"If it wasn't for you she'd have chucked the whole thing long ago and gone right off into a convent or something. She doesn't like the money part of it being put off on to you. Really, I don't think she minded anything else. She knows what life is, mother does." "How will you live?" "Oh, a snug little house. Her father'll give us furniture. He's an old sport, he is. Keeps the Denmark, you know, in Upper Kite Street. 'Normous family. Delighted when the girls go off. Elsie worked in a shop. No more work for Elsie." "You're pleased with yourself, then?" "I'm going to be married; that's good enough for any man. Married and settled down. That's life." "Is it?" René found George entirely absurd, and he laughed. "Oh, well," he added, "mother and I will find a way. Good night." "Good night," replied George. "Go and dream of your books and your swells. My Elsie'll beat all their women. I know those swell ladies. Good night." . . . . . . Upstairs, in his little room, René took pen, ink, and paper, and wrote to Cathleen: "This house is exactly like thirty-one other houses. Parlor, kitchen, dining-room, three bedrooms above them. That's all. And they are all full of grubby little lives and the material things they don't express themselves in. Do you see what I mean? Coming straight from you, from our woods, from the tall bracken and the heather, I feel trapped. What I miss, I think, is graciousness. Oh, yes! That is the word. All the charming ways you have. The easy courtesies with which you smooth over any roughnesses, any lack of sympathy, so that, even among uncongenial people, silence is not devastating. And between you and me silence can be so beautiful, so full of something more melodious than sound. But here, if there is silence, little uglinesses creep out of dark corners and fill it. They do not seem to know the difference between silence and emptiness. My mother has almost frightened me. I can't tell you. Something terrible and yet silly has happened. I don't understand. Some things hurt my feelings so that I can never understand them. But my mother was wonderful all the same, and different, so different that I was not at all surprised at her. I suppose I knew it all along. She has suffered as women must not, must not, must not suffer, as I will never let you suffer. I cannot write love words to you. I can only tell you that I am building up my life toward you. I have changed. It all seems enormously serious suddenly. A lot that we have had seems silly. I want to explain to you. It is terrible that I can't see you again for a whole year, terrible, terrible. But I love you. I have begun to see what love is, what a man can be to a woman if he does not drag her down to his own level. Lovers, I think, should have something wonderful, something that should illuminate everything so that even the darkest places and happenings are bearable. Oh, you see what I mean.