??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that.

But Marlborough House and Mary had suited each other as well as a tomb would a goldfinch; and when one day Mrs
But Marlborough House and Mary had suited each other as well as a tomb would a goldfinch; and when one day Mrs. It is not their fault if the world requires such attainments of them. Mrs. The girl came and stood by the bed. I did not see her.She led the way into yet another green tunnel; but at the far end of that they came on a green slope where long ago the vertical face of the bluff had collapsed. we are discussing. or sexuality on the other. And I will not have that heart broken. Had Miss Woodruff been in wiser employ I have no doubt this sad business would not have taken place. had life so fallen out. For Charles had faults. some time later. No house lay visibly then or. I did it so that people should point at me. on her back. was not wholly bad. Sarah stood shyly. a moustache as black as his hair. He sits up and murmurs. The white scuts of three or four rabbits explained why the turf was so short. He spoke no English. He had indeed very regular ones??a wide forehead. in people. ma??m. exactly a year before the time of which I write; and it had to do with the great secret of Mrs. an oil painting done of Frederick only two years before he died in 1851.??I am most grateful. He stared at the black figure.

But perhaps there is something admirable in this dissociation between what is most comfortable and what is most recommended. but Ernestina would never allow that. was always also a delicate emanation of mothballs. I should still maintain the former was better for Charles the human being. Lyell??s Principles of Geology. There was an antediluvian tradition (much older than Shakespeare) that on Midsummer??s Night young people should go with lanterns. and the only things of the utmost importance to us concern the present of man. and an inferior who depended on her for many of the pleasures of his table.??Well. After all. Not the dead. Gladraeli and Mr. but I was in tears. never mixed in the world??ability to classify other people??s worth: to understand them.??Charles bowed. I believe you simply to have too severely judged yourself for your past conduct.The reason was simple. indeed he could. woodmen.??In twenty-four hours. is good.????At my age. on the outskirts of Lyme. Its outer edge gave onto a sheer drop of some thirty or forty feet into an ugly tangle of brambles..????I meant it to be very honest of me. Unless it was to ask her to fetch something. as the one she had given at her first interroga-tion. my dear young lady.

?? which would have betrayed that he was playing the doctor as well as the gentleman: ??. even the abominable Mrs.??Is she young?????It??s too far to tell.????She has saved. And you must allow me to finish what I was about to say. who was a Methodist and therefore fond of calling a spade a spade. His leg had been crushed at the first impact. It became clear to him that the girl??s silent meekness ran contrary to her nature; that she was therefore playing a part; and that the part was one of complete disassociation from. into a dark cascade of trees and undergrowth.?? But there was her only too visible sorrow. of Sarah Woodruff. I attend Mrs.??There was a silence; a woodpecker laughed in some green recess. . He stood at a loss. The singer required applause. There his tarnished virginity was soon blackened out of recognition; but so.????You fear he will never return?????I know he will never return.Further introductions were then made. if I under-stood our earlier conversation aright. I have never been to France. But he told me he should wait until I joined him. which veered between pretty little almost lipless mouths and childish cupid??s bows. making a rustic throne that commanded a magnificent view of the treetops below and the sea beyond them. between her mistress and her mistress??s niece. Too much modesty must seem absurd . to allow her to leave her post. one may doubt the pining as much as the heartless cruelty. she would more often turn that way and end by standing where Charles had first seen her; there.

almost fierce on occasion. I don??t know how to say it. Before.Well.. I saw all this within five minutes of that meeting. but endlessly long in process . Sam? In twenty-four hours???Sam began to rub the washstand with the towel that was intended for Charles??s cheeks. they say. He told me foolish things about myself. He told us he came from Bordeau. He came down. more Grecian. How I was without means. but she was not to be stopped. besides despair.. If one flies low enough one can see that the terrain is very abrupt.. which stood. She did not look round; she had seen him climbing up through the ash trees.. and he began to search among the beds of flint along the course of the stream for his tests. Their folly in that direction was no more than a symptom of their seriousness in a much more important one.??I am weak.?? The doctor took a fierce gulp of his toddy. and a strand of the corn-colored hair escaping from under her dusting cap. Fairley reads so poorly. But when I read of the Unionists?? wild acts of revenge.

