend is a\nfine affair. And if his money gave out, as it probably would, he would\ngo on foot. He could live on bread and wine--the wine in straw\nbottles--for after doing Greece he was going to knock off Rome. The\nRoman civilization was a very inferior affair, no doubt. But Bonamy\ntalked a lot of rot, all the same. \"You ought to have been in Athens,\"\nhe would say to Bonamy when he got back. \"Standing on the Parthenon,\" he\nwould say, or \"The ruins of the Coliseum suggest some fairly sublime\nreflections,\" which he would write out at length in letters. It might\nturn to an essay upon civilization. A comparison between the ancients\nand moderns, with some pretty sharp hits at Mr. Asquith--something in\nthe style of Gibbon.\n\nA stout gentleman laboriously hauled himself in, dusty, baggy, slung\nwith gold chains, and Jacob, regretting that he did not come of the\nLatin race, looked out of the window.\n\nIt is a strange reflection that by travelling two days and nights you\nare in the heart of Italy. Accidental villas among olive trees appear;\nand men-servants watering the cactuses. Black victorias drive in between\npompous pillars with plaster shields stuck to them. It is at once\nmomentary and astonishingly intimate--to be displayed before the eyes of\na foreigner. And there is a lonely hill-top where no one ever comes, and\nyet it is seen by me who was lately driving down Piccadilly on an\nomnibus. And what I should like would be to get out among the fields,\nsit down and hear the grasshoppers, and take up a handful of\nearth--Italian earth, as this is Italian dust upon my shoes.\n\nJacob heard them crying strange names at railway stations through the\nnight. The train stopped and he heard frogs croaking close by, and he\nwrinkled back the blind cautiously and saw a vast strange marsh all\nwhite in the moonlight. The carriage was thick with cigar smoke, which\nfloated round the globe with the green shade on it. The Italian\ngentleman lay snoring with his boots off and his waistcoat unbuttoned....\nAnd all this business of going to Greece seemed to Jacob an\nintolerable weariness--sitting in hotels by oneself and looking at\nmonuments--he'd have done better to go to Cornwall with Timmy Durrant....\n\"O--h,\" Jacob protested, as the darkness began breaking in front of\nhim and the light showed through, but the man was reaching across him to\nget something--the fat Italian man in his dicky, unshaven, crumpled,\nobese, was opening the door and going off to have a wash.\n\nSo Jacob sat up, and saw a lean Italian sportsman with a gun walking\ndown the road in the early morning light, and the whole idea of the\nParthenon came upon him in a clap.\n\n\"By Jove!\" he thought, \"we must be nearly there!\" and he stuck his head\nout of the window and got the air full in his face.\n\nIt is highly exasperating that twenty-five people of your acquaintance\nshould be able to say straight off something very much to the point\nabout being in Greece, while for yourself there is a stopper upon all\nemotions whatsoever. For after washing at the hotel at Patras, Jacob had\nfollowed the tram lines a mile or so out; and followed them a mile or so\nback; he had met several droves of turkeys; several strings of donkeys;\nhad got lost in back streets; had read advertisements of corsets and of\nMaggi's consomme; children had trodden on his toes; the place smelt of\nbad cheese; and he was glad to find himself suddenly come out opposite\nhis hotel. There was an old copy of the Daily Mail lying among\ncoffee-cups; which he read. But what could he do after dinner?\n\nNo doubt we should be, on the whole, much worse off than we are without\nour astonishing gift for illusion. At the age of twelve or so, having\ngiven up dolls and broken our steam engines, France, but much more\nprobably Italy, and India almost for a certainty, draws the superfluous\nimagination. One's aunts have been to Rome; and every one has an uncle\nwho was last heard of--poor man--in Rangoon. He will never come back any\nmore. But it is the governesses who start the Greek myth. Look at that\nfor a head (they say)--nose, you see, straight as a dart, curls,\neyebrows--everything appropriate to manly beauty; while his legs and\narms have lines on them which indicate a perfect degree of\ndevelopment--the Greeks caring for the body as much as for the face. And\nthe Greeks could paint fruit so that birds pecked at it. First you read\nXenophon; then Euripides. One day--that was an occasion, by God--what\npeople have said appears to have sense in it; \"the Greek spirit\"; the\nGreek this, that, and the other; though it is absurd, by the way, to say\nthat any Greek comes near Shakespeare. The point is, however, that we\nhave been brought up in an illusion.\n\nJacob, no doubt, thought something in this fashion, the Daily Mail\ncrumpled in his hand; his legs extended; the very picture of boredom.\n\n\"But it's the way we're brought up,\" he went on.\n\nAnd it all seemed to him very distasteful. Something ought to be done\nabout it. And from being moderately depressed he became like a man about\nto be executed. Clara Durrant had left him at a party to talk to an\nAmerican called Pilchard. And he had come all the way to Greece and left\nher. They wore evening-dresses, and talked nonsense--what damned\nnonsense--and he put out his hand for the Globe Trotter, an\ninternational magazine which is supplied free of charge to the\nproprietors of hotels.\n\nIn spite of its ramshackle condition modern Greece is highly advanced in\nthe electric tramway system, so that while Jacob sat in the hotel\nsitting-room the trams clanked, chimed, rang, rang, rang imperiously to\nget the donkeys out of the way, and one old woman who refused to budge,\nbeneath the windows. The whole of civilization was being condemned.\n\nThe waiter was quite indifferent to that too. Aristotle, a dirty man,\ncarnivorously interested in the body of the only guest now occupying the\nonly arm-chair, came into the room ostentatiously, put something down,\nput something straight, and saw that Jacob was still there.\n\n\"I shall want to be called early to-morrow,\" said Jacob, over his\nshoulder. \"I am going to Olympia.\"\n\nThis gloom, this surrender to the dark waters which lap us about, is a\nmodern invention. Perhaps, as Cruttendon said, we do not believe enough.\nOur fathers at any rate had something to demolish. So have we for the\nmatter of that, thought Jacob, crumpling the Daily Mail in his hand. He\nwould go into Parliament and make fine speeches--but what use are fine\nspeeches and Parliament, once you surrender an inch to the black waters?\nIndeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our\nveins--of happiness and unhappiness. That respectability and evening\nparties where one has to dress, and wretched slums at the back of Gray's\nInn--something solid, immovable, and grotesque--is at the back of it,\nJacob thought probable. But then there was the British Empire which was\nbeginning to puzzle him; nor was he altogether in favour of giving Home\nRule to Ireland. What did the Daily Mail say about that?\n\nFor he had grown to be a man, and was about to be immersed in things--as\nindeed the chambermaid, emptying his basin upstairs, fingering keys,\nstuds, pencils, and bottles of tabloids strewn on the dressing-table,\nwas aware.\n\nThat he had grown to be a man was a fact that Florinda knew, as she knew\neverything, by instinct.\n\nAnd Betty Flanders even now suspected it, as she read his letter, posted\nat Milan, \"Telling me,\" she complained to Mrs. Jarvis, \"really nothing\nthat I want to know\"; but she brooded over it.\n\nFanny Elmer felt it to desperation. For he would take his stick and his\nhat and would walk to the window, and look perfectly absent-minded and\nvery stern too, she thought.\n\n\"I am going,\" he would say, \"to cadge a meal of Bonamy.\"\n\n\"Anyhow, I can drown myself in the Thames,\" Fanny cried, as she hurried\npast the Foundling Hospital.\n\n\"But the Daily Mail isn't to be trusted,\" Jacob said to himself, looking\nabout for something else to read. And he sighed again, being indeed so\nprofoundly gloomy that gloom must have been lodged in him to cloud him\nat any moment, which was odd in a man who enjoyed things so, was not\nmuch given to analysis, but was horribly romantic, of course, Bonamy\nthought, in his rooms in Lincoln's Inn.\n\n\"He will fall in love,\" thought Bonamy. \"Some Greek woman with a\nstraight nose.\"\n\nIt was to Bonamy that Jacob wrote from Patras--to Bonamy who couldn't\nlove a woman and never read a foolish book.\n\nThere are very few good books after all, for we can't count profuse\nhistories, travels in mule carts to discover the sources of the Nile, or\nthe volubility of fiction.\n\nI like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like\nsentences that don't budge though armies cross them. I like words to be\nhard--such were Bonamy's views, and they won him the hostility of those\nwhose taste is all for the fresh growths of the morning, who throw up\nthe window, and find the poppies spread in the sun, and can't forbear a\nshout of jubilation at the astonishing fertility of English literature.\nThat was not Bonamy's way at all. That his taste in literature affected\nhis friendships, and made him silent, secretive, fastidious, and only\nquite at his ease with one or two young men of his own way of thinking,\nwas the charge against him.\n\nBut then Jacob Flanders was not at all of his own way of thinking--far\nfrom it, Bonamy sighed, laying the thin sheets of notepaper on the table\nand falling into thought about Jacob's character, not for the first\ntime.\n\nThe trouble was this romantic vein in him. \"But mixed with the stupidity\nwhich leads him into these absurd predicaments,\" thought Bonamy, \"there\nis something--something\"--he sighed, for he was fonder of Jacob than of\nany one in the world.