Night and Day

  CHAPTER IV

  At about nine o'clock at night, on every alternate Wednesday, Miss MaryDatchet made the same resolve, that she would never again lend herrooms for any purposes whatsoever. Being, as they were, rather large andconveniently situated in a street mostly dedicated to offices off theStrand, people who wished to meet, either for purposes of enjoyment,or to discuss art, or to reform the State, had a way of suggesting thatMary had better be asked to lend them her rooms. She always met therequest with the same frown of well-simulated annoyance, which presentlydissolved in a kind of half-humorous, half-surly shrug, as of a largedog tormented by children who shakes his ears. She would lend her room,but only on condition that all the arrangements were made by her. Thisfortnightly meeting of a society for the free discussion of everythingentailed a great deal of moving, and pulling, and ranging of furnitureagainst the wall, and placing of breakable and precious things in safeplaces. Miss Datchet was quite capable of lifting a kitchen table onher back, if need were, for although well-proportioned anddressed becomingly, she had the appearance of unusual strength anddetermination.

  She was some twenty-five years of age, but looked older because sheearned, or intended to earn, her own living, and had already lost thelook of the irresponsible spectator, and taken on that of the private inthe army of workers. Her gestures seemed to have a certain purpose, themuscles round eyes and lips were set rather firmly, as though the senseshad undergone some discipline, and were held ready for a call on them.She had contracted two faint lines between her eyebrows, not fromanxiety but from thought, and it was quite evident that all the feminineinstincts of pleasing, soothing, and charming were crossed by others inno way peculiar to her sex. For the rest she was brown-eyed, a littleclumsy in movement, and suggested country birth and a descent fromrespectable hard-working ancestors, who had been men of faith andintegrity rather than doubters or fanatics.

  At the end of a fairly hard day's work it was certainly something of aneffort to clear one's room, to pull the mattress off one's bed, and layit on the floor, to fill a pitcher with cold coffee, and to sweep a longtable clear for plates and cups and saucers, with pyramids of littlepink biscuits between them; but when these alterations were effected,Mary felt a lightness of spirit come to her, as if she had put off thestout stuff of her working hours and slipped over her entire being somevesture of thin, bright silk. She knelt before the fire and looked outinto the room. The light fell softly, but with clear radiance, throughshades of yellow and blue paper, and the room, which was set with oneor two sofas resembling grassy mounds in their lack of shape, lookedunusually large and quiet. Mary was led to think of the heights ofa Sussex down, and the swelling green circle of some camp of ancientwarriors. The moonlight would be falling there so peacefully now, andshe could fancy the rough pathway of silver upon the wrinkled skin ofthe sea.

  "And here we are," she said, half aloud, half satirically, yet withevident pride, "talking about art."

  She pulled a basket containing balls of differently colored wools and apair of stockings which needed darning towards her, and began to set herfingers to work; while her mind, reflecting the lassitude of her body,went on perversely, conjuring up visions of solitude and quiet, and shepictured herself laying aside her knitting and walking out on to thedown, and hearing nothing but the sheep cropping the grass close to theroots, while the shadows of the little trees moved very slightly thisway and that in the moonlight, as the breeze went through them. Butshe was perfectly conscious of her present situation, and derived somepleasure from the reflection that she could rejoice equally in solitude,and in the presence of the many very different people who were nowmaking their way, by divers paths, across London to the spot where shewas sitting.

  As she ran her needle in and out of the wool, she thought of thevarious stages in her own life which made her present position seem theculmination of successive miracles. She thought of her clerical fatherin his country parsonage, and of her mother's death, and of her owndetermination to obtain education, and of her college life, which hadmerged, not so very long ago, in the wonderful maze of London, whichstill seemed to her, in spite of her constitutional level-headedness,like a vast electric light, casting radiance upon the myriads of men andwomen who crowded round it. And here she was at the very center of itall, that center which was constantly in the minds of people in remoteCanadian forests and on the plains of India, when their thoughts turnedto England. The nine mellow strokes, by which she was now apprised ofthe hour, were a message from the great clock at Westminster itself. Asthe last of them died away, there was a firm knocking on her own door,and she rose and opened it. She returned to the room, with a look ofsteady pleasure in her eyes, and she was talking to Ralph Denham, whofollowed her.

  "Alone?" he said, as if he were pleasantly surprised by that fact.

  "I am sometimes alone," she replied.

