CHAPTER I

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

A Life's Morning

by

George Gissing

CONTENTS

I AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE

II BEATRICE REDWING

III LYRICAL

IV A CONFLICT OF OPINIONS

V THE SHADOW OF HOME

VI A VISITOR BY EXPRESS

VII ON THE LEVELS

VIII A STERNER WOOING

IX CIRCUMSTANCE

X AT THE SWORD'S POINT

XI EMILY'S DECISION

XII THE FINAL INTERVIEW

XIII THE CUTTING OF THE KNOT

XIV NEWS AND COMMENTS

XV MRS. BAXENDALE'S QUESTS

XVI RENUNCIATION

XVII THEIR SEVERAL WAYS

XVIII A COMPACT

XIX THE COMPLETION OF MISCHANCE

XX WILFRID THE LEGISLATOR

XXI DANGEROUS RELICS

XXII HER PATH IN THE SHADOW

XXIII HER PATH IN THE LIGHT

XXIV THE UNEXPECTED

XXV A FAMILY CONCLAVE

XXVI MID-DAY

CHAPTER I

AN UNDERGRADUATE AT LEISURE

Wilfrid Athel went down invalided a few days after the beginning of

Trinity term. The event was not unanticipated. At Christmas it had been

clear enough that he was overtaxing himself; his father remarked on the

fact with anxiety, and urged moderation, his own peculiar virtue.

Wilfrid, whose battle with circumstances was all before him, declined to

believe that the body was anything but the very humble servant of the

will. So the body took its revenge.

He had been delicate in childhood, and the stage of hardy naturalism

which interposes itself between tender juvenility and the birth of

self-consciousness did not in his case last long enough to establish his

frame in the vigour to which it was tending. There was nothing sickly

about him; it was only an excess of nervous vitality that would not

allow body to keep pace with mind. He was a boy to be, intellectually,

held in leash, said the doctors. But that was easier said than done.

What system of sedatives could one apply to a youngster whose

imagination wrought him to a fever during a simple walk by the seashore,

who if books were forcibly withheld consoled himself with the

composition of five-act tragedies, interspersed with lyrics to which he

supplied original strains? Mr. Athel conceived a theory that such

exuberance of emotionality might be counterbalanced by studies of a

strictly positive nature; a tutor was engaged to ground young Wilfrid in

mathematics and the physical sciences. The result was that the tutor's

enthusiasm for these pursuits communicated itself after a brief

repugnance to the versatile pupil; instincts of mastery became as vivid

in the study of Euclid and the chemical elements as formerly in the

humaner paths of learning; the plan had failed. In the upshot Wilfrid

was sent to school; if that did not develop the animal in him, nothing

would.

He was not quite three-and-twenty when the break-down removed him from

Oxford. Going to Balliol with a scholarship, he had from the first been

marked for great things, at all events by the measure of the schools.

Removal from the system of home education had in truth seemed to answer

in some degree the ends aimed at; the lad took his fair share of cricket

and football, and kept clear of nervous crises. At the same time he made

extraordinary progress with his books. He acquired with extreme

facility, and his ambition never allowed him to find content in a second

place; conquest became his habit; he grew to deem it the order of nature

that Wilfrid Athel's name should come first in the list. Hence a

reputation to support. During his early terms at Balliol he fagged as

hard as the mere dullard whose dear life depended upon a first class and

a subsequent tutorship. What he would make of himself in the end was

uncertain; university distinctions would probably be of small moment to

him as soon as they were achieved, for already he spent the greater

portion of his strength in lines of study quite apart from the

curriculum, and fate had blessed him with exemption from sordid cares.

He led in a set devoted to what were called advanced ideas; without

flattering himself that he was on the way to solve the problem of the

universe, he had satisfaction in reviewing the milestones which removed

him from the unconscious man, and already clutched at a measure of

positive wisdom in the suspicion that lie might shortly have to lay

aside his school-books and recommence his education under other

teachers. As yet he was whole-hearted in the pursuit of learning. The

intellectual audacity which was wont to be the key-note of his

conversation did not, as his detractors held, indicate mere

bumptiousness and defect of self-measurement; it was simply the florid

redundancy of a young mind which glories in its strength, and plays at

victory in anticipation. It was true that he could not brook the

semblance of inferiority; if it were only five minutes' chat in the

Quad, he must come off with a phrase or an epigram; so those duller

heads who called Athel affected were not wholly without their

justification. Those who shrugged their shoulders with the remark that

he was overdoing it, and would not last out to the end of the race,

enjoyed a more indisputable triumph. One evening, when Athel was taking

the brilliant lead in an argument on 'Fate, free-will, foreknowledge

absolute,' his brain began to whirl, tobacco-smoke seemed to have dulled

all the lights before his eyes, and he fell from his chair in a

fainting-fit.