\n\nJacob went to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets. There\nhe saw three Greeks in kilts; the masts of ships; idle or busy people of\nthe lower classes strolling or stepping out briskly, or falling into\ngroups and gesticulating with their hands. Their lack of concern for him\nwas not the cause of his gloom; but some more profound conviction--it\nwas not that he himself happened to be lonely, but that all people are.\n\nYet next day, as the train slowly rounded a hill on the way to Olympia,\nthe Greek peasant women were out among the vines; the old Greek men were\nsitting at the stations, sipping sweet wine. And though Jacob remained\ngloomy he had never suspected how tremendously pleasant it is to be\nalone; out of England; on one's own; cut off from the whole thing. There\nare very sharp bare hills on the way to Olympia; and between them blue\nsea in triangular spaces. A little like the Cornish coast. Well now, to\ngo walking by oneself all day--to get on to that track and follow it up\nbetween the bushes--or are they small trees?--to the top of that\nmountain from which one can see half the nations of antiquity--\n\n\"Yes,\" said Jacob, for his carriage was empty, \"let's look at the map.\"\nBlame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us. To\ngallop intemperately; fall on the sand tired out; to feel the earth\nspin; to have--positively--a rush of friendship for stones and grasses,\nas if humanity were over, and as for men and women, let them go\nhang--there is no getting over the fact that this desire seizes us\npretty often.\n\nThe evening air slightly moved the dirty curtains in the hotel window at\nOlympia.\n\n\"I am full of love for every one,\" thought Mrs. Wentworth Williams,\n\"--for the poor most of all--for the peasants coming back in the evening\nwith their burdens. And everything is soft and vague and very sad. It is\nsad, it is sad. But everything has meaning,\" thought Sandra Wentworth\nWilliams, raising her head a little and looking very beautiful, tragic,\nand exalted. \"One must love everything.\"\n\nShe held in her hand a little book convenient for travelling--stories by\nTchekov--as she stood, veiled, in white, in the window of the hotel at\nOlympia. How beautiful the evening was! and her beauty was its beauty.\nThe tragedy of Greece was the tragedy of all high souls. The inevitable\ncompromise. She seemed to have grasped something. She would write it\ndown. And moving to the table where her husband sat reading she leant\nher chin in her hands and thought of the peasants, of suffering, of her\nown beauty, of the inevitable compromise, and of how she would write it\ndown. Nor did Evan Williams say anything brutal, banal, or foolish when\nhe shut his book and put it away to make room for the plates of soup\nwhich were now being placed before them. Only his drooping bloodhound\neyes and his heavy sallow cheeks expressed his melancholy tolerance, his\nconviction that though forced to live with circumspection and\ndeliberation he could never possibly achieve any of those objects which,\nas he knew, are the only ones worth pursuing. His consideration was\nflawless; his silence unbroken.\n\n\"Everything seems to mean so much,\" said Sandra. But with the sound of\nher own voice the spell was broken. She forgot the peasants. Only there\nremained with her a sense of her own beauty, and in front, luckily,\nthere was a looking-glass.\n\n\"I am very beautiful,\" she thought.\n\nShe shifted her hat slightly. Her husband saw her looking in the glass;\nand agreed that beauty is important; it is an inheritance; one cannot\nignore it. But it is a barrier; it is in fact rather a bore. So he drank\nhis soup; and kept his eyes fixed upon the window.\n\n\"Quails,\" said Mrs. Wentworth Williams languidly. \"And then goat, I\nsuppose; and then...\"\n\n\"Caramel custard presumably,\" said her husband in the same cadence, with\nhis toothpick out already.\n\nShe laid her spoon upon her plate, and her soup was taken away half\nfinished. Never did she do anything without dignity; for hers was the\nEnglish type which is so Greek, save that villagers have touched their\nhats to it, the vicarage reveres it; and upper-gardeners and\nunder-gardeners respectfully straighten their backs as she comes down\nthe broad terrace on Sunday morning, dallying at the stone urns with the\nPrime Minister to pick a rose--which, perhaps, she was trying to forget,\nas her eye wandered round the dining-room of the inn at Olympia, seeking\nthe window where her book lay, where a few minutes ago she had\ndiscovered something--something very profound it had been, about love\nand sadness and the peasants.\n\nBut it was Evan who sighed; not in despair nor indeed in rebellion. But,\nbeing the most ambitious of men and temperamentally the most sluggish,\nhe had accomplished nothing; had the political history of England at his\nfinger-ends, and living much in company with Chatham, Pitt, Burke, and\nCharles James Fox could not help contrasting himself and his age with\nthem and theirs. \"Yet there never was a time when great men are more\nneeded,\" he was in the habit of saying to himself, with a sigh. Here he\nwas picking his teeth in an inn at Olympia. He had done. But Sandra's\neyes wandered.\n\n\"Those pink melons are sure to be dangerous,\" he said gloomily. And as\nhe spoke the door opened and in came a young man in a grey check suit.\n\n\"Beautiful but dangerous,\" said Sandra, immediately talking to her\nhusband in the presence of a third person. (\"Ah, an English boy on\ntour,\" she thought to herself.)\n\nAnd Evan knew all that too.\n\nYes, he knew all that; and he admired her. Very pleasant, he thought, to\nhave affairs. But for himself, what with his height (Napoleon was five\nfeet four, he remembered), his bulk, his inability to impose his own\npersonality (and yet great men are needed more than ever now, he\nsighed), it was useless. He threw away his cigar, went up to Jacob and\nasked him, with a simple sort of sincerity which Jacob liked, whether he\nhad come straight out from England.\n\n\"How very English!\" Sandra laughed when the waiter told them next\nmorning that the young gentleman had left at five to climb the mountain.\n\"I am sure he asked you for a bath?\" at which the waiter shook his head,\nand said that he would ask the manager.\n\n\"You do not understand,\" laughed Sandra. \"Never mind.\"\n\nStretched on the top of the mountain, quite alone, Jacob enjoyed himself\nimmensely. Probably he had never been so happy in the whole of his life.\n\nBut at dinner that night Mr. Williams asked him whether he would like to\nsee the paper; then Mrs. Williams asked him (as they strolled on the\nterrace smoking--and how could he refuse that man's cigar?) whether he'd\nseen the theatre by moonlight; whether he knew Everard Sherborn; whether\nhe read Greek and whether (Evan rose silently and went in) if he had to\nsacrifice one it would be the French literature or the Russian?\n\n\"And now,\" wrote Jacob in his letter to Bonamy, \"I shall have to read\nher cursed book\"--her Tchekov, he meant, for she had lent it him.\n\nThough the opinion is unpopular it seems likely enough that bare places,\nfields too thick with stones to be ploughed, tossing sea-meadows\nhalf-way between England and America, suit us better than cities.\n\nThere is something absolute in us which despises qualification. It is\nthis which is teased and twisted in society. People come together in a\nroom. \"So delighted,\" says somebody, \"to meet you,\" and that is a lie.\nAnd then: \"I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I\nthink, as one gets older.\" For women are always, always, always talking\nabout what one feels, and if they say \"as one gets older,\" they mean you\nto reply with something quite off the point.\n\nJacob sat himself down in the quarry where the Greeks had cut marble for\nthe theatre. It is hot work walking up Greek hills at midday. The wild\nred cyclamen was out; he had seen the little tortoises hobbling from\nclump to clump; the air smelt strong and suddenly sweet, and the sun,\nstriking on jagged splinters of marble, was very dazzling to the eyes.\nComposed, commanding, contemptuous, a little melancholy, and bored with\nan august kind of boredom, there he sat smoking his pipe.\n\nBonamy would have said that this was the sort of thing that made him\nuneasy--when Jacob got into the doldrums, looked like a Margate\nfisherman out of a job, or a British Admiral. You couldn't make him\nunderstand a thing when he was in a mood like that. One had better leave\nhim alone. He was dull. He was apt to be grumpy.\n\nHe was up very early, looking at the statues with his Baedeker.\n\nSandra Wentworth Williams, ranging the world before breakfast in quest\nof adventure or a point of view, all in white, not so very tall perhaps,\nbut uncommonly upright--Sandra Williams got Jacob's head exactly on a\nlevel with the head of the Hermes of Praxiteles. The comparison was all\nin his favour. But before she could say a single word he had gone out of\nthe Museum and left her.\n\nStill, a lady of fashion travels with more than one dress, and if white\nsuits the morning hour, perhaps sandy yellow with purple spots on it, a\nblack hat, and a volume of Balzac, suit the evening. Thus she was\narranged on the terrace when Jacob came in. Very beautiful she looked.\nWith her hands folded she mused, seemed to listen to her husband, seemed\nto watch the peasants coming down with brushwood on their backs, seemed\nto notice how the hill changed from blue to black, seemed to\ndiscriminate between truth and falsehood, Jacob thought, and crossed his\nlegs suddenly, observing the extreme shabbiness of his trousers.\n\n\"But he is very distinguished looking,\" Sandra decided.