  "But you expect a great many people," he added, looking round him. "It'slike a room on the stage. Who is it to-night?"

  "William Rodney, upon the Elizabethan use of metaphor. I expect a goodsolid paper, with plenty of quotations from the classics."

  Ralph warmed his hands at the fire, which was flapping bravely in thegrate, while Mary took up her stocking again.

  "I suppose you are the only woman in London who darns her ownstockings," he observed.

  "I'm only one of a great many thousands really," she replied, "though Imust admit that I was thinking myself very remarkable when you came in.And now that you're here I don't think myself remarkable at all. Howhorrid of you! But I'm afraid you're much more remarkable than I am.You've done much more than I've done."

  "If that's your standard, you've nothing to be proud of," said Ralphgrimly.

  "Well, I must reflect with Emerson that it's being and not doing thatmatters," she continued.

  "Emerson?" Ralph exclaimed, with derision. "You don't mean to say youread Emerson?"

  "Perhaps it wasn't Emerson but why shouldn't I read Emerson?" sheasked, with a tinge of anxiety.

  "There's no reason that I know of. It's the combination that'sodd--books and stockings. The combination is very odd." But it seemedto recommend itself to him. Mary gave a little laugh, expressive ofhappiness, and the particular stitches that she was now putting into herwork appeared to her to be done with singular grace and felicity. Sheheld out the stocking and looked at it approvingly.

  "You always say that," she said. "I assure you it's a common'combination,' as you call it, in the houses of the clergy. The onlything that's odd about me is that I enjoy them both--Emerson and thestocking."

  A knock was heard, and Ralph exclaimed:

  "Damn those people! I wish they weren't coming!"

  "It's only Mr. Turner, on the floor below," said Mary, and she feltgrateful to Mr. Turner for having alarmed Ralph, and for having given afalse alarm.

  "Will there be a crowd?" Ralph asked, after a pause.

  "There'll be the Morrises and the Crashaws, and Dick Osborne, andSeptimus, and all that set. Katharine Hilbery is coming, by the way, soWilliam Rodney told me."

  "Katharine Hilbery!" Ralph exclaimed.

  "You know her?" Mary asked, with some surprise.

  "I went to a tea-party at her house."

  Mary pressed him to tell her all about it, and Ralph was not at allunwilling to exhibit proofs of the extent of his knowledge. He describedthe scene with certain additions and exaggerations which interested Maryvery much.

  "But, in spite of what you say, I do admire her," she said. "I've onlyseen her once or twice, but she seems to me to be what one calls a'personality.'"

  "I didn't mean to abuse her. I only felt that she wasn't verysympathetic to me."

  "They say she's going to marry that queer creature Rodney."

  "Marry Rodney? Then she must be more deluded than I thought her."

  "Now that's my door, all right," Mary exclaimed, carefully puttingher wools away, as a succession of knocks reverberated unnecessarily,accompanied by a sound of people stamping their f
eet and laughing. Amoment later the room was full of young men and women, who came in witha peculiar look of expectation, exclaimed "Oh!" when they saw Denham,and then stood still, gaping rather foolishly.

  The room very soon contained between twenty and thirty people, who foundseats for the most part upon the floor, occupying the mattresses, andhunching themselves together into triangular shapes. They were all youngand some of them seemed to make a protest by their hair and dress, andsomething somber and truculent in the expression of their faces, againstthe more normal type, who would have passed unnoticed in an omnibus oran underground railway. It was notable that the talk was confined togroups, and was, at first, entirely spasmodic in character, and mutteredin undertones as if the speakers were suspicious of their fellow-guests.

  Katharine Hilbery came in rather late, and took up a position onthe floor, with her back against the wall. She looked round quickly,recognized about half a dozen people, to whom she nodded, but failed tosee Ralph, or, if so, had already forgotten to attach any name to him.But in a second these heterogeneous elements were all united by thevoice of Mr. Rodney, who suddenly strode up to the table, and began veryrapidly in high-strained tones:

  "In undertaking to speak of the Elizabethan use of metaphor in poetry--"