He needed nothing but rest; that, however, was imperative. Mr. Athel

brought him to London, and the family went down at once to their house

in Surrey. Wilfrid was an only son and an only child. His father had

been a widower for nearly ten years; for the last three his house had

been directed by a widowed sister, Mrs. Rossall, who had twin girls. Mr.

Athel found it no particular hardship to get away from town and pursue

his work at The Firs, a delightful house in the midst of Surrey's

fairest scenery, nor would Mrs. Rossall allow that the surrender of high

season cost her any effort. This lady had just completed her

thirty-second year; her girls were in their tenth. She was comely and

knew it, but a constitutional indolence had preserved her from becoming

a woman of fashion, and had nurtured in her a reflective mood, which, if

it led to no marked originality of thought, at all events contributed to

an appearance of culture. At the time of her husband's death she was at

the point where graceful inactivity so often degenerates into

slovenliness. Mrs. Rossall's homekeeping tendencies and the growing

childhood of her twins tended to persuade her that her youth was gone;

even the new spring fashions stirred her to but languid interest, and

her music, in which she had some attainments, was all but laid aside.

With widowhood began a new phase of her life. Her mourning was

unaffected; it led her to pietism; she spent her days in religious

observance, and her nights in the study of the gravest literature. She

would have entered the Roman Church but for her brother's interposition.

The end of this third year of discipline was bringing about another

change, perhaps less obvious to herself than to those who marked her

course with interest, as several people did. Her reading became less

ascetic, she passed to George Herbert and the 'Christian Year,' and by

way of the decoration of altars proceeded to thought for her personal

adornment. A certain journal of society which she had long ago abandoned

began to show itself occasionally in her rooms, though only as yet by

oversight left to view. She spoke with her brother on the subject of

certain invitations, long neglected, and did not seem displeased when he

went beyond her own motion to propose the issuing of cards for a

definite evening. Then came Wilfrid's break-down. There was really no

need, said Mr. Athel, that she should transfer herself immediately to

the country, just when everybody was well settled in town. But Mrs.

Rossall preferred to go; she was not sure that the juncture had not some

connection with her own spiritual life. And she maintained, on the

whole, a seemly cheerfulness.

Mr. Athel was an Egyptologist of some distinction. Though not in person

or manner suggestive of romantic antecedents, he had yet come by this

taste in a way which bordered on romance. Travelling in Southern Europe

at about the age which Wilfrid had now reached, he had the good fortune

to rescue from drowning an Italian gentleman then on a tour in Greece.

The Italian had a fair daughter, who was travelling with him, and her,

after an acquaintance of a few weeks, Athel demanded by way of

recompense. Her father was an enthusiastic student of Egyptian

antiquities; the Englishman plied at one and the same time his wooing

and the study of hieroglyphics, with marked success in both directions.

The Mr. Athel who at that time represented parental authority, or at all

events claimed filial deference, was anything but pleased with the step

his son had taken; he was a highly respectable dealer in grain, and,

after the manner of highly respectable men of commerce, would have had

his eldest son espouse some countrywoman yet more respectable. It was

his opinion that the lad had been entrapped by an adventurous foreigner.

Philip Athel, who had a will of his own, wedded his Italian maiden,

brought her to England, and fought down prejudices. A year or two later

he was at work in Egypt, where lie remained for some twelve months; his

studies progressed. Subsequently he published certain papers which were

recognised as valuable. Wilfrid found the amusement of his childhood in

his father's pursuit; he began to decipher hieratic not much later than

he learned to read English. Scarabs were his sacred playthings, and by

the time of his going to school he was able to write letters home in a

demotic which would not perhaps have satisfied Champollion or Brugsch,

but yet was sufficiently marvellous to his schoolfellows and gratifying

to his father.

