Kabanata Kabanata 18 · 第18章

Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The Servants

Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred

feet down the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great

buttresses that supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow

ravine, filled with ferns and pine-trees, and down the ravine on the

left ran the highway into the Weald.

Whenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these noble

dispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of them, Windy

Corner,—he laughed. The situation was so glorious, the house so

commonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr. Honeychurch had

affected the cube, because it gave him the most accommodation for his

money, and the only addition made by his widow had been a small turret,

shaped like a rhinoceros’ horn, where she could sit in wet weather and

watch the carts going up and down the road. So impertinent—and yet the

house “did,” for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings

honestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive

architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all

these suggested the accidental, the temporary; while Windy Corner

seemed as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature’s own creation. One might

laugh at the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling

over this Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from

the Miss Alans. These admirable ladies, since they could not go to

Cissie Villa, had changed their plans. They were going to Greece

instead.

“Since Florence did my poor sister so much good,” wrote Miss Catharine,

“we do not see why we should not try Athens this winter. Of course,

Athens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered her special digestive

bread; but, after all, we can take that with us, and it is only getting

first into a steamer and then into a train. But is there an English

Church?” And the letter went on to say: “I do not expect we shall go

any further than Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable

pension at Constantinople, we should be so grateful.”

Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe

greeted Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it,

and some of its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though she was

hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly—oh, that

cerise frock yesterday at church!—she must see some beauty in life, or

she could not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians

are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they

want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their

friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet

been understood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been

illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was only

riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether

Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies

to visit Athens.

A carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught

sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped

abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse,

who always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him.

The door opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe

recognized as Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving;

but he saw a trunk beside the coachman’s legs. Cecil, who wore a

bowler, must be going away, while Freddy (a cap)—was seeing him to the

station. They walked rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the

summit while the carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road.

They shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak.

“So you’re off for a minute, Mr. Vyse?” he asked.

Cecil said, “Yes,” while Freddy edged away.

“I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends of

Miss Honeychurch.” He quoted from it. “Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it

romance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken

in a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world.”

Cecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be amused

and interested.

“Isn’t Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people; you

do nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is dead, while

the Miss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against

the terrible thing. ‘A really comfortable pension at Constantinople!’

So they call it out of decency, but in their hearts they want a pension

with magic windows opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland

forlorn! No ordinary view will content the Miss Alans. They want the

Pension Keats.”

“I’m awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe,” said Freddy, “but have you

any matches?”

“I have,” said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe’s notice that he

spoke to the boy more kindly.

“You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?”

“Never.”

“Then you don’t see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven’t been to

Greece myself, and don’t mean to go, and I can’t imagine any of my

friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don’t you

think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is

heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish—I am not sure which, and in

either case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy—I

am not being clever, upon my word I am not—I took the idea from another

fellow; and give me those matches when you’ve done with them.” He lit a

cigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. “I was saying, if

our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be

Italian. Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine

Chapel for me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But

not the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and here

comes the victoria.”

“You’re quite right,” said Cecil. “Greece is not for our little lot”;

and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he

trusted not to be pulling one’s leg, really. And before they had gone a

dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse’s match-box,

which had not been returned. As he took it, he said: “I’m so glad you

only talked about books. Cecil’s hard hit. Lucy won’t marry him. If

you’d gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken

down.”

“But when—”

“Late last night. I must go.”

“Perhaps they won’t want me down there.”

“No—go on. Good-bye.”

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle

of his bicycle approvingly, “It was the one foolish thing she ever did.

Oh, what a glorious riddance!” And, after a little thought, he

negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was

again as it ought to be—cut off forever from Cecil’s pretentious world.

He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden.

In the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated

a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a

mournful company. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and

broken the dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them

up, while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of

assistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the “garden-child,” a

minute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass.

“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look

at my scarlet pompoms, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the

ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage

having to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, who—give

everyone their due—does tie up dahlias properly.”

Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered.

“How do you do?” said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though

conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn

gales.

“Here, Lennie, the bass,” cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The garden-child, who

did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror.

Minnie slipped to her uncle and whispered that everyone was very

disagreeable to-day, and that it was not her fault if dahlia-strings

would tear longways instead of across.

“Come for a walk with me,” he told her. “You have worried them as much

as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I

shall take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may.”

“Oh, must you? Yes do.—Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when

both my hands are full already—I’m perfectly certain that the orange

cactus will go before I can get to it.”

Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss

Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity.

“Yes, Charlotte, I don’t want you—do go; there’s nothing to stop about

for, either in the house or out of it.”

Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she

had exasperated everyone, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round

and exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden,

the orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe’s last vision was of the

garden-child clasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth

of blossom.