  All the different heads swung slightly or steadied themselves into aposition in which they could gaze straight at the speaker's face, andthe same rather solemn expression was visible on all of them. But,at the same time, even the faces that were most exposed to view, andtherefore most tautly under control, disclosed a sudden impulsive tremorwhich, unless directly checked, would have developed into an outburst oflaughter. The first sight of Mr. Rodney was irresistibly ludicrous.He was very red in the face, whether from the cool November night ornervousness, and every movement, from the way he wrung his hands to theway he jerked his head to right and left, as though a vision drew himnow to the door, now to the window, bespoke his horrible discomfortunder the stare of so many eyes. He was scrupulously well dressed, anda pearl in the center of his tie seemed to give him a touch ofaristocratic opulence. But the rather prominent eyes and the impulsivestammering manner, which seemed to indicate a torrent of ideasintermittently pressing for utterance and always checked in their courseby a clutch of nervousness, drew no pity, as in the case of a moreimposing personage, but a desire to laugh, which was, however, entirelylacking in malice. Mr. Rodney was evidently so painfully conscious ofthe oddity of his appearance, and his very redness and the starts towhich his body was liable gave such proof of his own discomfort,that there was something endearing in this ridiculous susceptibility,although most people would probably have echoed Denham's privateexclamation, "Fancy marrying a creature like that!"

  His paper was carefully written out, but in spite of this precautionMr. Rodney managed to turn over two sheets instead of one, to choose thewrong sentence where two were written together, and to discover his ownhandwriting suddenly illegible. When he found himself possessed of acoherent passage, he shook it at his audience almost aggressively, andthen fumbled for another. After a distressing search a fresh discoverywould be made, and produced in the same way, until, by means of repeatedattacks, he had stirred his audience to a degree of animation quiteremarkable in these gatherings. Whether they were stirred by hisenthusiasm for poetry or by the contortions which a human being wasgoing through for their benefit, it would be hard to say. At length Mr.Rodney sat down impulsively in the middle of a sentence, and, after apause of bewilderment, the audience expressed its relief at being ableto laugh aloud in a decided outburst of applause.

  Mr. Rodney acknowledged this with a wild glance round him, and, insteadof waiting to answer questions, he jumped up, thrust himself throughthe seated bodies into the corner where Katharine was sitting, andexclaimed, very audibly:

  "Well, Katharine, I hope I've made a big enough fool of myself even foryou! It was terrible! terrible! terrible!"

  "Hush! You must answer their questions," Katharine whispered, desiring,at all costs, to keep him quiet. Oddly enough, when the speaker was nolonger in front of them, there seemed to be much that was suggestive inwhat he had said. At any rate, a pale-faced young man with sad eyes wasalready on his feet, delivering an accurately worded speech with perfectcomposure. William Rodney listened with a curious lifting of his upperlip, although his face was still quivering slightly with emotion.

  "Idiot!" he whispered. "He's misunderstood every word I said!"

  "Well then, answer him," Katharine whispered back.

  "No, I shan't! They'd only laugh at me. Why did I let you persuade methat these sort of people care for literature?" he continued.

  There was much to be said both for and against Mr. Rodney's paper. Ithad been crammed with assertions that such-and-such passages, takenliberally from English, French, and Italian, are the supreme pearls ofliterature. Further, he was fond of using metaphors which, compoundedin the study, were apt to sound either cramped or out of place as hedelivered them in fragments. Literature was a fresh garland of springflowers, he said, in which yew-berries and the purple nightshade mingledwith the various tints of the anemone; and somehow or other this garlandencircled marble brows. He had read very badly some very beautifulquotations. But through his manner and his confusion of language therehad emerged some passion of feeling which, as he spoke, formed in themajority of the audience a little picture or an idea which each now waseager to give expression to. Most of the people there proposed to spendtheir lives in the practice either of writing or painting, and merelyby looking at them it could be seen that, as they listened to Mr. Purvisfirst, and then to Mr. Greenhalgh, they were seeing something done bythese gentlemen to a possession which they thought to be their own. Oneperson after another rose, and, as with an ill-balanced axe, attemptedto hew out his conception of art a little more clearly, and sat downwith the feeling that, for some reason which he could not grasp, hisstrokes had gone awry. As they sat down they turned almost invariably tothe person sitting next them, and rectified and continued what theyhad just said in public. Before long, therefore, the groups on themattresses and the groups on the chairs were all in communication witheach other, and Mary Datchet, who had begun to darn stockings again,stooped down and remarked to Ralph:

  "That was what I call a first-rate paper."

  Both of them instinctively turned their eyes in the direction of thereader of the paper. He was lying back against the wall, with hiseyes apparently shut, and his chin sunk upon his collar. Katharine wasturning over the pages of his manuscript as if she were looking forsome passage that had particularly struck her, and had a difficulty infinding it.