For the rest, Philip Athel was a typical English gentleman. He enjoyed

out-of-door sports as keenly as he did the pursuit of his study; he had

scarcely known a day's illness in his life, owing, he maintained, to the

wisdom with which he arranged his day. Three hours of study was, he

held, as much as any prudent man would allow himself. He was always in

excellent spirits, ever ready to be of service to a friend, lived with

much moderation on victuals of the best quality procurable, took his

autumnal holiday abroad in a gentlemanly manner. With something of

theoretic Radicalism in his political views, he combined a stout respect

for British social institutions; affecting to be above vulgar

prejudices, he was in reality much prepossessed in favour of hereditary

position, and as time went on did occasionally half wish that the love

he had bestowed on his Italian wife had been given to some English lady

of 'good' family. He was liberal, frank, amiably autocratic in his home,

apt to be peppery with inferiors who missed the line of perfect respect,

candid and reasonable with equals or superiors. For his boy he reserved

a store of manly affection, seldom expressing itself save in bluff

fashion; his sister he patronised with much kindness, though he despised

her judgment. One had now and then a feeling that his material

circumstances aided greatly in making him the genial man he was, that

with beef and claret of inferior quality he might not have been

altogether so easy to get along with. But that again was an illustration

of the English character.

We find the family assembling for breakfast at The Firs one delightful

morning at the end of July. The windows of the room were thrown open,

and there streamed in with the sunlight fresh and delicious odours,

tonics alike of mind and body. From the Scotch firs whence the dwelling

took its name came a scent which mingled with wafted breath from the

remoter heather, and the creepers about the house-front, the lovely

bloom and leafage skirting the lawn, contributed to the atmosphere of

health and joy. It was nine o'clock. The urn was on the gleaming table,

the bell was sounding, Mr. Athel stepped in straight from the lawn,

fresh after his ten minutes' walk about the garden. Wilfrid Athel

appeared at the same moment; he was dark-complexioned and had black,

glossy hair; his cheeks were hollower than they should have been, but he

had not the aspect of an invalid. Mrs. Rossall glided into the room

behind him, fresh, fair, undemonstrative. Then came the twins, by name

Patty and Minnie, delicate, with promise of their mother's English style

of beauty; it was very hard to distinguish them, their uncle had

honestly given up the pretence long ago, and occasionally remonstrated

with his sister on the absurdity of dressing them exactly alike. The

last to enter the room was the governess, Miss Emily Hood.

Mr. Athel, having pronounced a grace, mentioned that he thought of

running up to town; did anybody wish to give him a commission? Mrs.

Rossall looked thoughtful, and said she would make a note of two or

three things.

'I haven't much faith in that porridge regimen, Wilf,' remarked the

master of the house, as he helped himself to chicken and tongue. 'We are

not Highlanders. It's dangerous to make diet too much a matter of

theory. Your example is infectious; first the twins; now Miss Hood.

Edith, do you propose to become a pervert to porridge?'

'I have no taste for it,' replied his sister, who had become

absent-minded.

'There's a certain dishonesty about it, moreover,' Mr. Athel pursued.

'Porridge should be eaten with salt. Milk _and_ sugar--didn't I hear a

suggestion of golden syrup, more honestly called treacle, yesterday?

These things constitute evasion, self-deception at the least. In your

case, Miss Hood, the regimen is clearly fruitful of ill results.'

'Of what kind, Mr. Athel?'

'Obviously it leads to diminution of appetite. You were in the habit of

eating a satisfactory breakfast; at present some two ounces of that

farinaceous mess--'

'My dear Philip!' interposed Mrs. Rossall, still absently.

I hold that I am within my rights,' asserted her brother. 'If Miss Hood

goes down into Yorkshire in a state of emaciation--'

Wilfrid and the twins showed amusement.

'To begin with,' pursued Mr. Athel, 'I hold that sweet food the first

thing in the morning is a mistake; the appetite is checked in an

artificial way, and impaired. Even coffee--'

'You would recommend a return to flagons of ale?' suggested Wilfrid.

'I am not sure that it wasn't better dietetically.'

Mrs. Rossall had taken an egg, but, after fruitlessly chipping at the

shell throughout this conversation, put down her spoon and appeared to

abandon the effort to commence her meal. Presently she broke silence,

speaking with some diffidence.

'I really think I will go to town with you, Philip,' she said. 'I want

some things you can't very well get me, and then I ought to go and see

the Redwings. I might persuade Beatrice to come to us for a day or two.'

'Do so by all means. You're quite sure,' he added with a smile, 'that I

couldn't save you the trouble of the journey? I have no objection to

visiting the Redwings.'

'I think it will be better if I go myself,' replied Mrs. Rossall, with a

far-off look. 'I might call on one or two other people.'

Having decided this point, she found herself able to crack the egg. The

anticipation of her day in London made her quite gay throughout the

meal.

The carriage was at the door by ten o'clock, to drive to Dealing, the

nearest station, some four miles away. The twins had gone upstairs with

Miss Hood to their lessons, and Wilfrid was sauntering about the hall.

His father paused by him on the way to the carriage.