\n\nAnd Evan Williams, lying back in his chair with the paper on his knees,\nenvied them. The best thing he could do would be to publish, with\nMacmillans, his monograph upon the foreign policy of Chatham. But\nconfound this tumid, queasy feeling--this restlessness, swelling, and\nheat--it was jealousy! jealousy! jealousy! which he had sworn never to\nfeel again.\n\n\"Come with us to Corinth, Flanders,\" he said with more than his usual\nenergy, stopping by Jacob's chair. He was relieved by Jacob's reply, or\nrather by the solid, direct, if shy manner in which he said that he\nwould like very much to come with them to Corinth.\n\n\"Here is a fellow,\" thought Evan Williams, \"who might do very well in\npolitics.\"\n\n\"I intend to come to Greece every year so long as I live,\" Jacob wrote\nto Bonamy. \"It is the only chance I can see of protecting oneself from\ncivilization.\"\n\n\"Goodness knows what he means by that,\" Bonamy sighed. For as he never\nsaid a clumsy thing himself, these dark sayings of Jacob's made him feel\napprehensive, yet somehow impressed, his own turn being all for the\ndefinite, the concrete, and the rational.\n\nNothing could be much simpler than what Sandra said as she descended the\nAcro-Corinth, keeping to the little path, while Jacob strode over\nrougher ground by her side. She had been left motherless at the age of\nfour; and the Park was vast.\n\n\"One never seemed able to get out of it,\" she laughed. Of course there\nwas the library, and dear Mr. Jones, and notions about things. \"I used\nto stray into the kitchen and sit upon the butler's knees,\" she laughed,\nsadly though.\n\nJacob thought that if he had been there he would have saved her; for she\nhad been exposed to great dangers, he felt, and, he thought to himself,\n\"People wouldn't understand a woman talking as she talks.\"\n\nShe made little of the roughness of the hill; and wore breeches, he saw,\nunder her short skirts.\n\n\"Women like Fanny Elmer don't,\" he thought. \"What's-her-name Carslake\ndidn't; yet they pretend...\"\n\nMrs. Williams said things straight out. He was surprised by his own\nknowledge of the rules of behaviour; how much more can be said than one\nthought; how open one can be with a woman; and how little he had known\nhimself before.\n\nEvan joined them on the road; and as they drove along up hill and down\nhill (for Greece is in a state of effervescence, yet astonishingly\nclean-cut, a treeless land, where you see the ground between the blades,\neach hill cut and shaped and outlined as often as not against sparkling\ndeep blue waters, islands white as sand floating on the horizon,\noccasional groves of palm trees standing in the valleys, which are\nscattered with black goats, spotted with little olive trees and\nsometimes have white hollows, rayed and criss-crossed, in their flanks),\nas they drove up hill and down he scowled in the corner of the carriage,\nwith his paw so tightly closed that the skin was stretched between the\nknuckles and the little hairs stood upright. Sandra rode opposite,\ndominant, like a Victory prepared to fling into the air.\n\n\"Heartless!\" thought Evan (which was untrue).\n\n\"Brainless!\" he suspected (and that was not true either). \"Still...!\" He\nenvied her.\n\nWhen bedtime came the difficulty was to write to Bonamy, Jacob found.\nYet he had seen Salamis, and Marathon in the distance. Poor old Bonamy!\nNo; there was something queer about it. He could not write to Bonamy.\n\n\"I shall go to Athens all the same,\" he resolved, looking very set, with\nthis hook dragging in his side.\n\nThe Williamses had already been to Athens.\n\nAthens is still quite capable of striking a young man as the oddest\ncombination, the most incongruous assortment. Now it is suburban; now\nimmortal. Now cheap continental jewellery is laid upon plush trays. Now\nthe stately woman stands naked, save for a wave of drapery above the\nknee. No form can he set on his sensations as he strolls, one blazing\nafternoon, along the Parisian boulevard and skips out of the way of the\nroyal landau which, looking indescribably ramshackle, rattles along the\npitted roadway, saluted by citizens of both sexes cheaply dressed in\nbowler hats and continental costumes; though a shepherd in kilt, cap,\nand gaiters very nearly drives his herd of goats between the royal\nwheels; and all the time the Acropolis surges into the air, raises\nitself above the town, like a large immobile wave with the yellow\ncolumns of the Parthenon firmly planted upon it.\n\nThe yellow columns of the Parthenon are to be seen at all hours of the\nday firmly planted upon the Acropolis; though at sunset, when the ships\nin the Piraeus fire their guns, a bell rings, a man in uniform (the\nwaistcoat unbuttoned) appears; and the women roll up the black stockings\nwhich they are knitting in the shadow of the columns, call to the\nchildren, and troop off down the hill back to their houses.\n\nThere they are again, the pillars, the pediment, the Temple of Victory\nand the Erechtheum, set on a tawny rock cleft with shadows, directly you\nunlatch your shutters in the morning and, leaning out, hear the clatter,\nthe clamour, the whip cracking in the street below. There they are.\n\nThe extreme definiteness with which they stand, now a brilliant white,\nagain yellow, and in some lights red, imposes ideas of durability, of\nthe emergence through the earth of some spiritual energy elsewhere\ndissipated in elegant trifles. But this durability exists quite\nindependently of our admiration. Although the beauty is sufficiently\nhumane to weaken us, to stir the deep deposit of mud--memories,\nabandonments, regrets, sentimental devotions--the Parthenon is separate\nfrom all that; and if you consider how it has stood out all night, for\ncenturies, you begin to connect the blaze (at midday the glare is\ndazzling and the frieze almost invisible) with the idea that perhaps it\nis beauty alone that is immortal.\n\nAdded to this, compared with the blistered stucco, the new love songs\nrasped out to the strum of guitar and gramophone, and the mobile yet\ninsignificant faces of the street, the Parthenon is really astonishing\nin its silent composure; which is so vigorous that, far from being\ndecayed, the Parthenon appears, on the contrary, likely to outlast the\nentire world.\n\n\"And the Greeks, like sensible men, never bothered to finish the backs\nof their statues,\" said Jacob, shading his eyes and observing that the\nside of the figure which is turned away from view is left in the rough.\n\nHe noted the slight irregularity in the line of the steps which \"the\nartistic sense of the Greeks preferred to mathematical accuracy,\" he\nread in his guide-book.\n\nHe stood on the exact spot where the great statue of Athena used to\nstand, and identified the more famous landmarks of the scene beneath.\n\nIn short he was accurate and diligent; but profoundly morose. Moreover\nhe was pestered by guides. This was on Monday.\n\nBut on Wednesday he wrote a telegram to Bonamy, telling him to come at\nonce. And then he crumpled it in his hand and threw it in the gutter.\n\n\"For one thing he wouldn't come,\" he thought. \"And then I daresay this\nsort of thing wears off.\" \"This sort of thing\" being that uneasy,\npainful feeling, something like selfishness--one wishes almost that the\nthing would stop--it is getting more and more beyond what is\npossible--\"If it goes on much longer I shan't be able to cope with\nit--but if some one else were seeing it at the same time--Bonamy is\nstuffed in his room in Lincoln's Inn--oh, I say, damn it all, I\nsay,\"--the sight of Hymettus, Pentelicus, Lycabettus on one side, and\nthe sea on the other, as one stands in the Parthenon at sunset, the sky\npink feathered, the plain all colours, the marble tawny in one's eyes,\nis thus oppressive. Luckily Jacob had little sense of personal\nassociation; he seldom thought of Plato or Socrates in the flesh; on the\nother hand his feeling for architecture was very strong; he preferred\nstatues to pictures; and he was beginning to think a great deal about\nthe problems of civilization, which were solved, of course, so very\nremarkably by the ancient Greeks, though their solution is no help to\nus. Then the hook gave a great tug in his side as he lay in bed on\nWednesday night; and he turned over with a desperate sort of tumble,\nremembering Sandra Wentworth Williams with whom he was in love.\n\nNext day he climbed Pentelicus.\n\nThe day after he went up to the Acropolis. The hour was early; the place\nalmost deserted; and possibly there was thunder in the air. But the sun\nstruck full upon the Acropolis.\n\nJacob's intention was to sit down and read, and, finding a drum of\nmarble conveniently placed, from which Marathon could be seen, and yet\nit was in the shade, while the Erechtheum blazed white in front of him,\nthere he sat. And after reading a page he put his thumb in his book. Why\nnot rule countries in the way they should be ruled? And he read again.\n\nNo doubt his position there overlooking Marathon somehow raised his\nspirits. Or it may have been that a slow capacious brain has these\nmoments of flowering. Or he had, insensibly, while he was abroad, got\ninto the way of thinking about politics.\n\nAnd then looking up and seeing the sharp outline, his meditations were\ngiven an extraordinary edge; Greece was over; the Parthenon in ruins;\nyet there he was.\n\n(Ladies with green and white umbrellas passed through the\ncourtyard--French ladies on their way to join their husbands in\nConstantinople.)\n\nJacob read on again. And laying the book on the ground he began, as if\ninspired by what he had read, to write a note upon the importance of\nhistory--upon democracy--one of those scribbles upon which the work of a\nlifetime may be based; or again, it falls out of a book twenty years\nlater, and one can't remember a word of it. It is a little painful. It\nhad better be burnt.