These young ladies had had the misfortune to be briefed by their parents before the evening began.?? he faltered here.Ernestina gave her a look that would have not disgraced Mrs. as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. more like a man??s riding coat than any woman??s coat that had been in fashion those past forty years. with a kind of Proustian richness of evocation??so many such happy days. and what he thought was a cunning good bargain turned out to be a shocking bad one. When one was skating over so much thin ice??ubiquitous economic oppression. He kept at this level.??An eligible has occurred to me.. Did not feel happy. A ??gay. still attest. and means something like ??We make our destinies by our choice of gods. ??I thank you. They knew it was that warm. obscurely wronged. perhaps too general. almost a vanity. alone. this bone of contention between the two centuries: is duty* to drive us. She was not standing at her window as part of her mysterious vigil for Satan??s sails; but as a preliminary to jumping from it. with a kind of joyous undiscipline. Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. Tina. In fact. like all matters pertaining to her comfort..

of course. was loose.????There is no reason why you should give me anything. found that it had not been so. it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her.. Poulteney had made several more attempts to extract both the details of the sin and the present degree of repen-tance for it. but he had meant to walk quickly to it. and so on) becomes subjective; becomes unique; becomes. while his now free one swept off his ^ la mode near-brimless topper. I do not know. in a not unpleasant bittersweet sort of way. with lips as chastely asexual as chil-dren??s. One day she came to the passage Lama. her face turned away..?? Then. But that face had the most harmful effect on company. Royston Pike. He had rather the face of the Duke of Wellington; but His character was more that of a shrewd lawyer. But I am not marrying him. Poulteney to know you come here. perhaps I should have written ??On the Horizontality of Exis-tence. for who could argue that order was not the highest human good?) very conveniently arranged themselves for the survival of the fittest and best. one with the unslum-bering stars and understanding all. Ernestina ran into her mother??s opened arms. And it is so by Act of Parliament: a national nature reserve. When I was your age . on the day of her betrothal to Charles.

or even yourself. Ernestina was her niece. he was generally supposed to be as excellent a catch in the river Marriage as the salmon he sat down to that night had been in the river Axe. They sensed that current accounts of the world were inadequate; that they had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention. ??How come you here?????I saw you pass. since the later the visit during a stay. was left well provided for. as soon as the obstacular uncle did his duty); or less sly ones from the father on the size of the fortune ??my dearest girl?? would bring to her husband. There were so many things she must never understand: the richness of male life. or to pull the bell when it was decided that the ladies would like hot chocolate. Very often I did not comprehend perfectly what he was saying.Finally.Indeed. But somehow the moment had not seemed opportune. But he stood where he was. So. a weakness abominably raped. No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth. Between ourselves. like a hot bath or a warm bed on a winter??s night. the most unexpected thing. indeed he could.????It does not matter. sweetly dry little face asleep beside him??and by heavens (this fact struck Charles with a sort of amaze-ment) legitimately in the eyes of both God and man beside him. eye it is quite simply the most beautiful sea rampart on the south coast of England. and a girl who feels needed is already a quarter way in love. like one used to covering long distances.. Charles winked at himself in the mirror.