'What do you propose to do with yourself, Wilf?' he asked.

'Ride, I think.'

'Do. Go over to Hilstead and lunch there. Capital lunch they give you at

the inn; the last time I was there they cooked me one of the best chops

I ever ate. Oberon wants exercise; make a day of it.'

'Very well.'

'You're not looking quite so well, I'm afraid,' remarked his father,

with genuine solicitude in his tone. 'Haven't been reading, have you?'

'No.'

'No imprudences, mind. I must stop that porridge regimen; it doesn't

suit you. Ready, Edith?' he shouted heartily at the foot of the stairs.

Mrs. Rossall came down, buttoning her gloves.

'If I were you, Wilf,' she said, 'I'd go off somewhere for the day. The

twins will only worry you.'

Wilfrid laughed.

'I am going to eat unexampled chops at the "Waggoner" in Hilstead,' he

replied.

'That's right. Good-bye, my dear boy. I wish you'd get fatter.'

'Pooh, I'm all right.'

The landau rolled away. Wilfrid still loitered in the hall, a singular

look of doubt on his face. In a room above one of the twins was having a

music lesson; a certain finger-exercise was being drummed with

persistent endeavour at accuracy.

'How can she bear that morning after morning?' the young man murmured to

himself.

He took his straw hat and went round to the stables. Oberon was being

groomed. Wilfrid patted the horse's sleek neck, and talked a little with

the man. At length he made up his mind to go and prepare for riding;

Oberon would be ready for him in a few minutes.

In the porch Patty ran to meet him.

'Truant!' Wilfrid exclaimed. 'Have I caught you in the act of escape?'

'I was going to look for you,' said the child, putting her arm through

his and swinging upon him. 'We want to know if you'll be back for

lunch.'

'Who wants to know?'

'I and Minnie and Miss Hood.'

'Oh, you are Patty, then, are you?'

This was an old form of joke. The child shook her dark curls with a

half-annoyed gesture, but still swung on her cousin as he moved into the

house. Wilfrid passed his arm about her playfully.

'Can't you make up your mind, Wilf?' she asked.

'Oh yes, my mind is quite made up,' he replied, with a laugh.

'And won't you tell me?'

'Tell you? Ah, about lunch. No, I shall not be back.'

'You won't? Oh, I am sorry.'

'Why are you sorry, indistinguishable little maiden?' he asked, drawing

out one of her curls between his fingers, and letting it spring back

again into its circling beauty.

'We thought it would be so nice, we four at lunch.'

'I am warned to avoid you. The tone of conversation would try my weak

head; I am not capable yet of intellectual effort.'

The little girl looked at him with puzzled eyes.

'Well, it can't be helped,' she said. 'I must go back to my lessons.'

She ran off, and Wilfrid went up to his dressing-room. When he came

down, Oberon was pawing the gravel before the door. He mounted and rode

away.

His spirits, which at first seemed to suffer some depression, took

vigour once more from the air of the downs. He put Oberon at a leap or

two, then let the breeze sing in his ears as he was borne at a gallop

over the summer land, golden with sunlight. In spite of his still worn

look, health was manifest in the upright vigour of his form, and in his

eyes gleamed the untroubled joy of existence. Hope just now was strong

within him, a hope defined and pointing to an end attainable; he knew

that henceforth the many bounding and voiceful streams of his life would

unite in one strong flow onward to a region of orient glory which shone

before him as the bourne hitherto but dimly imagined. On, Oberon, on! No

speed that would not lag behind the fore-flight of a heart's desire. Let

the stretch of green-shadowing woodland sweep by like a dream; let the

fair, sweet meadow-sides smile for a moment and vanish; let the dark

hill-summits rise and sink. It is the time of youth and hope, of

boundless faith in the world's promises, of breathless pursuit.

Hilstead was gained long before lunch could be thought of. Wilfrid rode

on, and circled back towards the hostelry famous for chops about the

hour of noon. He put up his horse, and strayed about the village till

his meal was ready; after he had eaten it he smoked a cigar among

hollyhocks and sunflowers. Then impatience possessed him. He looked at

his watch several times, annoyed to find that so little of the day was

spent. When he at last set forth again, it was to ride at walking pace

in the direction of home. He reached a junction of roads, and waited

there for several minutes, unable to decide upon his course. He ended by

throwing the reins on Oberon's neck.

'Go which way you will,' he said aloud.

Oberon paced forward to the homeward route.

'So be it. On, then! An hour will bring us to The Firs.'

The house was all but reached, when Wilfrid caught a glimpse of a straw

hat moving into a heath-clad hollow a hundred yards from the road. He

pressed on. At the gate stood a gardener.