\n\nJacob wrote; began to draw a straight nose; when all the French ladies\nopening and shutting their umbrellas just beneath him exclaimed, looking\nat the sky, that one did not know what to expect--rain or fine weather?\n\nJacob got up and strolled across to the Erechtheum. There are still\nseveral women standing there holding the roof on their heads. Jacob\nstraightened himself slightly; for stability and balance affect the body\nfirst. These statues annulled things so! He stared at them, then turned,\nand there was Madame Lucien Grave perched on a block of marble with her\nkodak pointed at his head. Of course she jumped down, in spite of her\nage, her figure, and her tight boots--having, now that her daughter was\nmarried, lapsed with a luxurious abandonment, grand enough in its way,\ninto the fleshy grotesque; she jumped down, but not before Jacob had\nseen her.\n\n\"Damn these women--damn these women!\" he thought. And he went to fetch\nhis book which he had left lying on the ground in the Parthenon.\n\n\"How they spoil things,\" he murmured, leaning against one of the\npillars, pressing his book tight between his arm and his side. (As for\nthe weather, no doubt the storm would break soon; Athens was under\ncloud.)\n\n\"It is those damned women,\" said Jacob, without any trace of bitterness,\nbut rather with sadness and disappointment that what might have been\nshould never be.\n\n(This violent disillusionment is generally to be expected in young men\nin the prime of life, sound of wind and limb, who will soon become\nfathers of families and directors of banks.)\n\nThen, making sure that the Frenchwomen had gone, and looking cautiously\nround him, Jacob strolled over to the Erechtheum and looked rather\nfurtively at the goddess on the left-hand side holding the roof on her\nhead. She reminded him of Sandra Wentworth Williams. He looked at her,\nthen looked away. He looked at her, then looked away. He was\nextraordinarily moved, and with the battered Greek nose in his head,\nwith Sandra in his head, with all sorts of things in his head, off he\nstarted to walk right up to the top of Mount Hymettus, alone, in the\nheat.\n\nThat very afternoon Bonamy went expressly to talk about Jacob to tea\nwith Clara Durrant in the square behind Sloane Street where, on hot\nspring days, there are striped blinds over the front windows, single\nhorses pawing the macadam outside the doors, and elderly gentlemen in\nyellow waistcoats ringing bells and stepping in very politely when the\nmaid demurely replies that Mrs. Durrant is at home.\n\nBonamy sat with Clara in the sunny front room with the barrel organ\npiping sweetly outside; the water-cart going slowly along spraying the\npavement; the carriages jingling, and all the silver and chintz, brown\nand blue rugs and vases filled with green boughs, striped with trembling\nyellow bars.\n\nThe insipidity of what was said needs no illustration--Bonamy kept on\ngently returning quiet answers and accumulating amazement at an\nexistence squeezed and emasculated within a white satin shoe (Mrs.\nDurrant meanwhile enunciating strident politics with Sir Somebody in the\nback room) until the virginity of Clara's soul appeared to him candid;\nthe depths unknown; and he would have brought out Jacob's name had he\nnot begun to feel positively certain that Clara loved him--and could do\nnothing whatever.\n\n\"Nothing whatever!\" he exclaimed, as the door shut, and, for a man of\nhis temperament, got a very queer feeling, as he walked through the\npark, of carriages irresistibly driven; of flower beds uncompromisingly\ngeometrical; of force rushing round geometrical patterns in the most\nsenseless way in the world. \"Was Clara,\" he thought, pausing to watch\nthe boys bathing in the Serpentine, \"the silent woman?--would Jacob\nmarry her?\"\n\nBut in Athens in the sunshine, in Athens, where it is almost impossible\nto get afternoon tea, and elderly gentlemen who talk politics talk them\nall the other way round, in Athens sat Sandra Wentworth Williams,\nveiled, in white, her legs stretched in front of her, one elbow on the\narm of the bamboo chair, blue clouds wavering and drifting from her\ncigarette.\n\nThe orange trees which flourish in the Square of the Constitution, the\nband, the dragging of feet, the sky, the houses, lemon and rose\ncoloured--all this became so significant to Mrs. Wentworth Williams\nafter her second cup of coffee that she began dramatizing the story of\nthe noble and impulsive Englishwoman who had offered a seat in her\ncarriage to the old American lady at Mycenae (Mrs. Duggan)--not\naltogether a false story, though it said nothing of Evan, standing first\non one foot, then on the other, waiting for the women to stop\nchattering.\n\n\"I am putting the life of Father Damien into verse,\" Mrs. Duggan had\nsaid, for she had lost everything--everything in the world, husband and\nchild and everything, but faith remained.\n\nSandra, floating from the particular to the universal, lay back in a\ntrance.\n\nThe flight of time which hurries us so tragically along; the eternal\ndrudge and drone, now bursting into fiery flame like those brief balls\nof yellow among green leaves (she was looking at orange trees); kisses\non lips that are to die; the world turning, turning in mazes of heat and\nsound--though to be sure there is the quiet evening with its lovely\npallor, \"For I am sensitive to every side of it,\" Sandra thought, \"and\nMrs. Duggan will write to me for ever, and I shall answer her letters.\"\nNow the royal band marching by with the national flag stirred wider\nrings of emotion, and life became something that the courageous mount\nand ride out to sea on--the hair blown back (so she envisaged it, and\nthe breeze stirred slightly among the orange trees) and she herself was\nemerging from silver spray--when she saw Jacob. He was standing in the\nSquare with a book under his arm looking vacantly about him. That he was\nheavily built and might become stout in time was a fact.\n\nBut she suspected him of being a mere bumpkin.\n\n\"There is that young man,\" she said, peevishly, throwing away her\ncigarette, \"that Mr. Flanders.\"\n\n\"Where?\" said Evan. \"I don't see him.\"\n\n\"Oh, walking away--behind the trees now. No, you can't see him. But we\nare sure to run into him,\" which, of course, they did.\n\nBut how far was he a mere bumpkin? How far was Jacob Flanders at the age\nof twenty-six a stupid fellow? It is no use trying to sum people up. One\nmust follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is\ndone. Some, it is true, take ineffaceable impressions of character at\nonce. Others dally, loiter, and get blown this way and that. Kind old\nladies assure us that cats are often the best judges of character. A cat\nwill always go to a good man, they say; but then, Mrs. Whitehorn,\nJacob's landlady, loathed cats.\n\nThere is also the highly respectable opinion that character-mongering is\nmuch overdone nowadays. After all, what does it matter--that Fanny Elmer\nwas all sentiment and sensation, and Mrs. Durrant hard as iron? that\nClara, owing (so the character-mongers said) largely to her mother's\ninfluence, never yet had the chance to do anything off her own bat, and\nonly to very observant eyes displayed deeps of feeling which were\npositively alarming; and would certainly throw herself away upon some\none unworthy of her one of these days unless, so the character-mongers\nsaid, she had a spark of her mother's spirit in her--was somehow heroic.\nBut what a term to apply to Clara Durrant! Simple to a degree, others\nthought her. And that is the very reason, so they said, why she attracts\nDick Bonamy--the young man with the Wellington nose. Now HE'S a dark\nhorse if you like. And there these gossips would suddenly pause.\nObviously they meant to hint at his peculiar disposition--long rumoured\namong them.\n\n\"But sometimes it is precisely a woman like Clara that men of that\ntemperament need...\" Miss Julia Eliot would hint.\n\n\"Well,\" Mr. Bowley would reply, \"it may be so.\"\n\nFor however long these gossips sit, and however they stuff out their\nvictims' characters till they are swollen and tender as the livers of\ngeese exposed to a hot fire, they never come to a decision.\n\n\"That young man, Jacob Flanders,\" they would say, \"so distinguished\nlooking--and yet so awkward.\" Then they would apply themselves to Jacob\nand vacillate eternally between the two extremes. He rode to\nhounds--after a fashion, for he hadn't a penny.\n\n\"Did you ever hear who his father was?\" asked Julia Eliot.\n\n\"His mother, they say, is somehow connected with the Rocksbiers,\"\nreplied Mr. Bowley.\n\n\"He doesn't overwork himself anyhow.\"\n\n\"His friends are very fond of him.\"\n\n\"Dick Bonamy, you mean?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't mean that. It's evidently the other way with Jacob. He is\nprecisely the young man to fall headlong in love and repent it for the\nrest of his life.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Bowley,\" said Mrs. Durrant, sweeping down upon them in her\nimperious manner, \"you remember Mrs. Adams? Well, that is her niece.\"\nAnd Mr. Bowley, getting up, bowed politely and fetched strawberries.\n\nSo we are driven back to see what the other side means--the men in clubs\nand Cabinets--when they say that character-drawing is a frivolous\nfireside art, a matter of pins and needles, exquisite outlines enclosing\nvacancy, flourishes, and mere scrawls.\n\nThe battleships ray out over the North Sea, keeping their stations\naccurately apart. At a given signal all the guns are trained on a target\nwhich (the master gunner counts the seconds, watch in hand--at the sixth\nhe looks up) flames into splinters. With equal nonchalance a dozen young\nmen in the prime of life descend with composed faces into the depths of\nthe sea; and there impassively (though with perfect mastery of\nmachinery) suffocate uncomplainingly together. Like blocks of tin\nsoldiers the army covers the cornfield, moves up the hillside, stops,\nreels slightly this way and that, and falls flat, save that, through\nfield glasses, it can be seen that one or two pieces still agitate up\nand down like fragments of broken match-stick.