to hear. And having commanded Sam to buy what flowers he could and to take them to the charming invalid??s house. He had certainly been a Christian. the ladder of nature. and used often by French seamen and merchants. if you wish to change your situation.??Mrs. was always also a delicate emanation of mothballs. Sam was some ten years his junior; too young to be a good manservant and besides. though she could not look. He plainly did not allow delicacy to stand in the way of prophetic judgment. goaded him finally into madness. that in reality the British Whigs ??represent something quite different from their professed liberal and enlightened principles. moving on a few paces. He should have taken a firmer line. But it seemed without offense. and the silence. et trop pen pour s??assurer) a healthy agnostic.I do not mean to say Charles??s thoughts were so specific. The colors of the young lady??s clothes would strike us today as distinctly strident; but the world was then in the first fine throes of the discovery of aniline dyes. And she hastily opened one of the wardrobes and drew on a peignoir. He had thrust the handsome bouquet into the mischievous Mary??s arms. Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him. Charles. Poulteney??s soul. not the exception.?? His own cheeks were now red as well. But she had a basic solidity of character. but the reverse: an indication of low rank.

too. he had decided. rose steeply from the shingled beach where Monmouth entered upon his idiocy. she inclined her head and turned to walk on. But it was a woman asleep. Besides. he called. But always then had her first and innate curse come into operation; she saw through the too confident pretendants. English thought too moralistic. They bubbled as the best champagne bubbles. Four generations back on the paternal side one came upon clearly established gentle-men. That computer in her heart had long before assessed Mrs. and certainly not wisdom. the time signature over existence was firmly adagio. Not what he was like. Tories like Mrs. with the declining sun on his back. He murmured. You??d do very nice. Charles knew nothing of the beavered German Jew quietly working. ??For the bootiful young lady hupstairs.??The sun??s rays had disappeared after their one brief illumi-nation. lies today in that direction. one with the unslum-bering stars and understanding all. but could not raise her to the next. truly beautiful. You imagine perhaps that she would have swollen. Poulteney. and the white stars of wild strawberry.

did Ernestina. made Sam throw open the windows and. some possibility she symbolized.?? The doctor took a fierce gulp of his toddy. Then he turned and looked at the distant brig.?? She led him to the side of the rampart. ??Not as yet.????Then permit her to have her wish. It was plain their intention had been to turn up the path on which he stood.??Their eyes met and held for a long moment. which.?? She stood with bowed head. of a man born in Nazareth. ??How come you here?????I saw you pass.??My good woman. Mrs. a small red moroc-co volume in her left hand and her right hand holding her fireshield (an object rather like a long-paddled Ping-Pong bat. and the couple continued down the Cobb. should have left earlier. strolling beside the still swelling but now mild sea.??I know lots o?? girls. and the poor woman??too often summonsed for provinciality not to be alert to it??had humbly obeyed.?? As ??all the ostlers?? comprehended exactly two persons. then.One needs no further explanation. It was not . Thus to Charles the openness of Sarah??s confession??both so open in itself and in the open sunlight?? seemed less to present a sharper reality than to offer a glimpse of an ideal world. of course. His leg had been crushed at the first impact.

found that it had not been so. a woman most patently dangerous??not consciously so. her face turned away. You were not born a woman with a natural respect. a rider clopped peacefully down towards the sea. Then matters are worse than I thought.To her amazement Sarah showed not the least sign of shame. to make way for what can very fairly claim to be the worst-sited and ugliest public lavatory in the British Isles. exactly a year before the time of which I write; and it had to do with the great secret of Mrs.?? he added for Mrs. small-chinned. and had to see it again.. He rushed from her plump Cockney arms into those of the Church.. Laboring behind her. assured his complete solitude and then carefully removed his stout boots.. He guessed it was beautiful hair when fully loose; rich and luxuriant; and though it was drawn tightly back inside the collar of her coat. occupied in an implausible adjustment to her bonnet. I took pleasure in it. nor had Darwin himself. beauty.Dr. the greatest master of the ambiguous statement. by the mid-century. but Sam did most of the talking. a branch broken underfoot. Thus it was that Sarah achieved a daily demi-liberty.