'James,' he cried, leaping down, 'take the horse to the stable, will

you?'

And, instead of going up to the house, he walked back in the direction

he had come till he reached the hollow in which the straw hat had

disappeared. Miss Hood sat on the ground, reading. She was about to

rise, but Wilfrid begged her not to move, and threw himself into a

reclining posture.

'I saw you as I rode past,' he said, in a friendly way. 'I suppose the

twins are straying?'

'They are at Greenhaws,' was the reply, 'Mrs. Winter called for them

immediately after lunch. She will bring them back early in the evening.'

'Ah!'

He plucked sprigs of heather. Miss Hood turned to her book.

'I've had a magnificent ride,' Wilfrid began again. 'Surely there is no

country in England so glorious as this. Don't you enjoy it?'

'Very much.'

'I have never seen the Yorkshire moors. The scenery, of course, is of a

much wilder kind?'

'I have not seen them myself,' said the governess.

'I thought you might have taken your holidays sometimes in that

direction.'

'No. We used to go to a seaside place in Lincolnshire called

Cleethorpes. I suppose you never heard of it?'

'I think not.'

Wilfrid continued to pluck heather, and let his eyes catch a glimpse of

her face now and then. Miss Hood was a year younger than himself, and

had well outgrown girlishness. She was of very slight build, looked

indeed rather frail; but her face, though lacking colour, had the

firmness of health. It was very broad at the forehead, and tapered down

into narrowness; the eyes seemed set at an unusual distance from each

other, though the nose was thin and of perfect form, its profile making

but a slight angle away from the line of the brows. Her lips were large,

but finely curved; the chin was prominent, the throat long. She had warm

brown hair.

Few would at first sight have called her face beautiful, but none could

deny the beauty of her hands. Ungloved at present, they lay on the open

pages of the book, unsurpassable for delicate loveliness. When he did

not venture to look higher, Wilfrid let his eyes feed on the turn of the

wrist, the faint blue lines and sinuous muscles, the pencilling about

the finger-joints, the delicate white and pink nails.

Miss Hood was habitually silent when in the company of others than the

children. When she replied to a question it was without timidity, but in

few, well-chosen words. Yet her manner did not lack cheerfulness; she

impressed no one as being unhappy, and alone with the twins she was

often gay enough. She was self-possessed, and had the manners of a lady,

though in her position this was rather to be observed in what she

refrained from doing than in what she did. Wilfrid had, on first meeting

her, remarked to himself that it must imply a certain force of

individuality to vary so distinctly from the commonplace even under the

disadvantage of complete self-suppression; he had now come to understand

better the way in which that individuality betrayed itself.

'Shall you go to Cleethorpes this year?' was his next question.

'I think not. I shall most likely pass the holidays at home.'

'And study electricity?'

In a former conversation she had surprised him by some unexpected

knowledge of the principles of electricity, and explained the

acquirement by telling him that this subject was her father's favourite

study. Wilfrid put the question now with a smile.

'Yes, very likely,' she replied, smiling also, but faintly. 'It gives my

father pleasure when I do so.'

'You have not a keen interest in the subject yourself?'

'I try to have.'

Her voice was of singular quality; if she raised it the effect was not

agreeable, owing possibly to its lack of strength, but in low tones,

such as she employed at present, it fell on the ear with a peculiar

sweetness, a natural melody in its modulation.

'The way in which you speak of your father interests me,' said Wilfrid,

leaning his chin upon his hand, and gazing at her freely. 'You seem so

united with him in sympathy.'

She did not turn her eyes to him, but her face gathered brightness.

'In sympathy, yes,' she replied, speaking now with more readiness. 'Our

tastes often differ, but we are always at one in feeling. We have been

companions ever since I can remember.'

'Is your mother living?'

'Yes.'

Something in the tone of the brief affirmative kept Wilfrid from further

questioning.

'I wonder,' he said, 'what you think of the relations existing between

myself and my father. We are excellent friends, don't you think?

Strange--one doesn't think much about such things till some occasion

brings them forward. Whether there is deep sympathy between us, I

couldn't say. Certainly there are many subjects on which I should not

dream of speaking to him unless necessity arose; partly, I suppose, that

is male reserve, and partly English reserve. If novels are to be

trusted, French parents and children speak together with much more

freedom; on the whole that must be better.'

She made no remark.

