‘Or stay together. It’s only marriage that’s out of the question,’ Katharine replied.
‘But if I find myself coming to want you more and more?’
‘If our lapses come more and more often?’
He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment.
‘But at least,’ he renewed, ‘we’ve established the fact that my lapses are still in some odd way connected with you; yours have nothing to do with me. Katharine,’ he added, his assumption of reason broken up by his agitation, ‘I assure you that we are in love—what other people call love. Remember that night. We had no doubts whatever then. We were absolutely happy for half an hour. You had no lapse until the day after; I had no lapse until yesterday morning. We’ve been happy at intervals all day until I—went off my head, and you, quite naturally, were bored.’
‘Ah,’ she exclaimed, as if the subject chafed her, ‘I can’t make you understand. It’s not boredom—I’m never bored. Reality—reality,’ she ejaculated, tapping her finger upon the table as if to emphasize and perhaps explain her isolated utterance of this word. ‘I cease to be real to you. It’s the faces in a storm again—the vision in a hurricane. We come together for a moment and we part. It’s my fault too. I’m as bad as you are—worse, perhaps.’
They were trying to explain, not for the first time, as their weary gestures and frequent interruptions showed, what in their common language they had christened their ‘lapses’; a constant source of distress to them, in the past few days, and the immediate reason why Ralph was on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the cause of these lapses? Either because Katharine looked more beautiful, or more strange, because she wore something different, or said something unexpected, Ralph’s sense of her romance welled up and overcame him either into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which Katharine, with unintentional but invariable perversity, interrupted or contradicted with some severity or assertion of prosaic fact. Then the vision disappeared, and Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the conviction that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the form of gradual detachment until she became completely absorbed in her own thoughts, which carried her away with such intensity that she sharply resented any recall to her companion’s side. It was useless to assert that these trances were always originated by Ralph himself, however little in their later stages they had to do with him. The fact remained that she had no need of him and was very loath to be reminded of him. How then, could they be in love? The fragmentary nature of their relationship was but too apparent.
Thus they sat depressed to silence at the dining-room table, oblivious of everything, while Rodney paced the drawing-room overhead in such agitation and exaltation of mind as he had never conceived possible, and Cassandra remained alone with her uncle. Ralph, at length, rose and walked gloomily to the window. He pressed close to the pane. Outside were truth and freedom and the immensity only to be apprehended by the mind in loneliness, and never communicated to another. What worse sacrilege was there than to attempt to violate what he perceived by seeking to impart it? Some movement behind him made him reflect that Katharine had the power, if she chose, to be in person what he dreamed of her spirit. He turned sharply to implore her help, when again he was struck cold by her look of distance, her expression of intentness upon some far object. As if conscious of his look upon her she rose and came to him, standing close by his side, and looking with him out into the dusky atmosphere. Their physical closeness was to him a bitter enough comment upon the distance between their minds. Yet distant as she was, her presence by his side transformed the world. He saw himself performing wonderful deeds of courage; saving the drowning, rescuing the forlorn. Impatient with this form of egotism, he could not shake off the conviction that somehow life was wonderful, romantic, a master worth serving so long as she stood there. He had no wish that she should speak; he did not look at her or touch her; she was apparently deep in her own thoughts and oblivious of his presence.
The door opened without their hearing the sound. Mr Hilbery looked round the room, and for a moment failed to discover the two figures in the window. He started with displeasure when he saw them, and observed them keenly before he appeared able to make up his mind to say anything. He made a movement finally that warned them of his presence; they turned instantly. Without speaking, he beckoned to Katharine to come to him, and, keeping his eyes from the region of the room where Denham stood, he shepherded her in front of him back to the study. When Katharine was inside the room he shut the study door carefully behind him as if to secure himself from something that he disliked.
‘Now, Katharine,’ he said, taking up his stand in front of the fire, ‘you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain—’ She remained silent. ‘What inferences do you expect me to draw?’ he said sharply... ‘You tell me that you are not engaged to Rodney; I see you on what appear to be extremely intimate terms with another—with Ralph Denham. What am I to conclude? Are you,’ he added, as she still said nothing, ‘engaged to Ralph Denham?’
‘No,’ she replied.
His sense of relief was great; he had been certain that her answer would have confirmed his suspicions, but that anxiety being set at rest, he was the more conscious of annoyance with her for her behaviour.
‘Then all I can say is that you’ve very strange ideas of the proper way to behave... People have drawn certain conclusions, nor am I surprised... The more I think of it the more inexplicable I find it,’ he went on, his anger rising as he spoke. ‘Why am I left in ignorance of what is going on in my own house? Why am I left to hear of these events for the first time from my sister? Most disagreeable—most upsetting. How I’m to explain to your Uncle Francis—but I wash my hands of it. Cassandra goes to-morrow I forbid Rodney the house. As for the other young man, the sooner he makes himself scarce the better. After placing the most implicit trust in you, Katharine—’ He broke off, disquieted by the ominous silence with which his words were received, and looked at his daughter with the curious doubt as to her state of mind which he had felt before, for the first time, this evening. He perceived once more that she was not attending to what he said, but was listening, and for a moment he, too, listened for sounds outside the room. His certainty that there was some understanding between Denham and Katharine returned, but with a most unpleasant suspicion that there was something illicit about it, as the whole position between the young people seemed to him gravely illicit.
‘I’ll speak to Denham,’ he said, on the impulse of his suspicion, moving as if to go.
‘I shall come with you,’ Katharine said instantly, starting forward.
‘You will stay here,’ said her father.
‘What are you going to say to him?’ she asked.
‘I suppose I may say what I like in my own house?’ he returned.
‘Then I go too,’ she replied.
At these words, which seemed to imply a determination to go—to go for ever, Mr Hilbery returned to his position in front of the fire, and began swaying slightly from side to side without for the moment making any remark.
