down the sheet of blotting-paper over the manuscript, she braced herself to resist Katharine, whose presence struck her, not merely by its force, as usual, but as something in the nature of a menace.
‘You’re working?’ said Katharine, with hesitation, perceiving that she was not welcome.
‘Nothing that matters,’ Mary replied, drawing forward the best of the chairs and poking the fire.
‘I didn’t know you had to work after you had left the office,’ said Katharine, in a tone which gave the impression that she was thinking of something else, as was, indeed, the case.
She had been paying calls with her mother, and in between the calls Mrs Hilbery had rushed into shops and bought pillow-cases and blotting-books on no perceptible method for the furnishing of Katharine’s house. Katharine had a sense of impedimentack accumulating on all sides of her. She had left her at length, and had come on to keep an engagement to dine with Rodney at his rooms. But she did not mean to get to him before seven o‘clock, and so had plenty of time to walk all the way from Bond Street to the Temple if she wished it. The flow of faces streaming on either side of her had hypnotized her into a mood of profound despondency, to which her expectation of an evening alone with Rodney contributed. They were very good friends again, better friends, they both said, than ever before. So far as she was concerned this was true. There were many more things in him than she had guessed until emotion brought them forth—strength, affection, sympathy. And she thought of them and looked at the faces passing, and thought how much alike they were, and how distant, nobody feeling anything as she felt nothing, and distance, she thought, lay inevitably between the closest, and their intimacy was the worst pretence of all. For, ‘Oh dear,’ she thought, looking into a tobacconist’s window, ‘I don’t care for any of them, and I don’t care for William, and people say this is the thing that matters most, and I can’t see what they mean by it.’
She looked desperately at the smooth-bowled pipes, and wondered—should she walk on by the Strand or by the Embankment? It was not a simple question, for it concerned not different streets so much as different streams of thought. If she went by the Strand she would force herself to think out the problem of the future, or some mathematical problem; if she went by the river she would certainly begin to think about things that didn’t exist—the forest, the ocean beach, the leafy solitudes, the magnanimous hero. No, no, no! A thousand times no!—it wouldn’t do; there was something repulsive in such thoughts at present; she must take something else; she was out of that mood at present. And then she thought of Mary; the thought gave her confidence, even pleasure of a sad sort, as if the triumph of Ralph and Mary proved that the fault of her failure lay with herself and not with life. An indistinct idea that the sight of Mary might be of help, combined with her natural trust in her, suggested a visit; for, surely, her liking was of a kind that implied liking upon Mary’s side also. After a moment’s hesitation she decided, although she seldom acted upon impulse, to act upon this one, and turned down a side street and found Mary’s door. But her reception was not encouraging; clearly Mary didn’t want to see her, had no help to impart, and the half-formed desire to confide in her was quenched immediately. She was slightly amused at her own delusion, looked rather absent-minded, and swung her gloves to and fro, as if doling out the few minutes accurately before she could say good-bye.
Those few minutes might very well be spent in asking for information as to the exact position of the Suffrage Bill, or in expounding her own very sensible view of the situation. But there was a tone in her voice, or a shade in her opinions, or a swing of her gloves which served to irritate Mary Datchet, whose manner became increasingly direct, abrupt, and even antagonistic. She became conscious of a wish to make Katharine realize the importance of this work, which she discussed so coolly, as though she, too, had sacrificed what Mary herself had sacrificed. The swinging of the gloves ceased, and Katharine, after ten minutes, began to make movements preliminary to departure. At the sight of this, Mary was aware—she was abnormally aware of things to-night-of another very strong desire; Katharine was not to be allowed to go, to disappear into the free, happy world of irresponsible individuals. She must be made to realize—to feel.
‘I don’t quite see,’ she said, as if Katharine had challenged her explicitly, ‘how, things being as they are, any one can help trying, at least, to do something.’
‘No. But how are things?’
Mary pressed her lips, and smiled ironically; she had Katharine at her mercy; she could, if she liked, discharge upon her head wagon-loads of revolting proof of the state of things ignored by the casual, the amateur, the looker- on, the cynical observer of life at a distance. And yet she hesitated. As usual, when she found herself in talk with Katharine, she began to feel rapid alternations of opinion about her, arrows of sensation striking strangely through the envelope of personality, which shelters us so conveniently from our fellows. What an egoist, how aloof she was! And yet, not in her words, perhaps, but in her voice, in her face, in her attitude, there were signs of a soft brooding spirit, of a sensibility unblunted and profound, playing over her thoughts and deeds, and investing her manner with an habitual gentleness. The arguments and phrases of Mr Clacton fell flat against such armour.
‘You’ll be married, and you’ll have other things to think of,’ she said inconsequently, and with an accent of condescension. She was not going to make Katharine understand in a second, as she would, all that she herself had learnt at the cost of such pain. No. Katharine was to be happy; Katharine was to be ignorant; Mary was to keep this knowledge of the impersonal life for herself. The thought of her morning’s renunciation stung her conscience, and she tried to expand once more into that impersonal condition which was so lofty and so painless. She must check this desire to be an individual again, whose wishes were in conflict with those of other people. She repented of her bitterness.
Katharine now renewed her signs of leave-taking; she had drawn on one of her gloves, and looked about her as if in search of some trivial saying to end with. Wasn’t there some picture, or clock, or chest of drawers which might be singled out for notice? something peaceable and friendly to end the uncomfortable interview? The green-shaded lamp burnt in the corner, and illumined books and pens and blotting-paper. The whole aspect of the place started another train of thought and struck her as enviably free; in such a room one could work—one could have a life of one’s own.1
‘I think you’re very lucky,’ she observed. ‘I envy you, living alone and having your own things’—and engaged in this exalted way, which had no recognition or engagement-ring, she added in her own mind.
Mary’s lips parted slightly. She could not conceive in what respects Katharine, who spoke sincerely, could envy her.
‘I don’t think you’ve got any reason to envy me,’ she said.
‘Perhaps one always envies other people,’ Katharine observed vaguely.
‘Well, but you’ve got everything that any one can want.’
Katharine remained silent. She gazed into the fire quietly, and without a trace of self-consciousness. The hostility which she had divined in Mary’s tone had completely disappeared, and she forgot that she had been upon the point of going.
‘Well, I suppose I have,’ she said at length. ‘And yet I sometimes think—’ She paused; she did not know how to express what she meant.