'My father,' he continued, 'is eminently a man of sense; if I reflect on

my boyhood, I see how admirable his treatment of me has always been. I

fancy I must have been at one time rather hard to manage; I know I was

very passionate and stubbornly self-willed. Yet he neither let me have

my own way nor angered me by his opposition. In fact, he made me respect

him. Now that we stand on equal terms, I dare say he has something of

the same feeling towards myself. And so it comes that we are excellent

friends.'

She listened with a scarcely perceptible smile.

'Perhaps this seems to you a curiously dispassionate way of treating

such a subject,' Wilfrid added, with a laugh. 'It illustrates what I

meant in saying I doubted whether there was deep sympathy between us.

Your own feeling for your father is clearly one of devotedness. You

would think no sacrifice of your own wishes too great if he asked it of

you.'

'I cannot imagine any sacrifice, which my father could ask, that I

should refuse.'

She spoke with some difficulty, as if she wished to escape the subject.

'Perhaps that is a virtue that your sex helps to explain,' said Wilfrid,

musingly.

'You do not know,' he added, when a bee had hummed between them for half

a minute, 'how constant my regret is that my mother did not live till I

was old enough to make a friend of her. You know that she was an

Italian? There was a sympathy taken out of my life. I believe I have

more of the Italian nature than the English, and I know my mother's

presence would be priceless to me now that I could talk with her. What

unsatisfactory creatures we are as children, so imperfect, so deficient!

It is worse with boys than with girls. Compare, for instance, the twins

with boys of ten. What coarse, awkward, unruly lumps of boisterousness

youngsters mostly are at that age! I dislike boys, and more than ever

when I remember myself at that stage. What an insensible, ungrateful,

brainless, and heartless brat I was!'

'You must be wrong in one respect,' she returned, watching a large

butterfly. 'You could not have been brainless.'

'Oh, the foundation of tolerable wits was there, no doubt; but it is

just that undeveloped state that irritates me. Suppose I were now ten

years old, and that glorious butterfly before me; should I not leap at

it and stick a pin through it--young savage? Precisely what a Hottentot

boy would do, except that he would be free from the apish folly of

pretending a scientific interest, not really existing. I rejoice to have

lived out of my boyhood; I would not go through it again for anything

short of a thousand years of subsequent maturity.'

She just glanced at him, a light of laughter in her eyes. She was

abandoning herself to the pleasure of hearing him speak.

'That picture of my mother,' he pursued, dropping his voice again, 'does

not do her justice. Even at twelve years old--(she died when I was

twelve)--I could not help seeing and knowing how beautiful she was. I

have thought of her of late more than I ever did; sometimes I suffer a

passion of grief that one so beautiful and lovable has gone and left a

mere dumb picture. I suppose even my memory of her will grow fainter and

fainter, founded as it is on imperfect understanding, dim appreciation.

She used to read Italian to me--first the Italian, then the English--and

I thought it, as often as not, a bore to have to listen to her!

Thank Heaven, I have the book she used, and can now go over the pieces,

and try to recall her voice.'

The butterfly was gone, but the bee still hummed about them. The hot

afternoon air was unstirred by any breeze.

'How glad I am,' Wilfrid exclaimed when he had brooded for a few

moments, 'that I happened to see you as I rode past! I should have

wandered restlessly about the house in vain, seeking for some one to

talk to. And you listen so patiently. It is pleasant to be here and talk

so freely of things I have always had to keep in my own mind. Look, do

look at that bastion of cloud over the sycamore! What glorious gradation

of tints! What a snowy crown!'

'That is a pretty spray,' he added, holding to her one that he had

plucked.

She looked at it; then, as he still held it out, took it from him. The

exquisite fingers touched his own redder and coarser ones.

'Have you friends in Dunfield?' he asked.

'Friends?'

'Any real friend, I mean--any girl who gives you real companionship?'

'Scarcely that.'

'How shall you spend your time when you are not deep in electrics? What

do you mean to read these holidays?'

'Chiefly German, I think. I have only just begun to read it.'

'And I can't read it at all. Now and then I make a shot at the meaning

of a note in a German edition of some classical author, every time

fretting at my ignorance. But there is so endlessly much to do, and a

day is so short.'

'Isn't it hateful,' he broke forth, 'this enforced idleness of mine? To

think that weeks and weeks go by and I remain just where I was, when the

loss of an hour used to seem to me an irreparable misfortune. I have

such an appetite for knowledge, surely the unhappiest gift a man can be

endowed with; it leads to nothing but frustration. Perhaps the appetite

weakens as one grows in years; perhaps the sphere of one's keener

interests contracts; I hope it may be so. At times I cannot work--I

mean, I could not--for a sense of the vastness of the field before me.

