FEBRUARY

Pauline started to Oxford with Monica, feeling rather disappointed she

had not seen Guy before she went; for Margaret had come home with news

of having walked with him to Fairfield, and it was tantalizing, indeed a

little disturbing, to leave him behind with Margaret.

"Nothing is said to Margaret," Pauline protested at lunch, "when _she_

goes out for a walk with Guy. Father, don't you think it's unfair?"

"Well, darling Pauline," interrupted Mrs. Grey, with an anxious glance

towards her second daughter, "you see, Margaret is in a way engaged."

"I'm not engaged," Margaret declared.

"But I'm asking Father," Pauline persisted. "Father, don't you think

it's unfair?"

The Rector was turning over the pages of a seed-catalogue and answered

Pauline's question with that engaging irrelevancy to which his family

and parish were accustomed.

"It's disgraceful for these people to offer seeds of _Incarvillea olgae_.

My dears, you remember that anemic magenta brute, the color of a

washed-out shirt? Ah," he sighed, "I wish they'd get that yellow

_Incarvillea_ over. I am tempted to fancy it might be as good as _Tecoma

Smithii_, and, of course, coming from that Yang-tse-kiang country, it

would be hardy."

"Francis dear!" Pauline cried. "Don't you think it's unfair?"

"Pauline," said her mother, "you must not call your father Francis in

the dining-room."

The Rector, oblivious of everything, continued to turn slowly the pages

of his catalogue.

"Oh, bother going to Oxford!" said Monica, looking out of the window to

where Janet with frozen breath listened for the omnibus under gathering

snow-clouds.

"Now, really," Pauline exclaimed, diverted from her complaint of

Margaret's behavior by another injustice, "isn't Monica too bad? She's

grumbling, though it was she who made the plan to stay with the

Strettons. And though they're her friends and not mine, I've been made

to go, too."

"Well, I hate staying with people," Monica explained.

"So do I," said Pauline. "And you accepted the invitation for me that

day you were in Oxford buying Christmas presents, when you forgot to buy

the patience-cards I wanted to give poor Miss Verney, so that I had to

give her a horrid little china dog, though she hates dogs."

"Now I'm sure it'll be charming, yes, charming, when you get there,"

Mrs. Grey affirmed, hopefully.

"Oh, how glad I am I'm not going!" said Margaret.

"I think you ought to go instead of me," Pauline told her.

"They're not my friends," Margaret replied, with a shrug.

"No, but they're more your friends than mine," Pauline argued. "Because

you're nearer to Monica. They're four years off being my friends and

only two from being yours."

"Miss Monica," said Janet, coming into the room, "the 'bus has come out

from the King's Head yard, and you'll be late."

There was instantly a confusion of preparation by Mrs. Grey and Pauline,

while Monica sighed at the trouble of departure, and Margaret with

exasperating indifference sat warm and triumphant by the fire.

"Good gracious!" the Rector exclaimed, flinging the catalogue down and

speaking loud enough to be heard over the feverish search for Pauline's

left glove. "These people have the impudence to advertise _Penstemon

Lobbii_ as a novelty when it's really our old friend _Breviflorus_. What

on earth is to be done with these scoundrels?"

The horn of the omnibus sounded at the end of Rectory Lane; and the fat

guard was marching through the snow with the girls' luggage. The

good-bys were all said; and presently Pauline, with her muff held close

to her cheeks against the north wind, was sitting on top of the omnibus

that was toiling up the Shipcot road. As she caught sight of Plashers

Mead, etched upon the white scene, she wished she had left a message

with Margaret to say in what deep disgrace Guy was. On they labored

across five miles of snow-stilled country with sparse flakes melting

upon the horses' flanks, and never a wayfarer between Wychford and

Shipcot to pause and stare at them.

On the second night of their stay with the Strettons, Monica, when she

and Pauline were going to bed, suddenly turned round from the

dressing-table and demanded in rhetorical dismay why they had come.

"Never mind," said Pauline; "we've only got five more evenings."

"Well, that's nearly a week," Monica sighed. "And I'm tired to death of

Olive already."

"But I'm much worse off," Pauline declared, dolefully. "Because I have

to sit next to the Professor, who does frighten me so. You see, he will

include me in the conversation. Last night at dinner, after he'd been

talking to that don from Balliol who knew Guy and whom I was dying to

ask ... to talk to myself, I mean, he turned round to me and said, 'I am

afraid, Miss Pauline, that Aramaic roots are not very interesting to

you.' Well, of course I got muddled between Aramaic and aromatic, and

said that Father had just been given a lot which were very poisonous."

Monica laughed that sedate laugh of hers, which always seemed to Pauline

like a clock striking, so independent was it of anybody's feelings.

"Monica darling, I don't want to be critical," said Pauline. "But you

know sometimes your laugh sounds just a little--a very little

self-satisfied."