“It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers,” he remarked.

“It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a

moment,” enunciated Miss Bartlett.

“Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will

she come with us?”

“I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits.”

“They’re angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for

breakfast,” whispered Minnie, “and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has

gone, and Freddy won’t play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house

is not _at all_ what it was yesterday.”

“Don’t be a prig,” said her Uncle Arthur. “Go and put on your boots.”

He stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still attentively

pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered.

“How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at

the Beehive. Would you come too?”

“I don’t think I will, thank you.”

“No, I didn’t suppose you would care to much.”

Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords.

“How delicate those Sonatas are!” said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom

of his heart, he thought them silly little things.

Lucy passed into Schumann.

“Miss Honeychurch!”

“Yes.”

“I met them on the hill. Your brother told me.”

“Oh he did?” She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had

thought that she would like him to be told.

“I needn’t say that it will go no further.”

“Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you,” said Lucy, playing a note for

each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note.

“If you’ll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you

have done the right thing.”

“So I hoped other people would think, but they don’t seem to.”

“I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise.”

“So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully.”

“I am very sorry for that,” said Mr. Beebe with feeling.

Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as

much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really

a ruse of Lucy’s to justify her despondency—a ruse of which she was not

herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness.

“And Freddy minds.”

“Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that

he disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you.”

“Boys are so odd.”

Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea

at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr.

Beebe saw that Lucy—very properly—did not wish to discuss her action,

so after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, “I have had an

absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I

thought it might amuse you all.”

“How delightful!” said Lucy, in a dull voice.

For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After

a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with

“Going abroad? When do they start?”

“Next week, I gather.”

“Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Because I do hope he won’t go gossiping.”

So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always

complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a

high voice, “Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly

splendid of them to go abroad!”

“I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the

Illyrian coast!”

She laughed heartily. “Oh, delightful! I wish they’d take me.”

“Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson

is right. He says that ‘Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.’”

“Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to

Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn’t it?”

Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that

the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, “with Delphi, perhaps, if the

roads are safe.” But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had

always longed to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his

surprise, that she was apparently serious.

“I didn’t realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends,

after Cissie Villa.”

“Oh, that’s nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa’s nothing to me; I would

give anything to go with them.”

“Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home

three months.”

“She _must_ spare me!” cried Lucy, in growing excitement. “I simply

_must_ go away. I have to.” She ran her fingers hysterically through

her hair. “Don’t you see that I _have_ to go away? I didn’t realize at

the time—and of course I want to see Constantinople so particularly.”

“You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel—”

“Yes, yes. I knew you’d understand.”

Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch

repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the

dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that

her family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she

accepted the hint eagerly.

“Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to the

idea and everything has calmed down.”

“I am afraid it has been a bothersome business,” he said gently.

“No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only—I had better tell you

the whole truth, since you have heard a little—it was that he is so

masterful. I found that he wouldn’t let me go my own way. He would

improve me in places where I can’t be improved. Cecil won’t let a woman

decide for herself—in fact, he daren’t. What nonsense I do talk! But

that is the kind of thing.”

“It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is what

I gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree

most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little

criticism: Is it worth while rushing off to Greece?”

“But I must go somewhere!” she cried. “I have been worrying all the

morning, and here comes the very thing.” She struck her knees with

clenched fists, and repeated: “I must! And the time I shall have with

mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think

much too highly of me. I wish you weren’t so kind.” At this moment Miss

Bartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. “I must get away, ever

so far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go.”

“Come along; tea, tea, tea,” said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out

of the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat.

When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the

tinkling of a Mozart Sonata.

“She is playing again,” he said to Miss Bartlett.

“Lucy can always play,” was the acid reply.

“One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently

much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it. The

marriage was so near that it must have been a hard struggle before she

could wind herself up to speak.”

Miss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a discussion.

He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself at

Florence, “she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of

meaning.” But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable. He

assumed that much, and he had no hesitation in discussing Lucy with

her. Minnie was fortunately collecting ferns.

She opened the discussion with: “We had much better let the matter

drop.”

“I wonder.”

“It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip in

Summer Street. It would be _death_ to gossip about Mr. Vyse’s dismissal

at the present moment.”

Mr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong word—surely too

strong. There was no question of tragedy. He said: “Of course, Miss

Honeychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and when she

chooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would not mind.”

“I know,” said Miss Bartlett civilly. “Yet Freddy ought not to have

told even you. One cannot be too careful.”

“Quite so.”

“I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering friend,

and—”

“Exactly.” He was used to these nervous old maids and to the

exaggerated importance that they attach to words. A rector lives in a

web of petty secrets, and confidences and warnings, and the wiser he is

the less he will regard them. He will change the subject, as did Mr.