I should like you to see my rooms at Balliol. Shelves have long since

refused to take another volume; floor, tables, chairs, every spot is

heaped. And there they lie; hosts I have scarcely looked into, many I

shall never have time to take up to the end of my days.'

'You have the satisfaction of being able to give your whole time to

study.'

'There is precisely the source of dissatisfaction. My whole time, and

that wholly insufficient. I have a friend, a man I envy intensely; he

has taken up the subject of Celtic literature; gives himself to it with

single-heartedness, cares for nothing that does not connect itself

therewith; will pursue it throughout his life; will know more of it than

any man living. My despair is the universality of my interests. I can

think of no branch of study to which I could not surrender myself with

enthusiasm; of course I shall never master one. My subject is the

history of humanity; I would know everything that man has done or

thought or felt. I cannot separate lines of study. Philology is a

passion with me, but how shall I part the history of speech from the

history of thought? The etymology of any single word will hold me for

hours; to follow it up I must traverse centuries of human culture. They

tell me I have a faculty for philosophy, in the narrow sense of the

word; alas! that narrow sense implies an exhaustive knowledge of

speculation in the past and of every result of science born in our own

time. Think of the sunny spaces in the world's history, in each of which

one could linger for ever. Athens at her fairest, Rome at her

grandest, the glorious savagery of Merovingian courts, the kingdom of

Frederick II., the Moors in Spain, the magic of Renaissance Italy--to

become a citizen of any one age means a lifetime of endeavour. It is

easy to fill one's head with names and years, but that only sharpens my

hunger. Then there is the world of art; I would know every subtlest

melody of verse in every tongue, enjoy with perfectly instructed taste

every form that man has carved or painted. I fear to enter museums and

galleries; I am distracted by the numberless desires that seize upon me,

depressed by the hopelessness of satisfying them. I cannot even enjoy

music from the mere feeling that I do not enjoy it enough, that I have

not had time to study it, that I shall never get at its secret....

And when is one to live? I cannot lose myself in other men's activity

and enjoyments. I must have a life of my own, outside the walls of a

library. It would be easy to give up all ambition of knowledge, to

forget all the joy and sorrow that has been and passed into nothingness;

to know only the eternity of a present hour. Might one not learn more in

one instant of unreflecting happiness than by toiling on to a mummied

age, only to know in the end the despair of never having lived?'

He again raised his eyes to her face. It was fixed in a cold, absent

gaze; her lips hardened into severity, the pose of her head impressive,

noble. Athel regarded her for several moments; she was revealing to him

more of her inner self than he had yet divined.

'What are your thoughts?' he asked quietly.

She smiled, recovering her wonted passiveness.

'Have you not often much the same troubles?'

'They arc only for the mind which is strong enough to meet and overcome

them,' she replied.

'But look, my mind has given way already! I am imbecile. For ever I

shall be on the point of a break-down, and each successive one will

bring me nearer to some final catastrophe--perhaps the lunatic

asylum--who knows?'

'I should think,' she said gravely, 'that you suggested a truth. Very

likely your mind will contract its range and cease to aim at the

impossible.'

'But tell me, have you not yourself already attained that wisdom? Why

should you make pretences of feebleness which does not mark you? You

have a mind as active as my own; I know that perfectly well. What is

your secret of contentment? Won't you help me in this miserable plight?'

'No, Mr. Athel, I have none but very ordinary powers of mind, and

perhaps it is my recognition of that which keeps me contented. There is

indeed one principle of guidance which I have worked out for myself--'

'Ah! And that?'

'It will not enlighten you, for it is only the choice of a natural and

easy course, seeing that difficult ones are closed. The literature of

learning is out of my reach, so I limit myself to the literature of

beauty, and in this I try to keep to the best.'

'You are right, you are right! To know the masterpieces of literature,

pure literature, poetry in its widest sense; that is the wise choice.

Think; we feed ourselves with the secondhand wisdom of paltry

philosophisers and critics, and Shakespeare waits outside the door with

the bread of life. From Homer--Alas! you do not read Greek?'

She shook her head.

'And you work at German! In Heaven's name change your language

forthwith! Why should you not know Greek? You _must_ know Greek! I will

give you books, I will advise you, show you the essentials to begin

with. There are still a few days before you go into Yorkshire; you can

work during the holidays on lines I shall set you; you can write and

tell me your--'

He paused, for her face had lost its smile, and wore again that coldly

respectful look which she seldom put off save in her privacy with the

children. For the last quarter of an hour he had marked in her quite

another aspect; the secret meanings of her face had half uttered

themselves in eye and lip. His last words seemed to recall her to the

world of fact. She made a slight movement and closed the book on her

lap.