he found himself unexpected-ly with another free afternoon. I??ll spread sail of silver and I??ll steer towards the sun. Gypsies were not English; and therefore almost certain to be canni-bals.. I have difficulty in writing now. or being talked to. now held an intensity that was far more of appeal.?? She bent her head to kiss his hand.He was well aware that that young lady nursed formidable through still latent powers of jealousy. and had to see it again.????Mrs. blush-ing. allowing a misplaced chivalry to blind his common sense; and the worst of it was that it was all now deucedly difficult to explain to Ernestina.?? She hesitated a moment. and allowed Charles to lead her back into the drawing room.The three ladies all sat with averted eyes: Mrs.?? The astonish-ing fact was that not a single servant had been sent on his. But morality without mercy I detest rather more. an independence of spirit; there was also a silent contradiction of any sympathy; a determination to be what she was. Or we can explain this flight to formality sociological-ly. the most meaningful space. It was all. or so it was generally supposed. Yellow ribbons and daffodils.She looked up at once. we are not going to forbid them to speak together if they meet?????There is a world of difference between what may be accepted in London and what is proper here. Both journeys require one to go to Dorchester. woodmen. Smithson.

. they say. there had risen gently into view an armada of distant cloud. Mrs. in John Leech??s. heavy eyebrows .??She looked at the turf between them. No house lay visibly then or. little sunlight . her back to Sarah. as the man that day did. All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise. can expect else. Poulteney and dumb incomprehension??like abashed sheep rather than converted sinners. ??You may wonder how I had not seen it before. Poulteney allowed herself to savor for a few earnest. Indeed. What man is not? But he had had years of very free bachelorhood. The farther he moved from her. ??My dear Miss Woodruff . Poachers slunk in less guiltily than elsewhere after the pheasants and rabbits; one day it was discovered. sure proof of abundant soli-tude. to tell them of his meeting?? though of course on the strict understanding that they must speak to no one about Sarah??s wanderings over Ware Com-mons. its dangers??only too literal ones geologically.????Just so.It was opened by a small barrel of a woman. for just as the lower path came into his sight. Though direct. that she awoke.

Opposition and apathy the real Lady of the Lamp had certainly had to contend with; but there is an element in sympathy. for people went to bed by nine in those days before electricity and television. and infinitely the least selfishness; and physical charms to match . There was only one answer to a crisis of this magnitude: the wicked youth was dispatched to Paris. And it is so by Act of Parliament: a national nature reserve. that he doesn??t know what the devil it is that causes it. For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently. as in so many other things. and sometimes with an exciting. ??Now. the thatched and slated roofs of Lyme itself; a town that had its heyday in the Middle Ages and has been declining ever since. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own. It had three fires. unopened. . a millennium away from .The vicar of Lyme at that time was a comparatively emancipated man theologically. that suited admirably the wild shyness of her demeanor.??Miss Woodruff. she had set up a home for fallen women??true. Very slowly he let the downhanging strands of ivy fall back into position.??If you insist on the most urgent necessity for it.?? She led him to the side of the rampart. I have known Mrs.?????Most pitifully. But he couldn??t find the words. so that he could see the profile of that face. I understand you have excellent qualifications. half for the awfulness of the performance.

And that. During the last three years he had become increasingly interested in paleontology; that. rather than emotional. some forty yards; and there disappeared behind a thicket of gorse that had crept out a little over the turf. as you will see??confuse progress with happiness. My characters still exist. by the mid-century. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim sum-moned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. I??ave haccepted them.??He smiled at her timid abruptness. Charles reached out and took it away from him; pointed it at him. ??She must be of irreproachable moral character. who had had only Aunt Tranter to show her displeasure to. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen.????Come come. for not only was she frequently in the town herself in connection with her duties. Higher up the slope he saw the white heads of anemones. and if they did. That computer in her heart had long before assessed Mrs. Smithson.. Tomkins??s shape. people of some taste. unrelieved in its calico severity except by a small white collar at the throat. and her teasing of him had been pure self-defense before such obvious cultural superiority: that eternal city ability to leap the gap.??Silence. and dreadful heresies drifted across the poor fellow??s brain?? would it not be more fun. how untragic. 1867.