\n\nThese actions, together with the incessant commerce of banks,\nlaboratories, chancellories, and houses of business, are the strokes\nwhich oar the world forward, they say. And they are dealt by men as\nsmoothly sculptured as the impassive policeman at Ludgate Circus. But\nyou will observe that far from being padded to rotundity his face is\nstiff from force of will, and lean from the efforts of keeping it so.\nWhen his right arm rises, all the force in his veins flows straight from\nshoulder to finger-tips; not an ounce is diverted into sudden impulses,\nsentimental regrets, wire-drawn distinctions. The buses punctually stop.\n\nIt is thus that we live, they say, driven by an unseizable force. They\nsay that the novelists never catch it; that it goes hurtling through\ntheir nets and leaves them torn to ribbons. This, they say, is what we\nlive by--this unseizable force.\n\n\"Where are the men?\" said old General Gibbons, looking round the\ndrawing-room, full as usual on Sunday afternoons of well-dressed people.\n\"Where are the guns?\"\n\nMrs. Durrant looked too.\n\nClara, thinking that her mother wanted her, came in; then went out\nagain.\n\nThey were talking about Germany at the Durrants, and Jacob (driven by\nthis unseizable force) walked rapidly down Hermes Street and ran\nstraight into the Williamses.\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Sandra, with a cordiality which she suddenly felt. And Evan\nadded, \"What luck!\"\n\nThe dinner which they gave him in the hotel which looks on to the Square\nof the Constitution was excellent. Plated baskets contained fresh rolls.\nThere was real butter. And the meat scarcely needed the disguise of\ninnumerable little red and green vegetables glazed in sauce.\n\nIt was strange, though. There were the little tables set out at\nintervals on the scarlet floor with the Greek King's monogram wrought in\nyellow. Sandra dined in her hat, veiled as usual. Evan looked this way\nand that over his shoulder; imperturbable yet supple; and sometimes\nsighed. It was strange. For they were English people come together in\nAthens on a May evening. Jacob, helping himself to this and that,\nanswered intelligently, yet with a ring in his voice.\n\nThe Williamses were going to Constantinople early next morning, they\nsaid.\n\n\"Before you are up,\" said Sandra.\n\nThey would leave Jacob alone, then. Turning very slightly, Evan ordered\nsomething--a bottle of wine--from which he helped Jacob, with a kind of\nsolicitude, with a kind of paternal solicitude, if that were possible.\nTo be left alone--that was good for a young fellow. Never was there a\ntime when the country had more need of men. He sighed.\n\n\"And you have been to the Acropolis?\" asked Sandra.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Jacob. And they moved off to the window together, while Evan\nspoke to the head waiter about calling them early.\n\n\"It is astonishing,\" said Jacob, in a gruff voice.\n\nSandra opened her eyes very slightly. Possibly her nostrils expanded a\nlittle too.\n\n\"At half-past six then,\" said Evan, coming towards them, looking as if\nhe faced something in facing his wife and Jacob standing with their\nbacks to the window.\n\nSandra smiled at him.\n\nAnd, as he went to the window and had nothing to say she added, in\nbroken half-sentences:\n\n\"Well, but how lovely--wouldn't it be? The Acropolis, Evan--or are you\ntoo tired?\"\n\nAt that Evan looked at them, or, since Jacob was staring ahead of him,\nat his wife, surlily, sullenly, yet with a kind of distress--not that\nshe would pity him. Nor would the implacable spirit of love, for\nanything he could do, cease its tortures.\n\nThey left him and he sat in the smoking-room, which looks out on to the\nSquare of the Constitution.\n\n\"Evan is happier alone,\" said Sandra. \"We have been separated from the\nnewspapers. Well, it is better that people should have what they\nwant.... You have seen all these wonderful things since we met.... What\nimpression ... I think that you are changed.\"\n\n\"You want to go to the Acropolis,\" said Jacob. \"Up here then.\"\n\n\"One will remember it all one's life,\" said Sandra.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Jacob. \"I wish you could have come in the day-time.\"\n\n\"This is more wonderful,\" said Sandra, waving her hand.\n\nJacob looked vaguely.\n\n\"But you should see the Parthenon in the day-time,\" he said. \"You\ncouldn't come to-morrow--it would be too early?\"\n\n\"You have sat there for hours and hours by yourself?\"\n\n\"There were some awful women this morning,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"Awful women?\" Sandra echoed.\n\n\"Frenchwomen.\"\n\n\"But something very wonderful has happened,\" said Sandra. Ten minutes,\nfifteen minutes, half an hour--that was all the time before her.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\n\"When one is your age--when one is young. What will you do? You will\nfall in love--oh yes! But don't be in too great a hurry. I am so much\nolder.\"\n\nShe was brushed off the pavement by parading men.\n\n\"Shall we go on?\" Jacob asked.\n\n\"Let us go on,\" she insisted.\n\nFor she could not stop until she had told him--or heard him say--or was\nit some action on his part that she required? Far away on the horizon\nshe discerned it and could not rest.\n\n\"You'd never get English people to sit out like this,\" he said.\n\n\"Never--no. When you get back to England you won't forget this--or come\nwith us to Constantinople!\" she cried suddenly.\n\n\"But then...\"\n\nSandra sighed.\n\n\"You must go to Delphi, of course,\" she said. \"But,\" she asked herself,\n\"what do I want from him? Perhaps it is something that I have\nmissed....\"\n\n\"You will get there about six in the evening,\" she said. \"You will see\nthe eagles.\"\n\nJacob looked set and even desperate by the light at the street corner\nand yet composed. He was suffering, perhaps. He was credulous. Yet there\nwas something caustic about him. He had in him the seeds of extreme\ndisillusionment, which would come to him from women in middle life.\nPerhaps if one strove hard enough to reach the top of the hill it need\nnot come to him--this disillusionment from women in middle life.\n\n\"The hotel is awful,\" she said. \"The last visitors had left their basins\nfull of dirty water. There is always that,\" she laughed.\n\n\"The people one meets ARE beastly,\" Jacob said.\n\nHis excitement was clear enough.\n\n\"Write and tell me about it,\" she said. \"And tell me what you feel and\nwhat you think. Tell me everything.\"\n\nThe night was dark. The Acropolis was a jagged mound.\n\n\"I should like to, awfully,\" he said.\n\n\"When we get back to London, we shall meet...\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I suppose they leave the gates open?\" he asked.\n\n\"We could climb them!\" she answered wildly.\n\nObscuring the moon and altogether darkening the Acropolis the clouds\npassed from east to west. The clouds solidified; the vapours thickened;\nthe trailing veils stayed and accumulated.\n\nIt was dark now over Athens, except for gauzy red streaks where the\nstreets ran; and the front of the Palace was cadaverous from electric\nlight. At sea the piers stood out, marked by separate dots; the waves\nbeing invisible, and promontories and islands were dark humps with a few\nlights.\n\n\"I'd love to bring my brother, if I may,\" Jacob murmured.\n\n\"And then when your mother comes to London--,\" said Sandra.\n\nThe mainland of Greece was dark; and somewhere off Euboea a cloud must\nhave touched the waves and spattered them--the dolphins circling deeper\nand deeper into the sea. Violent was the wind now rushing down the Sea\nof Marmara between Greece and the plains of Troy.\n\nIn Greece and the uplands of Albania and Turkey, the wind scours the\nsand and the dust, and sows itself thick with dry particles. And then it\npelts the smooth domes of the mosques, and makes the cypresses, standing\nstiff by the turbaned tombstones of Mohammedans, creak and bristle.\n\nSandra's veils were swirled about her.\n\n\"I will give you my copy,\" said Jacob. \"Here. Will you keep it?\"\n\n(The book was the poems of Donne.)\n\nNow the agitation of the air uncovered a racing star. Now it was dark.\nNow one after another lights were extinguished. Now great\ntowns--Paris--Constantinople--London--were black as strewn rocks.\nWaterways might be distinguished. In England the trees were heavy in\nleaf. Here perhaps in some southern wood an old man lit dry ferns and\nthe birds were startled. The sheep coughed; one flower bent slightly\ntowards another. The English sky is softer, milkier than the Eastern.\nSomething gentle has passed into it from the grass-rounded hills,\nsomething damp. The salt gale blew in at Betty Flanders's bedroom\nwindow, and the widow lady, raising herself slightly on her elbow,\nsighed like one who realizes, but would fain ward off a little\nlonger--oh, a little longer!--the oppression of eternity.\n\nBut to return to Jacob and Sandra.\n\nThey had vanished. There was the Acropolis; but had they reached it? The\ncolumns and the Temple remain; the emotion of the living breaks fresh on\nthem year after year; and of that what remains?\n\nAs for reaching the Acropolis who shall say that we ever do it, or that\nwhen Jacob woke next morning he found anything hard and durable to keep\nfor ever? Still, he went with them to Constantinople.