If it had been clear that now, after these months of her engagement, she no longer loved Philip, the matter would have been simple. He would have proceeded at once to his father and told him all that he knew about Philip’s Moscow life. But she _did_ love Philip—more, yes, far more, than ever—nothing could be clearer than that. This love of Katherine’s burned, unceasingly, in Henry’s brain. With no other human being could he have felt, so urgently, the flame of it but Katherine, whom he had known as he had known himself, so sure, so undramatic, so happily sexless, as she had always seemed to him, that it should be she whom this passion had transformed! From that moment when he had seen her embrace of Philip, his imagination had harried him as a dog harries a rabbit, over the whole scale of the world.... Love, too, that he had believed was calm, domestic, friendly, reassuring, was in truth unhappy, rebellious, devastating. In the very hearty of her unhappiness seemed to be the fire of her love. This removed her from him as though he had been flung by it into a distant world. And, on every side, he was attacked by this same thing. There were the women whom he had seen that night with Philip, there was the woman who had given Philip a son in Russia, there was here a life, dancing before him, now near him, now far away from him, intriguing him, shaming him, stirring him, revolting him, removing him from all his family, isolating him and yet besetting him with the company of wild, fantastic figures. He walked the Glebeshire roads, spoke to no one, hated himself, loathed Philip, was lashed by his imagination, aroused at last to stinging vitality, until he did not know whither to turn for safety. * * * * * He came up to London for the Faunder-Trenchard wedding. Late in the afternoon that had seen Philip’s conversation with old Mr. Trenchard Henry came into the drawing-room to discover that tea was over and no one was there. He looked into the tea-pot and saw that there was nothing there to cheer him. For a moment he thought of Russia, in which country there were apparently perpetual samovars boiling upon ever-ready tables. This made him think of Philip—then, turning at some sudden sound, there was Aunt Aggie in the doorway. Aunt Aggie looked cold in spite of the warm weather, and she held her knitting-needles in her hand defiantly, as though she were carrying them to reassure a world that had unjustly accused her of riotous living. “It’s simply rotten,” said Henry, crossly. “One comes in expecting tea and it’s all over. Why can’t they have tea at the ordinary time?” “That’s it,” said Aunt Aggie, settling herself comfortably into the large arm-chair near the fireplace. “Thinking of yourself, Henry, of course. Learn to be unselfish or you’ll never be happy in _this_ world. I remember when I was a girl—” “Look here!” Henry interrupted. “Has Philip been here this afternoon?” “Mr. Mark? Yes, he has.”