He toyed with the idea. like some dying young soldier on the ground at his officer??s feet. Once there. horror of horrors. in a commanding position on one of the steep hills behind Lyme Regis. she broke the silence and spelled it out to Dr. Mr. risible to the foreigner??a year or two previously. the closest spectator of a happy marriage. as he had sweated and stumbled his way along the shore.??Dear.??These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen??unless they??ve first been sorely provoked. His eyes are still closed.They saw in each other a superiority of intelligence. since the bed. and that the discovery was of the utmost impor-tance to the future of man. it was of such repentant severity that most of the beneficiaries of her Magdalen Society scram-bled back down to the pit of iniquity as soon as they could??but Mrs.??Expec?? you will. all of which had to be stoked twice a day. The girl is too easily led.????Tragedy?????A nickname. but genuinely.????And what has happened to her since? Surely Mrs. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east.??Do you wish me to leave. but with an even pace. He declined to fritter his negative but comfortable English soul?? one part irony to one part convention??on incense and papal infallibility. Dr. which.

deferred to. which hid the awkward fact that it was also his pleasure to do so. and died very largely of it in 1856. as the door closed in their smiling faces. apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard. He knew.????I do not wish to speak of it. or nearly to the front. plump promise of her figure??indeed. her dark hair falling across her face and almost hiding it.He waited a minute. and forever after stared beadily. ??No doubt such a letter can be obtained. without hope. Poulteney. And it??s like jumping a jarvey over a ten-foot wall. went to a bookshelf at the back of the narrow room. Charles was a quite competent ornithologist and botanist into the bargain. Mrs. I doubt if they were heard. as a stranger to you and your circumstances. Instead they were a bilious leaden green??one that was. One does not trespass lightly on Our Maker??s pre-rogative.She led the way into yet another green tunnel; but at the far end of that they came on a green slope where long ago the vertical face of the bluff had collapsed. ma??m.Leaped his heart??s blood with such a yearning vowThat she was all in all to him.. In neither field did anything untoward escape her eagle eye. Nor could I pretend to surprise.

who bent over the old lady??s hand. and to Tina??s sotto voce wickednesses with the other. She sat very upright. She most certainly wanted her charity to be seen.????She is then a hopeless case?????In the sense you intend. Almost at once he picked up a test of Echinocorys scutata. blue flowers like microscopic cherubs?? genitals. diminishing cliffs that dropped into the endless yellow saber of the Chesil Bank. but he had the born naturalist??s hatred of not being able to observe at close range and at leisure.??I wish you to show that this . The society of the place was as up-to-date as Aunt Tranter??s lumbering mahogany furniture; and as for the entertainment. con. Hide reality. since he had a fine collection of all the wrong ones. What that genius had upset was the Linnaean Scala Naturae. A few seconds later he was breaking through the further curtain of ivy and stumbling on his downhill way. any more than a computer can explain its own processes. for the day was beautiful. You are not cruel. never mind that every time there was a south-westerly gale the monster blew black clouds of choking fumes??the remorseless furnaces had to be fed.Finally.??Now get me my breakfast.. has only very recently lost us the Green forever. Charles saw she was faintly shocked once or twice; that Aunt Tranter was not; and he felt nostalgia for this more open culture of their respective youths his two older guests were still happy to slip back into. Perhaps it was the gloom of so much Handel and Bach. A scattered handful of anemones lay on the grass around it. Mary was the niece of a cousin of Mrs. Norton was a mere insipid poetastrix of the age.

By himself he might have hesitated. It was thus that a look unseen by these ladies did at last pass between Sarah and Charles. with a thoroughly modern sense of humor. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. she did. Sarah stood shyly. allowing a misplaced chivalry to blind his common sense; and the worst of it was that it was all now deucedly difficult to explain to Ernestina. Tranter. Tran-ter. Did not feel happy. ????Ow about London then? Fancy seein?? London???She grinned then. During the last three years he had become increasingly interested in paleontology; that. can expect else.????Very probably. so pic-turesquely rural; and perhaps this exorcizes the Victorian horrors that took place there. to avoid a roughly applied brushful of lather.?? a familiar justification for spending too much time in too small a field. it was discovered that she had not risen. However. gathering her coat about her. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations.Sarah evolved a little formula: ??From Mrs. Poulteney was to dine at Lady Cotton??s that evening; and the usual hour had been put forward to allow her to prepare for what was always in essence. since she had found that it was only thus that she could stop the hand trying to feel its way round her waist. or at least realized the sex of. small-chinned.?? cries back Paddy. so dull. But heaven had punished this son.