"I think I am rather self-satisfied," Monica agreed, combing her golden

hair away from her high, pale forehead. "And Margaret is conceited, and

you're twice as sweet as both of us put together."

"Oh no, I'm not! Oh no, no, Monica dearest, I'm not!" Pauline

contradicted, hurriedly. "No, really I'm very horrid. And, you know,

when I'm bored I'm sure I show it. Oh, dear, I hope the Strettons didn't

notice I was bored. Mrs. Stretton was so touching with the things they

had brought back from Madeira, and I do hate things people bring back

from places like Madeira."

"And when you're not bored with anybody," said Monica, "you're rather

apt to make that too obvious also."

"Monica, why are you saying that?" Pauline asked, with wide-open eyes.

"Even supposing Guy is in love with you," said Monica, slowly blowing

out the candles on the dressing-table as she spoke, so that nothing was

left but the rosy gas, "I don't think it's necessary to show him quite

so clearly that you're in love with _him_."

"Monica!"

"Darling little sister, I do so want you ... oh, how can I put it? Well,

you know, when you break the time in a trio, as you sometimes do...."

"But I'm not in love with Guy," Pauline interrupted. "At least, oh,

Monica, why do you choose a house like this to tell me such things?" she

asked, with tears and blushes fighting in her countenance.

"Pauline, it's only that I want you to keep in time."

"I can't possibly stay with the Strettons another five days," declared

Pauline in deepest gloom. "You ought not to say things like that here."

She was looking round this strange bedroom for the comfort of familiar

pictures, but there was nothing on these pink walls except a view of the

Matterhorn. Monica was kneeling to say her prayers, and in the stillness

the frost outside seemed to be pressing against the window-panes.

Pauline thought it was rather unfair of Monica to fade like this into

unearthly communications; and she knelt down to pray somewhat vagrant

prayers into the quilted eider-down that symbolized the guest-room's

luxurious chill. She longed to look up in aspiration and behold Saint

Ursula in that tall bed of hers, or cheerful Tobit walking with his dog

in the angel's company, and in the corner her own desk that was full of

childish things. She rose from her knees at the same moment as Monica,

who at once began to talk lightly of the tiresome people at dinner and

seemed utterly unconscious of having wounded Pauline's thoughts. Yet

when the room was dark, for a long while these wounded thoughts danced

upon the wintry air that breathed of Wychford. "_Even supposing Guy is

in love with you._" It was curious that she could not feel very angry

with Monica. "_Even supposing Guy is in love with you._" It really

seemed a pity to fall asleep; it was like falling asleep when music was

being played.

The subject of Guy was not mentioned again, but during the days that

remained of the visit Pauline scarcely felt that she was living in the

Strettons' house, and was so absent in her demeanor that Monica was

disturbed into what was for her a positive sociableness to counteract

Pauline's appearance of inattention. To consummate the vexation of the

visit there came a sudden thaw two days before they left, and Oxford was

ankle-deep in slush. Finally Pauline and Monica were dragged through the

very nadir of depression when on their last night they were taken out to

dinner in trams and goloshes through such abominable conditions of

weather.

"Fancy not ordering a cab," whispered Monica, with cold disapproval.

"Perhaps they can't afford it," Pauline suggested.

"They can afford to go to Madeira," answered Monica, "and buy all those

stupid knickknacks."

"Well, Monica, they are your friends, you know," said Pauline.

However, the 1st of February arrived next morning, and Oxford was left

behind. Pauline sighed with relief when they were seated in the train,

and the twenty miles of country to Shipcot that generally seemed so dull

were as green and welcome as if they were returning from a Siberian

exile.

"You know, Monica, I really don't think we ought to stay with people. I

don't think it's honest to spend such a hateful week as that in being

pleasant," she declared.

"I didn't notice that you were taking much trouble to hide your

boredom," said Monica. "It seems to me that I was always in a state of

trying to steer people round your behavior."

"Oh, but Professor Stretton loves me," said Pauline.

She was trying not to appear excited as the omnibus swished and slapped

through the mud towards Wychford. She was determined that in future she

would lead that inclosed and so serene life which she admired in her

eldest sister. Nobody could criticize Monica except for her coldness,

and Pauline knew that herself would never be able to be really as cold

as that, however much she might assume the effect.

"Grand weather after the snow," said the driver.

The roofs of Wychford were sparkling on the hillside, and earth seemed

to be turning restlessly in the slow Winter sleep.

"This mud'll all be gone with a week of fine days like to-day," said the

driver.

Plashers Mead was in sight now, but it was Monica who pointed to where

Guy and his dog were wandering across the meadows that were so vividly

emerald after the snow.

"I think it is," agreed Pauline, indifferently.

