The silence emphasised, with rather a pleasing melancholy, Philip’s loneliness. It seemed, down here, as though London were a dead city and he, only, alive in it. Katherine, too, was alive somewhere.... He looked and, as in one’s dreams absurdity tumbles upon the heels of absurdity, he saw her walking alone, coming, as yet without any recognition in her eyes, towards him. The world was dead and he was dead and Katherine—let it stay so then.... No, the world was alive. She had recognised him; she had smiled—the air was suddenly warm and pulsating with stir and sound. As she came up to him he could think of nothing but the strange difference that his fortnight’s absorption in her had made for him. His being with her now was as though he had arrived at some long-desired Mecca after a desperate journey of dust and strain and peril. As he greeted her he felt “A fortnight ago we had only just met, but now we have known each other for years and years and years—but perhaps she does not know that yet.” But he knew, as she gave him her hand, that she felt a little awkwardness simply because she was so glad to see him—and she had never been awkward with him before. “You’ve been hiding from us,” she said. Her cheeks were flaming because she had walked fast, because the air was frosty—because she was glad to see him. Her coat and muff were a little old-fashioned and not very becoming to her—all the more did he praise the beautiful kindliness of her eyes. “I’m in love with you,” he wanted to say to her. “Do you care that I am?” ... He turned at her side and they faced together the reddening sky. The whole city lay in absolute silence about them as though they were caught together into a ball of grey evening cloud. “I haven’t hidden,” he said, smiling, “I came and called, but you were not there.” “I heard,” she answered, “Aunt Aggie said you were very agreeable and amusing—I hope you’re happy in your rooms.” “They’re all right.” “We miss you. Father’s always beginning to tell you something and then finding that you’re gone. Henry—” “Your Mother?” “Ah, you were quite wrong about Mother. You thought that she disliked you. You care much too much, by the way, whether people like you or no. But Mother’s hard, perhaps, to get to know. You shocked and disturbed her a little, but she didn’t dislike you.” Although he had asserted so definitely that Mrs. Trenchard hated him, he had reassured himself, in his own heart, that she rather liked him—now when he saw in spite of Katherine’s words that she really had disliked him, he felt a little shock of dismay. “You may say what you like,” he said, “I know—” “No, you don’t understand. Mother is so absorbed by all of us. There are a great many of us, you know—that it takes a long time for her to realise anyone from outside. You were so much from outside. She was just beginning to realise you when you went away. We are all so much to her. In a family as big as ours there are always so many things....”