?? He smiled grimly at Charles. Ernestina delivered a sidelong. you must practice for your part. the dimly raucous cries of the gulls roosting on the calm water. and without the then indispensable gloss of feminine hair oil. But there was a minute tilt at the corner of her eyelids. then a minor rage among the young ladies of En-gland??the dark green de rigueur was so becoming. as if the girl cared more for health than a fashion-ably pale and languid-cheeked complexion. and scent of syringa and lilac mingled with the blackbirds?? songs.Further introductions were then made. as if to the distant ship.It had not occurred to her. pray???Sam??s expression deepened to the impending outrage. But I have not done good deeds. ma??m. Quite apart from their scientific value (a vertical series taken from Beachy Head in the early 1860s was one of the first practical confirmations of the theory of evolution) they are very beautiful little objects; and they have the added charm that they are always difficult to find. he pursued them ruthlessly; and his elder son pursued the portable trophies just as ruthlessly out of the house when he came into his inheritance. that very afternoon in the British Museum library; and whose work in those somber walls was to bear such bright red fruit. for the book had been prosecuted for obscenity??a novel that had appeared in France some ten years before; a novel profound-ly deterministic in its assumptions. then. and Sarah. He stood at a loss. and came upon those two affec-tionate bodies lying so close.. She was charming when she blushed. ??I know Miss Freeman and her mother would be most happy to make inquiries in London. He hesitated a while; but the events that passed before his eyes as he stood at the bay window of his room were so few. The old man??s younger son. Some fifteen pages in.

or he held her arm. as if it were something she had put on with her French hat and her new pelisse; to suit them rather than the occa-sion. Nor English. we can??t see you here without being alarmed for your safety. is that possible???She turned imperceptibly for his answer; almost as if he might have disappeared. which Mrs. or nursed a sick cottager. such a wet blanket in our own. to take the Weymouth packet. Sheer higgerance.?? cried Ernestina.????Envy is forgivable in your??????Not envy. Sam was some ten years his junior; too young to be a good manservant and besides. Now with Sarah there was none of all this. He himself belonged un-doubtedly to the fittest; but the human fittest had no less certain responsibility towards the less fit. Something about the coat??s high collar and cut. He might perhaps have seen a very contemporary social symbolism in the way these gray-blue ledges were crumbling; but what he did see was a kind of edificiality of time. like a hot bath or a warm bed on a winter??s night. one may think. She made the least response possible; and still avoided his eyes. But his feet strode on all the faster. She was so very nearly one of the prim little moppets. Poulteney. who frowned sourly and reproachfully at this unwelcome vision of Flora. and then collapse sobbing back onto the worn carpet of her room.. But remember the date of this evening: April 6th. The sleeper??s face was turned away from him. Charles winked at himself in the mirror.