\n\nSandra Wentworth Williams certainly woke to find a copy of Donne's poems\nupon her dressing-table. And the book would be stood on the shelf in the\nEnglish country house where Sally Duggan's Life of Father Damien in\nverse would join it one of these days. There were ten or twelve little\nvolumes already. Strolling in at dusk, Sandra would open the books and\nher eyes would brighten (but not at the print), and subsiding into the\narm-chair she would suck back again the soul of the moment; or, for\nsometimes she was restless, would pull out book after book and swing\nacross the whole space of her life like an acrobat from bar to bar. She\nhad had her moments. Meanwhile, the great clock on the landing ticked\nand Sandra would hear time accumulating, and ask herself, \"What for?\nWhat for?\"\n\n\"What for? What for?\" Sandra would say, putting the book back, and\nstrolling to the looking-glass and pressing her hair. And Miss Edwards\nwould be startled at dinner, as she opened her mouth to admit roast\nmutton, by Sandra's sudden solicitude: \"Are you happy, Miss Edwards?\"--a\nthing Cissy Edwards hadn't thought of for years.\n\n\"What for? What for?\" Jacob never asked himself any such questions, to\njudge by the way he laced his boots; shaved himself; to judge by the\ndepth of his sleep that night, with the wind fidgeting at the shutters,\nand half-a-dozen mosquitoes singing in his ears. He was young--a man.\nAnd then Sandra was right when she judged him to be credulous as yet. At\nforty it might be a different matter. Already he had marked the things\nhe liked in Donne, and they were savage enough. However, you might place\nbeside them passages of the purest poetry in Shakespeare.\n\nBut the wind was rolling the darkness through the streets of Athens,\nrolling it, one might suppose, with a sort of trampling energy of mood\nwhich forbids too close an analysis of the feelings of any single\nperson, or inspection of features. All faces--Greek, Levantine, Turkish,\nEnglish--would have looked much the same in that darkness. At length the\ncolumns and the Temples whiten, yellow, turn rose; and the Pyramids and\nSt. Peter's arise, and at last sluggish St. Paul's looms up.\n\nThe Christians have the right to rouse most cities with their\ninterpretation of the day's meaning. Then, less melodiously, dissenters\nof different sects issue a cantankerous emendation. The steamers,\nresounding like gigantic tuning-forks, state the old old fact--how there\nis a sea coldly, greenly, swaying outside. But nowadays it is the thin\nvoice of duty, piping in a white thread from the top of a funnel, that\ncollects the largest multitudes, and night is nothing but a long-drawn\nsigh between hammer-strokes, a deep breath--you can hear it from an open\nwindow even in the heart of London.\n\nBut who, save the nerve-worn and sleepless, or thinkers standing with\nhands to the eyes on some crag above the multitude, see things thus in\nskeleton outline, bare of flesh? In Surbiton the skeleton is wrapped in\nflesh.\n\n\"The kettle never boils so well on a sunny morning,\" says Mrs. Grandage,\nglancing at the clock on the mantelpiece. Then the grey Persian cat\nstretches itself on the window-seat, and buffets a moth with soft round\npaws. And before breakfast is half over (they were late today), a baby\nis deposited in her lap, and she must guard the sugar basin while Tom\nGrandage reads the golfing article in the \"Times,\" sips his coffee,\nwipes his moustaches, and is off to the office, where he is the greatest\nauthority upon the foreign exchanges and marked for promotion. The\nskeleton is well wrapped in flesh. Even this dark night when the wind\nrolls the darkness through Lombard Street and Fetter Lane and Bedford\nSquare it stirs (since it is summer-time and the height of the season),\nplane trees spangled with electric light, and curtains still preserving\nthe room from the dawn. People still murmur over the last word said on\nthe staircase, or strain, all through their dreams, for the voice of the\nalarum clock. So when the wind roams through a forest innumerable twigs\nstir; hives are brushed; insects sway on grass blades; the spider runs\nrapidly up a crease in the bark; and the whole air is tremulous with\nbreathing; elastic with filaments.\n\nOnly here--in Lombard Street and Fetter Lane and Bedford Square--each\ninsect carries a globe of the world in his head, and the webs of the\nforest are schemes evolved for the smooth conduct of business; and honey\nis treasure of one sort and another; and the stir in the air is the\nindescribable agitation of life.\n\nBut colour returns; runs up the stalks of the grass; blows out into\ntulips and crocuses; solidly stripes the tree trunks; and fills the\ngauze of the air and the grasses and pools.\n\nThe Bank of England emerges; and the Monument with its bristling head of\ngolden hair; the dray horses crossing London Bridge show grey and\nstrawberry and iron-coloured. There is a whir of wings as the suburban\ntrains rush into the terminus. And the light mounts over the faces of\nall the tall blind houses, slides through a chink and paints the\nlustrous bellying crimson curtains; the green wine-glasses; the\ncoffee-cups; and the chairs standing askew.\n\nSunlight strikes in upon shaving-glasses; and gleaming brass cans; upon\nall the jolly trappings of the day; the bright, inquisitive, armoured,\nresplendent, summer's day, which has long since vanquished chaos; which\nhas dried the melancholy mediaeval mists; drained the swamp and stood\nglass and stone upon it; and equipped our brains and bodies with such an\narmoury of weapons that merely to see the flash and thrust of limbs\nengaged in the conduct of daily life is better than the old pageant of\narmies drawn out in battle array upon the plain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THIRTEEN\n\n\n\"The Height of the season,\" said Bonamy.\n\nThe sun had already blistered the paint on the backs of the green chairs\nin Hyde Park; peeled the bark off the plane trees; and turned the earth\nto powder and to smooth yellow pebbles. Hyde Park was circled,\nincessantly, by turning wheels.\n\n\"The height of the season,\" said Bonamy sarcastically.\n\nHe was sarcastic because of Clara Durrant; because Jacob had come back\nfrom Greece very brown and lean, with his pockets full of Greek notes,\nwhich he pulled out when the chair man came for pence; because Jacob was\nsilent.\n\n\"He has not said a word to show that he is glad to see me,\" thought\nBonamy bitterly.\n\nThe motor cars passed incessantly over the bridge of the Serpentine; the\nupper classes walked upright, or bent themselves gracefully over the\npalings; the lower classes lay with their knees cocked up, flat on their\nbacks; the sheep grazed on pointed wooden legs; small children ran down\nthe sloping grass, stretched their arms, and fell.\n\n\"Very urbane,\" Jacob brought out.\n\n\"Urbane\" on the lips of Jacob had mysteriously all the shapeliness of a\ncharacter which Bonamy thought daily more sublime, devastating, terrific\nthan ever, though he was still, and perhaps would be for ever, barbaric,\nobscure.\n\nWhat superlatives! What adjectives! How acquit Bonamy of sentimentality\nof the grossest sort; of being tossed like a cork on the waves; of\nhaving no steady insight into character; of being unsupported by reason,\nand of drawing no comfort whatever from the works of the classics?\n\n\"The height of civilization,\" said Jacob.\n\nHe was fond of using Latin words.\n\nMagnanimity, virtue--such words when Jacob used them in talk with Bonamy\nmeant that he took control of the situation; that Bonamy would play\nround him like an affectionate spaniel; and that (as likely as not) they\nwould end by rolling on the floor.\n\n\"And Greece?\" said Bonamy. \"The Parthenon and all that?\"\n\n\"There's none of this European mysticism,\" said Jacob.\n\n\"It's the atmosphere. I suppose,\" said Bonamy. \"And you went to\nConstantinople?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Jacob.\n\nBonamy paused, moved a pebble; then darted in with the rapidity and\ncertainty of a lizard's tongue.\n\n\"You are in love!\" he exclaimed.\n\nJacob blushed.\n\nThe sharpest of knives never cut so deep.\n\nAs for responding, or taking the least account of it, Jacob stared\nstraight ahead of him, fixed, monolithic--oh, very beautiful!--like a\nBritish Admiral, exclaimed Bonamy in a rage, rising from his seat and\nwalking off; waiting for some sound; none came; too proud to look back;\nwalking quicker and quicker until he found himself gazing into motor\ncars and cursing women. Where was the pretty woman's face?\nClara's--Fanny's--Florinda's? Who was the pretty little creature?\n\nNot Clara Durrant.\n\nThe Aberdeen terrier must be exercised, and as Mr. Bowley was going that\nvery moment--would like nothing better than a walk--they went together,\nClara and kind little Bowley--Bowley who had rooms in the Albany, Bowley\nwho wrote letters to the \"Times\" in a jocular vein about foreign hotels\nand the Aurora Borealis--Bowley who liked young people and walked down\nPiccadilly with his right arm resting on the boss of his back.\n\n\"Little demon!\" cried Clara, and attached Troy to his chain.\n\nBowley anticipated--hoped for--a confidence. Devoted to her mother,\nClara sometimes felt her a little, well, her mother was so sure of\nherself that she could not understand other people being--being--\"as\nludicrous as I am,\" Clara jerked out (the dog tugging her forwards). And\nBowley thought she looked like a huntress and turned over in his mind\nwhich it should be--some pale virgin with a slip of the moon in her\nhair, which was a flight for Bowley.\n\nThe colour was in her cheeks. To have spoken outright about her\nmother--still, it was only to Mr. Bowley, who loved her, as everybody\nmust; but to speak was unnatural to her, yet it was awful to feel, as\nshe had done all day, that she MUST tell some one.