  "Let's go and tell him how much we liked it," said Mary, thus suggestingan action which Ralph was anxious to take, though without her he wouldhave been too proud to do it, for he suspected that he had more interestin Katharine than she had in him.

  "That was a very interesting paper," Mary began, without any shyness,seating herself on the floor opposite to Rodney and Katharine. "Will youlend me the manuscript to read in peace?"

  Rodney, who had opened his eyes on their approach, regarded her for amoment in suspicious silence.

  "Do you say that merely to disguise the fact of my ridiculous failure?"he asked.

  Katharine looked up from her reading with a smile.

  "He says he doesn't mind what we think of him," she remarked. "He sayswe don't care a rap for art of any kind."

  "I asked her to pity me, and she teases me!" Rodney exclaimed.

  "I don't intend to pity you, Mr. Rodney," Mary remarked, kindly, butfirmly. "When a paper's a failure, nobody says anything, whereas now,just listen to them!"

  The sound, which filled the room, with its hurry of short syllables, itssudden pauses, and its sudden attacks, might be compared to some animalhubbub, frantic and inarticulate.

  "D'you think that's all about my paper?" Rodney inquired, after amoment's attention, with a distinct brightening of expression.

  "Of course it is," said Mary. "It was a very suggestiv
e paper."

  She turned to Denham for confirmation, and he corroborated her.

  "It's the ten minutes after a paper is read that proves whether it'sbeen a success or not," he said. "If I were you, Rodney, I should bevery pleased with myself."

  This commendation seemed to comfort Mr. Rodney completely, and he beganto bethink him of all the passages in his paper which deserved to becalled "suggestive."

  "Did you agree at all, Denham, with what I said about Shakespeare'slater use of imagery? I'm afraid I didn't altogether make my meaningplain."

  Here he gathered himself together, and by means of a series of frog-likejerks, succeeded in bringing himself close to Denham.

  Denham answered him with the brevity which is the result of havinganother sentence in the mind to be addressed to another person. Hewished to say to Katharine: "Did you remember to get that picture glazedbefore your aunt came to dinner?" but, besides having to answer Rodney,he was not sure that the remark, with its assertion of intimacy, wouldnot strike Katharine as impertinent. She was listening to what some onein another group was saying. Rodney, meanwhile, was talking about theElizabethan dramatists.

  He was a curious-looking man since, upon first sight, especially ifhe chanced to be talking with animation, he appeared, in some way,ridiculous; but, next moment, in repose, his face, with its large nose,thin cheeks and lips expressing the utmost sensibility, somehow recalleda Roman head bound with laurel, cut upon a circle of semi-transparentreddish stone. It had dignity and character. By profession a clerk ina Government office, he was one of those martyred spirits to whomliterature is at once a source of divine joy and of almost intolerableirritation. Not content to rest in their love of it, they must attemptto practise it themselves, and they are generally endowed with verylittle facility in composition. They condemn whatever they produce.Moreover, the violence of their feelings is such that they seldom meetwith adequate sympathy, and being rendered very sensitive by theircultivated perceptions, suffer constant slights both to their ownpersons and to the thing they worship. But Rodney could never resistmaking trial of the sympathies of any one who seemed favorably disposed,and Denham's praise had stimulated his very susceptible vanity.

  "You remember the passage just before the death of the Duchess?" hecontinued, edging still closer to Denham, and adjusting his elbow andknee in an incredibly angular combination. Here, Katharine, who had beencut off by these maneuvers from all communication with the outer world,rose, and seated herself upon the window-sill, where she was joined byMary Datchet. The two young women could thus survey the whole party.Denham looked after them, and made as if he were tearing handfuls ofgrass up by the roots from the carpet. But as it fell in accuratelywith his conception of life that all one's desires were bound to befrustrated, he concentrated his mind upon literature, and determined,philosophically, to get what he could out of that.

  Katharine was pleasantly excited. A variety of courses was open to her.She knew several people slightly, and at any moment one of them mightrise from the floor and come and speak to her; on the other hand, shemight select somebody for herself, or she might strike into Rodney'sdiscourse, to which she was intermittently attentive. She was consciousof Mary's body beside her, but, at the same time, the consciousness ofbeing both of them women made it unnecessary to speak to her. But Mary,feeling, as she had said, that Katharine was a "personality," wished somuch to speak to her that in a few moments she did.