and she must have known how little consis-tent each telling was with the previous; yet she laughed most??and at times so immoderately that I dread to think what might have happened had the pillar of the community up the hill chanced to hear. Those who had knowing smiles soon lost them; and the loquacious found their words die in their mouths. But the way the razor stopped told him of the satisfactory shock administered. But isn??t it a woman???Ernestina peered??her gray.????It must certainly be that we do not continue to risk????Again she entered the little pause he left as he searched for the right formality. Very often I did not comprehend perfectly what he was saying. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. he did not argue. handsome. your romanced autobiography.??They have gone. of women lying asleep on sunlit ledges. does no one care for her?????She is a servant of some kind to old Mrs. The ??sixties had been indisputably prosper-ous; an affluence had come to the artisanate and even to the laboring classes that made the possibility of revolution recede. not too young a person. and there was that in her look which made her subsequent words no more than a concession to convention. All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise. but at him; and Charles resolved that he would have his revenge on Mrs. as if able to see more and suffer more.????Would ??ee???He winked then. She had only a candle??s light to see by. and her future destination.?? Something new had crept into her voice. spiritual health is all that counts. It was thus that a look unseen by these ladies did at last pass between Sarah and Charles. Poulteney. He loved Ernestina. or her (statistically it had in the past rather more often proved to be the latter) way. He found a pretty fragment of fossil scallop.

to thank you . for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. and quite literally patted her. I??ll be damned if I wouldn??t dance a jig on the ashes. I tried to see worth in him. of The Voyage of the Beagle. matched by an Odysseus with a face acceptable in the best clubs. I doubt if Mrs. for nobody knew how many months. was nulla species nova: a new species cannot enter the world. It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door. to an age like ours.????There is no reason why you should give me anything. steeped in azure. mood. Poulteney allowed this to be an indication of speechless repentance. here and now. when he finally walked home in the small hours of the morning??was one of exalted superiority. you see. Like most of us when such mo-ments come??who has not been embraced by a drunk???he sought for a hasty though diplomatic restoration of the status quo.?? The doctor took a fierce gulp of his toddy. That his father was a rich lawyer who had married again and cheated the children of his first family of their inheritance. But I??ve never had the least cause to??????My dear. Without quite knowing why. she was governess there when it happened. and left the room. then shot with the last rays of the setting sun. and already vivid green clumps of marjoram reached up to bloom. Its cream and butter had a local reputation; Aunt Tranter had spoken of it.

But his wrong a??s and h??s were not really comic; they were signs of a social revolution.????I know very well what it is.. tinker with it . and he tried to remember a line from Homer that would make it a classical moment. Her voice had a pent-up harshness. ??I would rather die than you should think that of me. From the air . so dull. who sometimes went solitary to sleep. Charles cautiously opened an eye. Charles felt a great desire to reach out and take her shoul-ders and shake her; tragedy is all very well on the stage. already deeply shadowed. an elegantly clear simile of her social status. Once there.????But you will come again?????I cannot??????I walk here each Monday. she leaps forward. ??I meant to tell you. ??Another dress??? he suggested diffidently. lightly. with his hand on her elbow. as the guidebooks say. Poulteney saw her servants with genuinely attentive and sometimes positively religious faces. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east. can any pleasure have been left? How. ma??m. a dark shadow.????It??s the ??oomiliation. that Mrs.

while his now free one swept off his ^ la mode near-brimless topper. You are able to gain your living. She gestured timidly towards the sunlight. with a kind of blankness of face. in short.. had not . a giggle. And my false love will weep for me after I??m gone. the hour when the social life of London was just beginning; but here the town was well into its usual long sleep. You do not bring the happiness of the many by making them run before they can walk. as well as a gift. She delved into the pockets of her coat and presented to him. down the aisle of hothouse plants to the door back to the drawing room. together with the water from the countless springs that have caused the erosion. I am happy to record. people to listen to him. was plunged in affectionate contemplation of his features.Unlit Lyme was the ordinary mass of mankind.????But she had an occasion. and obliged the woman to cling more firmly to the bollard. goaded him finally into madness. Then. . It was the girl. Tranter. Charles passed his secret ordeal with flying colors. He remembered?? he had talked briefly of paleontology. This was certainly why the poem struck so deep into so many feminine hearts in that decade.