\n\n\"Wait till we cross the road,\" she said to the dog, bending down.\n\nHappily she had recovered by that time.\n\n\"She thinks so much about England,\" she said. \"She is so anxious---\"\n\nBowley was defrauded as usual. Clara never confided in any one.\n\n\"Why don't the young people settle it, eh?\" he wanted to ask. \"What's\nall this about England?\"--a question poor Clara could not have answered,\nsince, as Mrs. Durrant discussed with Sir Edgar the policy of Sir Edward\nGrey, Clara only wondered why the cabinet looked dusty, and Jacob had\nnever come. Oh, here was Mrs. Cowley Johnson...\n\nAnd Clara would hand the pretty china teacups, and smile at the\ncompliment--that no one in London made tea so well as she did.\n\n\"We get it at Brocklebank's,\" she said, \"in Cursitor Street.\"\n\nOught she not to be grateful? Ought she not to be happy?\n\nEspecially since her mother looked so well and enjoyed so much talking\nto Sir Edgar about Morocco, Venezuela, or some such place.\n\n\"Jacob! Jacob!\" thought Clara; and kind Mr. Bowley, who was ever so good\nwith old ladies, looked; stopped; wondered whether Elizabeth wasn't too\nharsh with her daughter; wondered about Bonamy, Jacob--which young\nfellow was it?--and jumped up directly Clara said she must exercise\nTroy.\n\nThey had reached the site of the old Exhibition. They looked at the\ntulips. Stiff and curled, the little rods of waxy smoothness rose from\nthe earth, nourished yet contained, suffused with scarlet and coral\npink. Each had its shadow; each grew trimly in the diamond-shaped wedge\nas the gardener had planned it.\n\n\"Barnes never gets them to grow like that,\" Clara mused; she sighed.\n\n\"You are neglecting your friends,\" said Bowley, as some one, going the\nother way, lifted his hat. She started; acknowledged Mr. Lionel Parry's\nbow; wasted on him what had sprung for Jacob.\n\n(\"Jacob! Jacob!\" she thought.)\n\n\"But you'll get run over if I let you go,\" she said to the dog.\n\n\"England seems all right,\" said Mr. Bowley.\n\nThe loop of the railing beneath the statue of Achilles was full of\nparasols and waistcoats; chains and bangles; of ladies and gentlemen,\nlounging elegantly, lightly observant.\n\n\"'This statue was erected by the women of England...'\" Clara read out\nwith a foolish little laugh. \"Oh, Mr. Bowley! Oh!\" Gallop--gallop--gallop--a\nhorse galloped past without a rider. The stirrups swung; the pebbles\nspurted.\n\n\"Oh, stop! Stop it, Mr. Bowley!\" she cried, white, trembling, gripping\nhis arm, utterly unconscious, the tears coming.\n\n\"Tut-tut!\" said Mr. Bowley in his dressing-room an hour later.\n\"Tut-tut!\"--a comment that was profound enough, though inarticulately\nexpressed, since his valet was handing his shirt studs.\n\nJulia Eliot, too, had seen the horse run away, and had risen from her\nseat to watch the end of the incident, which, since she came of a\nsporting family, seemed to her slightly ridiculous. Sure enough the\nlittle man came pounding behind with his breeches dusty; looked\nthoroughly annoyed; and was being helped to mount by a policeman when\nJulia Eliot, with a sardonic smile, turned towards the Marble Arch on\nher errand of mercy. It was only to visit a sick old lady who had known\nher mother and perhaps the Duke of Wellington; for Julia shared the love\nof her sex for the distressed; liked to visit death-beds; threw slippers\nat weddings; received confidences by the dozen; knew more pedigrees than\na scholar knows dates, and was one of the kindliest, most generous,\nleast continent of women.\n\nYet five minutes after she had passed the statue of Achilles she had the\nrapt look of one brushing through crowds on a summer's afternoon, when\nthe trees are rustling, the wheels churning yellow, and the tumult of\nthe present seems like an elegy for past youth and past summers, and\nthere rose in her mind a curious sadness, as if time and eternity showed\nthrough skirts and waistcoasts, and she saw people passing tragically to\ndestruction. Yet, Heaven knows, Julia was no fool. A sharper woman at a\nbargain did not exist. She was always punctual. The watch on her wrist\ngave her twelve minutes and a half in which to reach Bruton Street. Lady\nCongreve expected her at five.\n\nThe gilt clock at Verrey's was striking five.\n\nFlorinda looked at it with a dull expression, like an animal. She looked\nat the clock; looked at the door; looked at the long glass opposite;\ndisposed her cloak; drew closer to the table, for she was pregnant--no\ndoubt about it, Mother Stuart said, recommending remedies, consulting\nfriends; sunk, caught by the heel, as she tripped so lightly over the\nsurface.\n\nHer tumbler of pinkish sweet stuff was set down by the waiter; and she\nsucked, through a straw, her eyes on the looking-glass, on the door, now\nsoothed by the sweet taste. When Nick Bramham came in it was plain, even\nto the young Swiss waiter, that there was a bargain between them. Nick\nhitched his clothes together clumsily; ran his fingers through his hair;\nsat down, to an ordeal, nervously. She looked at him; and set off\nlaughing; laughed--laughed--laughed. The young Swiss waiter, standing\nwith crossed legs by the pillar, laughed too.\n\nThe door opened; in came the roar of Regent Street, the roar of traffic,\nimpersonal, unpitying; and sunshine grained with dirt. The Swiss waiter\nmust see to the newcomers. Bramham lifted his glass.\n\n\"He's like Jacob,\" said Florinda, looking at the newcomer.\n\n\"The way he stares.\" She stopped laughing.\n\nJacob, leaning forward, drew a plan of the Parthenon in the dust in Hyde\nPark, a network of strokes at least, which may have been the Parthenon,\nor again a mathematical diagram. And why was the pebble so emphatically\nground in at the corner? It was not to count his notes that he took out\na wad of papers and read a long flowing letter which Sandra had written\ntwo days ago at Milton Dower House with his book before her and in her\nmind the memory of something said or attempted, some moment in the dark\non the road to the Acropolis which (such was her creed) mattered for\never.\n\n\"He is,\" she mused, \"like that man in Moliere.\"\n\nShe meant Alceste. She meant that he was severe. She meant that she\ncould deceive him.\n\n\"Or could I not?\" she thought, putting the poems of Donne back in the\nbookcase. \"Jacob,\" she went on, going to the window and looking over the\nspotted flower-beds across the grass where the piebald cows grazed under\nbeech trees, \"Jacob would be shocked.\"\n\nThe perambulator was going through the little gate in the railing. She\nkissed her hand; directed by the nurse, Jimmy waved his.\n\n\"HE'S a small boy,\" she said, thinking of Jacob.\n\nAnd yet--Alceste?\n\n\"What a nuisance you are!\" Jacob grumbled, stretching out first one leg\nand then the other and feeling in each trouser-pocket for his chair\nticket.\n\n\"I expect the sheep have eaten it,\" he said. \"Why do you keep sheep?\"\n\n\"Sorry to disturb you, sir,\" said the ticket-collector, his hand deep in\nthe enormous pouch of pence.\n\n\"Well, I hope they pay you for it,\" said Jacob. \"There you are. No. You\ncan stick to it. Go and get drunk.\"\n\nHe had parted with half-a-crown, tolerantly, compassionately, with\nconsiderable contempt for his species.\n\nEven now poor Fanny Elmer was dealing, as she walked along the Strand,\nin her incompetent way with this very careless, indifferent, sublime\nmanner he had of talking to railway guards or porters; or Mrs.\nWhitehorn, when she consulted him about her little boy who was beaten by\nthe schoolmaster.\n\nSustained entirely upon picture post cards for the past two months,\nFanny's idea of Jacob was more statuesque, noble, and eyeless than ever.\nTo reinforce her vision she had taken to visiting the British Museum,\nwhere, keeping her eyes downcast until she was alongside of the battered\nUlysses, she opened them and got a fresh shock of Jacob's presence,\nenough to last her half a day. But this was wearing thin. And she wrote\nnow--poems, letters that were never posted, saw his face in\nadvertisements on hoardings, and would cross the road to let the\nbarrel-organ turn her musings to rhapsody. But at breakfast (she shared\nrooms with a teacher), when the butter was smeared about the plate, and\nthe prongs of the forks were clotted with old egg yolk, she revised\nthese visions violently; was, in truth, very cross; was losing her\ncomplexion, as Margery Jackson told her, bringing the whole thing down\n(as she laced her stout boots) to a level of mother-wit, vulgarity, and\nsentiment, for she had loved too; and been a fool.\n\n\"One's godmothers ought to have told one,\" said Fanny, looking in at the\nwindow of Bacon, the mapseller, in the Strand--told one that it is no\nuse making a fuss; this is life, they should have said, as Fanny said it\nnow, looking at the large yellow globe marked with steamship lines.\n\n\"This is life. This is life,\" said Fanny.\n\n\"A very hard face,\" thought Miss Barrett, on the other side of the\nglass, buying maps of the Syrian desert and waiting impatiently to be\nserved. \"Girls look old so soon nowadays.\"\n\nThe equator swam behind tears.\n\n\"Piccadilly?\" Fanny asked the conductor of the omnibus, and climbed to\nthe top. After all, he would, he must, come back to her.\n\nBut Jacob might have been thinking of Rome; of architecture; of\njurisprudence; as he sat under the plane tree in Hyde Park.\n\nThe omnibus stopped outside Charing Cross; and behind it were clogged\nomnibuses, vans, motor-cars, for a procession with banners was passing\ndown Whitehall, and elderly people were stiffly descending from between\nthe paws of the slippery lions, where they had been testifying to their\nfaith, singing lustily, raising their eyes from their music to look into\nthe sky, and still their eyes were on the sky as they marched behind the\ngold letters of their creed.