Distant parts of London, whither they wandered far through unseen
streets, became richly familiar, opening, when suddenly they would
realise that they were lost, on some scene, stamped as unforgettably as
the magic scenes of holiday excursions. They lingered in long
contemplation of all kinds of shop windows, his patient unmoved
good-humour while she realised his comparative lack of tastes and
preferences, and held forth at length on the difference between style
and quality, and the products of the markets, his serene effrontery in
taking refuge at last behind the quaintest little tales, satirical, but
dreadfully true and illuminating, disarmed her impatience and sent her
forward in laughter. He seemed to have an endless supply of these little
tales, and told them well, without emphasis, but each one a little
drama, perfectly shaped and staged. She collected and remembered and
pondered them, the light they shed on unfamiliar aspects of life,
playing comfortingly over the future. If Judges and Generals and
Emperors and all sorts of people fixed and labelled in social life were
really absurd, then social life, with him, might be not merely
unaffrighting, but also amusing. At the same time she was affronted by
his inclusion of English society in his satirical references. There
were, she was sure, hidden and active, in all ranks in England, a
greater proportion of people than in any country of his acquaintance,
who stood outside his criticism.
She avoided the house, returning only when the hour justified a swift
retreat from the hall to her room; escape from the dimly-lit privacy of
the deserted drawing-room. Not again could she suffer his nearness,
until the foreigner in him, dipped every day more deeply into the well
of English feeling, should be changed. When she was alone, she moved,
thoughtless, along a pathway that led backwards towards a single memory.
Far away in the distance, coming always nearer, was the summer morning
of her infancy, a permanent standing arrested, level with the brilliance
of flower-heads motionless in the sunlit air; no movement but the
hovering of bees. Beyond this memory towards which she passed every day
more surely, a marvellous scene unfolded. And always with the unfolding
of its wide prospects, there came a beautifying breath. The surprise of
her growing comeliness was tempered by a sudden curious indifference.
These new looks of hers were not her own. They brought a strange
publicity. She felt, turned upon her, the welcoming, approving eyes of
women she had contemptuously neglected, and upon her own face the
dawning reflection of their wise, so irritating smile. She recognised
them, half fearfully, for they alone were the company gathered about her
as she watched the opening marvel. She recognised them for lonely
wanderers upon the earth. They, these women, then were the only people
who _knew_. Their smile was the smile of these wide vistas, wrought and