  "They're exactly like a flock of sheep, aren't they?" she said,referring to the noise that rose from the scattered bodies beneath her.

  Katharine turned and smiled.

  "I wonder what they're making such a noise about?" she said.

  "The Elizabethans, I suppose."

  "No, I don't think it's got anything to do with the Elizabethans. There!Didn't you hear them say, 'Insurance Bill'?"

  "I wonder why men always talk about politics?" Mary speculated. "Isuppose, if we had votes, we should, too."

  "I dare say we should. And you spend your life in getting us votes,don't you?"

  "I do," said Mary, stoutly. "From ten to six every day I'm at it."

  Katharine looked at Ralph Denham, who was now pounding his way throughthe metaphysics of metaphor with Rodney, and was reminded of his talkthat Sunday afternoon. She connected him vaguely with Mary.

  "I suppose you're one of the people who think we should all haveprofessions," she said, rather distantly, as if feeling her way amongthe phantoms of an unknown world.

  "Oh dear no," said Mary at once.

  "Well, I think I do," Katharine continued, with half a sigh. "You willalways be able to say that you've done something, whereas, in a crowdlike this, I feel rather melancholy."

  "In a crowd? Why in a crowd?" Mary asked, deepening the two linesbetween her eyes, and hoisting herself nearer to Katharine upon thewindow-sill.

  "Don't you see how many different things these people care about? AndI want to beat them down--I only mean," she corrected herself, "that Iwant to assert myself, and it's difficult, if one hasn't a profession."

  Mary smiled, thinking that to beat people down was a process that shouldpresent no difficulty to Miss Katharine Hilbery. They knew each otherso slightly that the beginning of intimacy, which Katharine seemed toinitiate by talking about herself, had something solemn in it, and theywere silent, as if to decide whether to proceed or not. They tested theground.

  "Ah, but I want to trample upon their prostrate bodies!" Katharineannounced, a moment later, with a laugh, as if at the train of thoughtwhich had led her to this conclusion.

  "One doesn't necessarily trample upon people's bodies because one runsan office," Mary remarked.

  "No. Perhaps not," Katharine replied. The conversation lapsed, and Marysaw Katharine looking out into the room rather moodily with closed lips,the desire to talk about herself or to initiate a friendship having,apparently, left her. Mary was struck by her capacity for being thuseasily silent, and occupied with her own thoughts. It was a habit thatspoke of loneliness and a mind thinking for itself. When Katharineremained silent Mary was slightly embarrassed.

  "Yes, they're very like sheep," she repeated, foolishly.

  "And yet they are very clever--at least," Katharine added, "I supposethey have all read Webster."

  "Surely you don't think that a proof of cleverness? I've read Webster,I've read Ben Jonson, but I don't think myself clever--not exactly, atleast."

  "I think you must be very clever," Katharine observed.

  "Why? Because I run an office?"

  "I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking how you live alone in thisroom, and have parties."

  Mary reflected for a second.

  "It means, chiefly, a power of being disagreeable to one's own family,I think. I have that, perhaps. I didn't want to live at home, and Itold my father. He didn't like it.... But then I have a sister, and youhaven't, have you?"

  "No, I haven't any sisters."

  "You are writing a life of your grandfather?" Mary pursued.

  Katharine seemed instantly to be confronted by some familiar thoughtfrom which she wished to escape. She replied, "Yes, I am helping mymother," in such a way that Mary felt herself baffled, and put backagain into the position in which she had been at the beginning of theirtalk. It seemed to her that Katharine possessed a curious power ofdrawing near and receding, which sent alternate emotions through herfar more quickly than was usual, and kept her in a condition ofcurious alertness. Desiring to classify her, Mary bethought her of theconvenient term "egoist."

  "She's an egoist," she said to herself, and stored that word up togive to Ralph one day when, as it would certainly fall out, they werediscussing Miss Hilbery.

  "Heavens, what a mess there'll be to-morrow morning!" Katharineexclaimed. "I hope you don't sleep in this room, Miss Datchet?"

  Mary laughed.

  "What are you laughing at?" Katharine demanded.

  "I won't tell you."

  "Let me guess. You were laughing because you thought I'd chang
ed theconversation?"

  "No."

  "Because you think--" She paused.

  "If you want to know, I was laughing at the way you said Miss Datchet."

  "Mary, then. Mary, Mary, Mary."