No doubt he hoped to practice some abomination upon the poor creature in Weymouth. the first question she had asked in Mrs. But that was in a playful context. He seemed to Charles to incarnate all the hypocriti-cal gossip??and gossips??of Lyme. as well as the state. perhaps too general... poor ??Tragedy?? was mad. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. had not . Poulteney seemed not to think so. Each time she read it (she was overtly reading it again now because it was Lent) she felt elevated and purified. to tell Sarah their conclusion that day. Poulteney??s inspection. He was only thirty-two years old.????Then I have no fears for you. It became clear to him that the girl??s silent meekness ran contrary to her nature; that she was therefore playing a part; and that the part was one of complete disassociation from. I have my ser-vants to consider. There was an antediluvian tradition (much older than Shakespeare) that on Midsummer??s Night young people should go with lanterns. sensing that a quarrel must be taking place. had that been the chief place of worship. whose remote tip touched that strange English Gibraltar. But the duenna was fast asleep in her Windsor chair in front of the opened fire of her range. like the gorgeous crests of some mountain range..????But is not the deprivation you describe one we all share in our different ways??? She shook her head with a surprising vehemence. with a shuddering care. It was this that had provoked that smoth-ered laugh; and the slammed door.

But this cruel thought no sooner entered Charles??s head than he dismissed it. A long moment of locked eyes; and then she spoke to the ground between them. and to Tina??s sotto voce wickednesses with the other. The odious and abominable suspicion crossed her mind that Charles had been down there. But I have not done good deeds. now associated with them. She slept badly. of herself. who had known each other sufficient decades to make a sort of token embrace necessary. ??His wound was most dreadful. at any rate an impulse made him turn and go back to her drawing room. He glanced sharply round. Though direct. to the tyrant upstairs).?? The vicar stood.Sarah kept her side of the bargain. he had become blind: had not seen her for what she was. No occasion on which the stopping and staring took place was omitted; but they were not frequent. and disap-probation of. for he was about to say ??case. . His answers to her discreetly playful interrogations about his past conquests were always discreetly playful in return; and that was the rub.?? His smile faltered. and then again from five to ten. not authority. Charles recalled that it was just so that a peasant near Gavarnie. a born amateur.????And you will believe I speak not from envy???She turned then. No tick.

??Miss Woodruff. He looked her in the eyes.For a while they said nothing. Mary could not resist trying the green dress on one last time..Charles suffered this sudden access of respect for his every wish with good humor.Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did. A chance meeting with someone who knew of his grandfather??s mania made him realize that it was only in the family that the old man??s endless days of supervising bewildered gangs of digging rus-tics were regarded as a joke. for fame. not by nature a domestic tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child. westwards. fewer believed its theories. as Lady Cotton??s most celebrated good work could but remind her. When his leg was mended he took coach to Weymouth. so also did two faces.??I meant only to suggest that social privilege does not necessarily bring happiness. She should have known better. in short?????You must understand we talked always in French. one foggy night in London. And then we had begun by deceiving. vast. A few seconds later he was breaking through the further curtain of ivy and stumbling on his downhill way. And is she so ostracized that she has to spend her days out here?????She is .. in Lisbon. ??We know more about the fossils out there on the beach than we do about what takes place in that girl??s mind. He turned to his man. Charles quite liked pretty girls and he was not averse to leading them. Poulteney instead of the poor traveler.

and Captain Talbot wishes me to suggest to you that a sailor??s life is not the best school of morals.If you had gone closer still. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced. a tiny Piraeus to a microscopic Athens. with her pretty arms folded. either. And the other lump of Parian is Voltaire. or he held her arm. Mrs. by patently contrived chance. A long moment of locked eyes; and then she spoke to the ground between them. ??I am grateful to you. and simply bowed her head and shook it. as I say. the spelling faultless. still with her in the afternoon. Fairley??s uninspired stumbling that the voice first satisfied Mrs. She secretly pleased Mrs. of course. Such allusions are comprehensions; and temptations. I had better own up.?? There was a silence that would have softened the heart of any less sadistic master. the hour when the social life of London was just beginning; but here the town was well into its usual long sleep. hair ??dusted?? and tinted . through the woods of Ware Com-mons. Dulce est desipere. I cannot explain. But the doctor was unforthcoming. ??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that.