They went on at a terrific pace. And as she persisted in walking about
half a foot in front of him he saw the movement of her fine long limbs
and the little ripple of her shoulders under the gray tweed.
Presently he spoke.
"It wasn't you I heard playing the other night?"
"No. It must have been my youngest sister."
"I knew it wasn't you."
"It might have been for all you knew."
"It couldn't possibly. If you played you wouldn't play that way."
"What way?"
"Your sister's way. Whatever you wanted to do you'd do it beautifully
or not at all."
She made no response. She did not even seem to have heard him.
"I don't mean to say," he said, "that your sister doesn't play
beautifully."
She turned malignly. He liked her when she turned.
"You mean that she plays abominably."
"I didn't mean to _say_ it."
"Why shouldn't you say it?"
"Because you don't say those things. It isn't polite."
"But I know Alice doesn't play well--not those big things. The wonder
is she can play them at all."
"Why does she attempt--the big things?"
"Why does anybody? Because she loves them. She's never heard them
properly played. So she doesn't know. She just trusts to her feeling."
"Is there anything else, after all, you _can_ trust?"
"I don't know. You see, Alice's feeling tells her it's all right to
play like that, and _my_ feeling tells me it's all wrong."
"You can trust _your_ feelings."
"Why mine more than hers?"
"Because _your_ feelings are the feelings of a beautifully sane and
perfectly balanced person."
"How can you possibly tell? You don't know me."
"I know your type."
"My type isn't me. You can't tell by that."
"You can if you're a physiologist."
"Being a physiologist won't tell you anything about _me_."
"Oh, won't it?"
"It can't."
"Why not?"
"How can it?"
"You think it can't tell me anything about your soul?"
"Oh--my soul----" Her shoulders expressed disdain for it.
"Do you dislike my mentioning it? Would you rather we didn't talk
about it? Perhaps you're tired of having it talked about?"
"No; my poor soul has never done anything to get itself talked about."
"I only thought that as your father, perhaps, specialises in souls--"
"He doesn't specialise in mine. He knows nothing about it."
"The specialist never does. To know anything--the least little
thing--about the soul, you must know everything--everything you _can_
know--about the body. So that you're wrong even about your soul. Being
a physiologist tells me that your sort of body--a transparently clean
and strong and utterly unconscious body--goes with a transparently
clean and strong and utterly unconscious soul."
"Utterly unconscious?"
He was silent a moment and then answered:
"Utterly unconscious."
They walked on in silence till they came in sight of the marshes and
the long gray line of Upthorne Farm.
"That's where I met you once," he said. "Do you remember? You were
coming out of the door as I went in."
"You seem to have been always meeting me."
"Always meeting you. And then---always missing you. Just when I
expected most to find you."
"If we go much farther in this direction," said Gwenda, "we shall meet
Papa."
"Well--I suppose some day I shall have to meet him. Do you realise
that I've never met him yet?"
"Haven't you?"
"No. Always I've been on the point of meeting him, and always some
malignant fate has interfered."
She smiled. He loved her smile.
"Why are you smiling?"
"I was only wondering whether the fate was really so malignant."
"You mean that if he met me he'd dislike me?"
"He always _has_ disliked anybody we like. You see, he's a very funny
father."
"All fathers," said Rowcliffe, "are more or less funny."
She laughed. Her laughter enchanted him.
"Yes. But _my_ father doesn't mean to be as funny as he is."
"I see. He wouldn't really mean to dislike me. Then, perhaps, if I
regularly laid myself out for it, by years of tender and untiring
devotion I might win him over?"
She laughed again; she laughed as youth laughs, for the pure joy of
laughter. She looked on her father as a persistent, delightful jest.
He adored her laughter.
It proved how strong and sane she was--if she could take him like
that. Rowcliffe had seen women made bitter, made morbid, driven into
lunatic asylums by fathers who were as funny as Mr. Cartaret.
"You wouldn't, you wouldn't," she said. "He's funnier than you've any
idea of."
"Is he ever ill?"
"Never."
"That of course makes it difficult."
"Except colds in his head. But he wouldn't have you for a cold in his
head. He wouldn't have you for anything if he could help it."
"Well--perhaps--if he's as funny as all that, we'd better turn."
They turned.
They were walking so fast now that they couldn't talk.
Presently they slackened and he spoke.
"I say, shall you ever get away from this place?"
"Never, I think."
"Do you never want to get away?"
"No. Never. You see, I love it."
"I know you do." He said it savagely, as if he were jealous of the
place.
"So do you," she answered.
"If I didn't I suppose I should have to."
"Yes, it's better, if you've got to live in it."
"That wasn't what I meant."
After that they were silent for a long time. She was wondering what he
did mean.
When they reached the Vicarage gate he sheered off the path and held
out his hand.
"Oh--aren't you coming in for tea?" she said.
"Thanks. No. It's a little late. I don't think I want any."