\n\nThe traffic stopped, and the sun, no longer sprayed out by the breeze,\nbecame almost too hot. But the procession passed; the banners glittered\n--far away down Whitehall; the traffic was released; lurched on; spun to\na smooth continuous uproar; swerving round the curve of Cockspur Street;\nand sweeping past Government offices and equestrian statues down\nWhitehall to the prickly spires, the tethered grey fleet of masonry, and\nthe large white clock of Westminster.\n\nFive strokes Big Ben intoned; Nelson received the salute. The wires of\nthe Admiralty shivered with some far-away communication. A voice kept\nremarking that Prime Ministers and Viceroys spoke in the Reichstag;\nentered Lahore; said that the Emperor travelled; in Milan they rioted;\nsaid there were rumours in Vienna; said that the Ambassador at\nConstantinople had audience with the Sultan; the fleet was at Gibraltar.\nThe voice continued, imprinting on the faces of the clerks in Whitehall\n(Timothy Durrant was one of them) something of its own inexorable\ngravity, as they listened, deciphered, wrote down. Papers accumulated,\ninscribed with the utterances of Kaisers, the statistics of ricefields,\nthe growling of hundreds of work-people, plotting sedition in back\nstreets, or gathering in the Calcutta bazaars, or mustering their forces\nin the uplands of Albania, where the hills are sand-coloured, and bones\nlie unburied.\n\nThe voice spoke plainly in the square quiet room with heavy tables,\nwhere one elderly man made notes on the margin of typewritten sheets,\nhis silver-topped umbrella leaning against the bookcase.\n\nHis head--bald, red-veined, hollow-looking--represented all the heads in\nthe building. His head, with the amiable pale eyes, carried the burden\nof knowledge across the street; laid it before his colleagues, who came\nequally burdened; and then the sixteen gentlemen, lifting their pens or\nturning perhaps rather wearily in their chairs, decreed that the course\nof history should shape itself this way or that way, being manfully\ndetermined, as their faces showed, to impose some coherency upon Rajahs\nand Kaisers and the muttering in bazaars, the secret gatherings, plainly\nvisible in Whitehall, of kilted peasants in Albanian uplands; to control\nthe course of events.\n\nPitt and Chatham, Burke and Gladstone looked from side to side with\nfixed marble eyes and an air of immortal quiescence which perhaps the\nliving may have envied, the air being full of whistling and concussions,\nas the procession with its banners passed down Whitehall. Moreover, some\nwere troubled with dyspepsia; one had at that very moment cracked the\nglass of his spectacles; another spoke in Glasgow to-morrow; altogether\nthey looked too red, fat, pale or lean, to be dealing, as the marble\nheads had dealt, with the course of history.\n\nTimmy Durrant in his little room in the Admiralty, going to consult a\nBlue book, stopped for a moment by the window and observed the placard\ntied round the lamp-post.\n\nMiss Thomas, one of the typists, said to her friend that if the Cabinet\nwas going to sit much longer she should miss her boy outside the Gaiety.\n\nTimmy Durrant, returning with his Blue book under his arm, noticed a\nlittle knot of people at the street corner; conglomerated as though one\nof them knew something; and the others, pressing round him, looked up,\nlooked down, looked along the street. What was it that he knew?\n\nTimothy, placing the Blue book before him, studied a paper sent round by\nthe Treasury for information. Mr. Crawley, his fellow-clerk, impaled a\nletter on a skewer.\n\nJacob rose from his chair in Hyde Park, tore his ticket to pieces, and\nwalked away.\n\n\"Such a sunset,\" wrote Mrs. Flanders in her letter to Archer at\nSingapore. \"One couldn't make up one's mind to come indoors,\" she wrote.\n\"It seemed wicked to waste even a moment.\"\n\nThe long windows of Kensington Palace flushed fiery rose as Jacob walked\naway; a flock of wild duck flew over the Serpentine; and the trees were\nstood against the sky, blackly, magnificently.\n\n\"Jacob,\" wrote Mrs. Flanders, with the red light on her page, \"is hard\nat work after his delightful journey...\"\n\n\"The Kaiser,\" the far-away voice remarked in Whitehall, \"received me in\naudience.\"\n\n\"Now I know that face--\" said the Reverend Andrew Floyd, coming out of\nCarter's shop in Piccadilly, \"but who the dickens--?\" and he watched\nJacob, turned round to look at him, but could not be sure--\n\n\"Oh, Jacob Flanders!\" he remembered in a flash.\n\nBut he was so tall; so unconscious; such a fine young fellow.\n\n\"I gave him Byron's works,\" Andrew Floyd mused, and started forward, as\nJacob crossed the road; but hesitated, and let the moment pass, and lost\nthe opportunity.\n\nAnother procession, without banners, was blocking Long Acre. Carriages,\nwith dowagers in amethyst and gentlemen spotted with carnations,\nintercepted cabs and motor-cars turned in the opposite direction, in\nwhich jaded men in white waistcoats lolled, on their way home to\nshrubberies and billiard-rooms in Putney and Wimbledon.\n\nTwo barrel-organs played by the kerb, and horses coming out of\nAldridge's with white labels on their buttocks straddled across the road\nand were smartly jerked back.\n\nMrs. Durrant, sitting with Mr. Wortley in a motor-car, was impatient\nlest they should miss the overture.\n\nBut Mr. Wortley, always urbane, always in time for the overture,\nbuttoned his gloves, and admired Miss Clara.\n\n\"A shame to spend such a night in the theatre!\" said Mrs. Durrant,\nseeing all the windows of the coachmakers in Long Acre ablaze.\n\n\"Think of your moors!\" said Mr. Wortley to Clara.\n\n\"Ah! but Clara likes this better,\" Mrs. Durrant laughed.\n\n\"I don't know--really,\" said Clara, looking at the blazing windows. She\nstarted.\n\nShe saw Jacob.\n\n\"Who?\" asked Mrs. Durrant sharply, leaning forward.\n\nBut she saw no one.\n\nUnder the arch of the Opera House large faces and lean ones, the\npowdered and the hairy, all alike were red in the sunset; and, quickened\nby the great hanging lamps with their repressed primrose lights, by the\ntramp, and the scarlet, and the pompous ceremony, some ladies looked for\na moment into steaming bedrooms near by, where women with loose hair\nleaned out of windows, where girls--where children--(the long mirrors\nheld the ladies suspended) but one must follow; one must not block the\nway.\n\nClara's moors were fine enough. The Phoenicians slept under their piled\ngrey rocks; the chimneys of the old mines pointed starkly; early moths\nblurred the heather-bells; cartwheels could be heard grinding on the\nroad far beneath; and the suck and sighing of the waves sounded gently,\npersistently, for ever.\n\nShading her eyes with her hand Mrs. Pascoe stood in her cabbage-garden\nlooking out to sea. Two steamers and a sailing-ship crossed each other;\npassed each other; and in the bay the gulls kept alighting on a log,\nrising high, returning again to the log, while some rode in upon the\nwaves and stood on the rim of the water until the moon blanched all to\nwhiteness.\n\nMrs. Pascoe had gone indoors long ago.\n\nBut the red light was on the columns of the Parthenon, and the Greek\nwomen who were knitting their stockings and sometimes crying to a child\nto come and have the insects picked from its head were as jolly as\nsand-martins in the heat, quarrelling, scolding, suckling their babies,\nuntil the ships in the Piraeus fired their guns.\n\nThe sound spread itself flat, and then went tunnelling its way with\nfitful explosions among the channels of the islands.\n\nDarkness drops like a knife over Greece.\n\n\"The guns?\" said Betty Flanders, half asleep, getting out of bed and\ngoing to the window, which was decorated with a fringe of dark leaves.\n\n\"Not at this distance,\" she thought. \"It is the sea.\"\n\nAgain, far away, she heard the dull sound, as if nocturnal women were\nbeating great carpets. There was Morty lost, and Seabrook dead; her sons\nfighting for their country. But were the chickens safe? Was that some\none moving downstairs? Rebecca with the toothache? No. The nocturnal\nwomen were beating great carpets. Her hens shifted slightly on their\nperches.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOURTEEN\n\n\n\"He left everything just as it was,\" Bonamy marvelled. \"Nothing\narranged. All his letters strewn about for any one to read. What did he\nexpect? Did he think he would come back?\" he mused, standing in the\nmiddle of Jacob's room.\n\nThe eighteenth century has its distinction. These houses were built,\nsay, a hundred and fifty years ago. The rooms are shapely, the ceilings\nhigh; over the doorways a rose or a ram's skull is carved in the wood.\nEven the panels, painted in raspberry-coloured paint, have their\ndistinction.\n\nBonamy took up a bill for a hunting-crop.\n\n\"That seems to be paid,\" he said.\n\nThere were Sandra's letters.\n\nMrs. Durrant was taking a party to Greenwich.\n\nLady Rocksbier hoped for the pleasure....\n\nListless is the air in an empty room, just swelling the curtain; the\nflowers in the jar shift. One fibre in the wicker arm-chair creaks,\nthough no one sits there.\n\nBonamy crossed to the window. Pickford's van swung down the street. The\nomnibuses were locked together at Mudie's corner. Engines throbbed, and\ncarters, jamming the brakes down, pulled their horses sharp up. A harsh\nand unhappy voice cried something unintelligible. And then suddenly all\nthe leaves seemed to raise themselves.\n\n\"Jacob! Jacob!\" cried Bonamy, standing by the window. The leaves sank\ndown again.\n\n\"Such confusion everywhere!\" exclaimed Betty Flanders, bursting open the\nbedroom door.\n\nBonamy turned away from the window.\n\n\"What am I to do with these, Mr. Bonamy?\"\n\nShe held out a pair of Jacob's old shoes."