  So saying, Katharine drew back the curtain in order, perhaps, to concealthe momentary flush of pleasure which is caused by coming perceptiblynearer to another person.

  "Mary Datchet," said Mary. "It's not such an imposing name as KatharineHilbery, I'm afraid."

  They both looked out of the window, first up at the hard silver moon,stationary among a hurry of little grey-blue clouds, and then down uponthe roofs of London, with all their upright chimneys, and then belowthem at the empty moonlit pavement of the street, upon which the jointof each paving-stone was clearly marked out. Mary then saw Katharineraise her eyes again to the moon, with a contemplative look in them, asthough she were setting that moon against the moon of other nights,held in memory. Some one in the room behind them made a joke aboutstar-gazing, which destroyed their pleasure in it, and they looked backinto the room again.

  Ralph had been watching for this moment, and he instantly produced hissentence.

  "I wonder, Miss Hilbery, whether you remembered to get that pictureglazed?" His voice showed that the question was one that had beenprepared.

  "Oh, you idiot!" Mary exclaimed, very nearly aloud, with a sense thatRalph had said something very stupid. So, after three lessons in Latingrammar, one might correct a fellow student, whose knowledge did notembrace the ablative of "mensa."

  "Picture--what picture?" Katharine asked. "Oh, at home, you mean--thatSunday afternoon. Was it the day Mr. Fortescue came? Yes, I think Iremembered it."

  The three of them stood for a moment awkwardly silent, and then Maryleft them in order to see that the great pitcher of coffee was properlyhandled, for beneath all her education she preserved the anxieties ofone who owns china.

  Ralph could think of nothing further to say; but could one have strippedoff his mask of flesh, one would have seen that his will-power wasrigidly set upon a single object--that Miss Hilbery should obey him.He wished her to stay there until, by some measures not yet apparentto him, he had conquered her interest. These states of mind transmitthemselves very often without the use of language, and it was evident toKatharine that this young man had fixed his mind upon her. She instantlyrecalled her first impressions of him, and saw herself again profferingfamily relics. She reverted to the state of mind in which he hadleft her that Sunday afternoon. She supposed that he judged her veryseverely. She argued naturally that, if this were the case, the burdenof the conversation should rest with him. But she submitted so far asto stand perfectly still, her eyes upon the opposite wall, and her lipsvery nearly closed, though the desire to laugh stirred them slightly.

  "You know the names of the stars, I suppose?" Denham remarked, and fromthe tone of his voice one might have thought that he grudged Katharinethe knowledge he attributed to her.

  She kept her voice steady with some difficulty.

  "I know how to find the Pole star if I'm lost."

  "I don't suppose that often happens to you."

  "No. Nothing interesting ever happens to me," she said.

  "I think you make a system of saying disagreeable things, Miss Hilbery,"he broke out, again going further than he meant to. "I suppose it's oneof the characteristics of your class. They never talk seriously to theirinferiors."

  Whether it was that they were meeting on neutral ground to-night, orwhether the carelessness of an old grey coat that Denham wore gave anease to his bearing that he lacked in conventional dress, Katharinecertainly felt no impulse to consider him outside the particular set inwhich she lived.

  "In what sense are you my inferior?" she asked, looking at him gravely,as though honestly searching for his meaning. The look gave him greatpleasure. For the first time he felt himself on perfectly equal termswith a woman whom he wished to think well of him, although he couldnot have explained why her opinion of him mattered one way or another.Perhaps, after all, he only wanted to have something of her to take hometo think about. But he was not destined to profit by his advantage.

  "I don't think I understand what you mean," Katharine repeated, and thenshe was obliged to stop and answer some one who wished to know whethershe would buy a ticket for an opera from them, at a reduction. Indeed,the temper of the meeting was now unfavorable to separate conversationit had become rather debauched and hilarious, and people who scarcelyknew each other were making use of Christian names with apparentcordiality, and had reached that kind of gay tolerance and generalfriendliness which human beings in England only attain after sittingtogether for three hours or so, and the first cold blast in the airof the street freezes them into isolation once more. Cloaks were beingflung round the shoulders, hats swiftly pinned to the head; and Denhamhad the mortification of seeing Katharine helped to prepare herself bythe ridiculous Rodney. It was not the convention of the meeting to saygood-bye, or necessarily even to nod to the person with whom one wastalking; but, nevertheless, Denham was disappointed by the completenesswith which Katharine parted from him, without any attempt to finish hersentence. She left with Rodney.