In the Rectory garden a year might have passed, so great was the

contrast between now and a week ago. Now the snowdrops were all that was

left of the snow, and a treasure of aconites as bright as new guineas

were scattered along the borders. Hatless and entranced, the Rector was

roaming from one cohort of green spears to another, each one of which

would soon be flying the pennons of Spring. Pauline rushed to embrace

him, and he, without a word, led her to see where on a sunny bank Greek

anemones had opened their deep-blue stars.

"_Blanda_," he whispered. "And I've never known her so deep in color.

Dear me, poor old Ford tells me he hasn't got one left. I warned him she

must have sun and drainage, but he would mix her with _Nemorosa_ just to

please his wife, which is ridiculous--particularly as they are never in

bloom together."

He bent over and with two long fingers held up a flower full in the

sun's eye, as he might have stooped to chuck under the chin a little

girl of his parish.

Monica had brought back a new quartet, which they practised all that

Candlemas Eve. When it was time to go to bed Mrs. Grey observed in a

satisfied voice that, after all, it must have been charming at the

Strettons'.

"Oh no, Mother; it was terribly dull," Pauline protested.

"Now, dear Pauline, how could it have been dull, when you've brought

back this exquisite Schumann quartet?"

Margaret came to Pauline's room to say good night, sat with her while

she undressed, and tucked her up so lovingly that Pauline was more than

ever delighted to be back at home.

"Oh, Margaret, how sweet you are to me! Why? Is it because you really do

miss me when I go away?"

"Partly," said Margaret.

"Why are you smiling so wisely? Have you put something under my pillow?"

Pauline began to search.

"There's nothing under your pillow except all the thoughts I have

to-night for you."

Once more Margaret leaned over and kissed her, and Pauline faded into

sleep upon the happiness of being at home again.

Next day after lunch her mother and sisters went to pay a long-postponed

call upon a new family in the neighborhood, because Margaret insisted

they must take advantage of this glorious weather which would surely not

last very long.

Pauline spent the early afternoon with the Rector and Birdwood, writing

labels while they sowed a lot of new sweet-peas which had been sent to

the Rector for an opinion upon their merits. The clock was striking four

when Guy strolled into the garden. Somehow Pauline's labels were not so

carefully written after his arrival, and at last the Rector advised her

to take Hazlewood and show him _Anemone blanda_. They left the big

wall-garden and went across the lawn in front of the house to the second

wall-garden, where most of the Rector's favorites grew as it pleased

them best.

"Oh, they've all gone to bed," said Pauline.

Guy knelt down and opened the petals of one.

"They're exactly the color of your eyes," he said, looking up at her.

Pauline was conscious that the simple statement was fraught with a

significance far greater than anything which had so far happened in her

life. It was ringing in her ears like a bugle-call that sounded some

far-flung advance, and involuntarily she drew back and began to talk

nonsense breathlessly, while Guy did not speak. Nor must she let him

speak, she told herself, for behind that simple comparison how many

questions were trembling!

"Oh, I wonder if the others are back yet," she finally exclaimed, and

forthwith hurried from the garden towards the house. She wished she must

not look back over her shoulder to see Guy following her so gravely. Of

course, when they were standing in the hall, the others had not come

back; and the house in its silence was a hundred times more portentous

than the garden. And what would Guy be thinking of her for bringing him

back to this voicelessness in which she could not any longer talk

nonsense? Here the least movement, the slightest gesture, the most

ordinary word, would be weighted for both of them with an importance

that seemed unlimited. For the first time the Rectory was strangely

frightening; and when through the silent passages they were walking

towards the nursery it was the exploration of a dream. Yet, however

undiscoverable the object that was leading them, she was glad to see the

nursery door, for there within would surely come back to her the ease of

an immemorial familiarity. Yet in that room of childhood, that room the

most bound up with the simple progress of her life, she found herself

counting the birds, berries, and daisies upon the walls, as if she were

beholding them vaguely for the first time. Why was she unpicking

Margaret's work or folding into this foolish elaboration of triangles

Monica's music. And why did Guy behave so oddly, taking up all sorts of

unnatural positions, leaning upon the rickety mantelshelf, balancing

himself upon the fender, pleating the curtains, and threading his way

with long legs in and out, in and out of the chairs?

"Pauline!"

He had stopped abruptly by the fireplace, and was not looking at her

when he spoke. Oh, he would never succeed in lifting even from the floor

that match which with one foot he was trying to lift on to the other

foot.

"Pauline!"

Now he was looking at her; and she must be looking at him, for there was

nothing on this settee which would give her a good reason not to look at

him. The room was so still that beyond the closed door the hoarse tick

of the cuckoo-clock was audible; and what was that behind her which was

fretting against the window-pane? And why was she holding with each hand

to the brocade, as if she feared to be swept altogether out of this

world?

"Pauline!"

Was it indeed her voice on earth that said "yes"?

"Pauline, I suppose you know I love you?"