'Greek is more than I can undertake, Mr. Athel,' she said in a quietly

decided tone. 'I must be content with translations.'

'Translations! You would not say that so calmly if you knew what you

were renouncing. Everything, everything in literature, I would give up

to save my Greek. You will learn it, I know you will; some day I shall

hear you read the hexameters as beautifully as you read English poetry

to the girls. Will you not begin if I beg you to?'

The elbow on which he rested moved a few inches nearer to her. He saw

the pearly shadows waver upon her throat, and her lips tremble into

rigidity.

'My time in the holidays will be very limited,' she said. 'I have

undertaken to give some help to a friend who is preparing to become a

teacher, and'--she tried to smile--'I don't think I must do more work

whilst at home than is really necessary.'

'No, that is true,' Wilfrid assented unwillingly. 'Never mind, there is

plenty of time. Greek will be overcome, you will see. When we are all

back in town and the days are dull, then I shall succeed in persuading

you.'

She looked about her as if with thought of quitting her place. Her

companion was drawn into himself; he stroked mechanically with his

finger-tips the fronds of bracken near him.

'I suppose I shall go up again in October,' he began. 'I wish there were

no necessity for it.'

'But surely it is your one desire?' the other replied in genuine

surprise.

'Not to return to Oxford. A few months ago it would have been, but this

crisis in my life has changed me. I don't think I shall adapt myself

again to those conditions. I want to work in a freer way. I had a

positive zeal even for examinations; now that seems tame--well, boyish.

I believe I have outgrown that stage; I feel a reluctance to go back to

school. I suppose I must take my degree, and so on, but it will all be

against the grain.'

'Your feeling will most likely alter when you have thoroughly recovered

your health.'

'No, I don't think it will. Practically my health is all right. You

don't,' he added with a smile, 'regard me as an irresponsible person,

whose feeble remarks are to be received with kind allowance?'

'No, I did not mean that.'

He gazed at her, and his face showed a growing trouble.

'You do not take too seriously what I said just now about the weakness

of my mind? It would be horrible if you thought I had worked myself into

a state of amiable imbecility, and was incapable henceforth of acting,

thinking, or speaking with a sound intellect. Tell me, say in plain

words that is not your way of interpreting me.'

He had become very much in earnest. Raising himself to a position in

which he rested on one hand, he looked straight into her face.

'Why don't you reply? Why don't you speak?'

'Because, Mr. Athel, it is surely needless to say that I have no such

thought.'

'No, it is not needless; and even now you speak in a way which troubles

me. Do not look away from me. What has my aunt told you about me?'

She turned her face to him. Her self-command was so complete that not a

throb of her leaping heart betrayed itself in vein or muscle. She even

met his eyes with a placid gaze which he felt as a new aspect of her

countenance.

'Mrs. Rossall has never spoken to me of your health,' she said.

'But my father's jokes; he has a way of humorous exaggeration. You of

course understand that; you don't take seriously all he says?'

'I think I can distinguish between jest and earnest.'

'For all that, you speak of the recovery of my health as if I were still

far from the wholly rational stand-point. So far from my being mentally

unsound, this rest has been a growing-time with me. Before, I did

nothing but heap my memory with knowledge of books; now I have had

leisure to gather knowledge of a deeper kind. I was a one-sided

academical monster; it needed this new sense to make me human. The old

college life is no longer my ideal; I doubt if it will be possible. At

any rate, I shall hurry over the rest of my course as speedily as may

be, that I may begin really to live. You must credit what I am saying; I

want you to give me distinct assurance that you do so. If I have the

least doubt, it will trouble my mind in earnest.'

Miss Hood rose to her feet in that graceful effortless way of which

girls have the secret.

'You attribute a meaning to my words that I never thought of,' she said,

again in the distant respectful manner.

Wilfrid also rose.

'And you give me credit for understanding myself, for being as much

master of my mind as I am of my actions?'

'Surely I do, Mr. Athel.'

'You are going to the house? It is nearly five o'clock; your conscience

tells you that a civilised being must drink tea. I think I shall walk

over to Greenhaws; I may as well save Mrs. Winter the trouble of

bringing back the children.'

He hesitated before moving away.

'How little that cloud has changed its form! I should like to stay here

and watch it till sunset. In a week I suppose I shall be looking at some

such cloud over Mont Blanc. And you, in Dunfield.'

'No, there we have only mill-smoke.'

She smiled, and passed from the hollow to the road.