Now they were suddenly alive! They had, they must have, histories, secrets, triumphs, defeats of a most thrilling order! She would like to have told them of her own amazing, stupendous circumstances, and then to have invited their confidences. The world that had held before some fifty or sixty lives pulsated now with millions. But there was more than that before her. Whereas she had always, because she loved it, given to Garth and the country around it a conscious, individual existence, London had been to her simply four walls with a fire and a window. From the fire there came heat, from the window a view, but the heat and the view were made by man for man’s convenience. Had man not been, London was not.... Garth had breathed and stormed, threatened and loved before Man’s spirit had been created. Now, although as yet she did not recognise it, she began to be aware of London’s presence—as though from some hidden corner, from long ago some stranger had watched her; now, because the room was lit, he was revealed to her. She was not, as yet, at all frightened by her knowledge, but even in quiet Westminster there were doorways, street corners, trees, windows, chimneys, houses, set and square and silent, that perceived her coming and going—“Tum—te tum—Tat—Tat—Tat ... Tat—Tat—Tat—Tum—te—tum.... “We know all about it, Katherine Trenchard—We know what’s going to happen to you, but we can’t tell you—We’re older and wiser, much older and much, much wiser than you are—Tat—Tat—Tat....” She was so happy that London could not at present disturb her, but when the sun was suddenly caught behind black clouds, when a whirr of rain came slashing down from nowhere at all, when a fog caught with its yellow hand London’s throat and squeezed it, when gusts of dust rose from the streets in little clouds as though the horses were kicking their feet, when a wind, colder than snow came, blowing from nowhere, on a warm day, Katherine needed Philip, clung to him, begged him not to leave her ... she had never, in all her life, clung to anyone before. But this remains that, during these weeks, she found him perfect. She liked nothing better than his half-serious, half-humorous sallies at himself. “You’ve got to buck me up, Katherine—keep me from flopping about, you know. Until I met you no one had any real influence on me—never in all my days. Now you can do anything with me. Tell me when I do anything hateful, and scold me as often as you can. Look at me with the eyes of Aunt Aggie if you can—she sees me without any false colouring. I’m not a hero—far from it—but I can be anything if you love me enough.”