Beebe, saying cheerfully: “Have you heard from any Bertolini people

lately? I believe you keep up with Miss Lavish. It is odd how we of

that pension, who seemed such a fortuitous collection, have been

working into one another’s lives. Two, three, four, six of us—no,

eight; I had forgotten the Emersons—have kept more or less in touch. We

must really give the Signora a testimonial.”

And, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the hill in

a silence which was only broken by the rector naming some fern. On the

summit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since he stood there last

hour, giving to the land a tragic greatness that is rare in Surrey.

Grey clouds were charging across tissues of white, which stretched and

shredded and tore slowly, until through their final layers there

gleamed a hint of the disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The

wind roared, the trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for

those vast operations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking,

broken, and it is a sense of the fit rather than of the supernatural

that equips such crises with the salvos of angelic artillery. Mr.

Beebe’s eyes rested on Windy Corner, where Lucy sat, practising Mozart.

No smile came to his lips, and, changing the subject again, he said:

“We shan’t have rain, but we shall have darkness, so let us hurry on.

The darkness last night was appalling.”

They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o’clock. That amiable

hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do

dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant

sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that

Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be

dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would

hand the child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally

enabled to discuss the fortunes of Lucy.

“I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett,” he said, “and, unless you very

much object, I would like to reopen that discussion.” She bowed.

“Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that; I am

absolutely certain that it is to your cousin’s credit. She has acted

loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we

think too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think

of this Greek plan?” He pulled out the letter again. “I don’t know

whether you overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their

mad career. It’s all—I can’t explain—it’s wrong.”

Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to

hesitate, and then read it again.

“I can’t see the point of it myself.”

To his astonishment, she replied: “There I cannot agree with you. In it

I spy Lucy’s salvation.”

“Really. Now, why?”

“She wanted to leave Windy Corner.”

“I know—but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so—I was going to

say—selfish.”

“It is natural, surely—after such painful scenes—that she should desire

a change.”

Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect

misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: “So she says herself, and since another

lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps

she must have a change. I have no sisters or—and I don’t understand

these things. But why need she go as far as Greece?”

“You may well ask that,” replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently

interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. “Why Greece?

(What is it, Minnie dear—jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe!

I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this

morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already

said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with

me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused.”

Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.

“But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on

Lucy’s nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence,

and when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the

time I felt that I was spending her mother’s money—.”

“Let us keep to the future, though,” interrupted Mr. Beebe. “I want

your advice.”

“Very well,” said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to

him, though familiar to Lucy. “I for one will help her to go to Greece.

Will you?”

Mr. Beebe considered.

“It is absolutely necessary,” she continued, lowering her veil and

whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him.

“I know—I _know_.” The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this

odd woman really did know. “She must not stop here a moment, and we

must keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing.

Afterwards—but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are

helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed.

Otherwise—”

“Otherwise—?”

“Otherwise,” she repeated as if the word held finality.

“Yes, I will help her,” said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm.

“Come, let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up.”

Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign—a beehive

trimmed evenly with bees—creaked in the wind outside as she thanked

him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he did

not desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of “another

man” that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss

Bartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be

delivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its

very vagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in

celibacy, so reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and

culture, now came to the surface and expanded like some delicate

flower. “They that marry do well, but they that refrain do better.” So

ran his belief, and he never heard that an engagement was broken off

but with a slight feeling of pleasure. In the case of Lucy, the feeling

was intensified through dislike of Cecil; and he was willing to go

further—to place her out of danger until she could confirm her

resolution of virginity. The feeling was very subtle and quite

undogmatic, and he never imparted it to any other of the characters in

this entanglement. Yet it existed, and it alone explains his action

subsequently, and his influence on the action of others. The compact

that he made with Miss Bartlett in the tavern, was to help not only

Lucy, but religion also.

They hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed on

indifferent topics: the Emersons’ need of a housekeeper; servants;

Italian servants; novels about Italy; novels with a purpose; could

literature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered. In the garden, Mrs.

Honeychurch, now helped by Freddy, still wrestled with the lives of her

flowers.

“It gets too dark,” she said hopelessly. “This comes of putting off. We

might have known the weather would break up soon; and now Lucy wants to

go to Greece. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

“Mrs. Honeychurch,” he said, “go to Greece she must. Come up to the

house and let’s talk it over. Do you, in the first place, mind her

breaking with Vyse?”

“Mr. Beebe, I’m thankful—simply thankful.”

“So am I,” said Freddy.

“Good. Now come up to the house.”

They conferred in the dining-room for half an hour.

Lucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive

and dramatic—both qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would

Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe.

By his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergyman—for a

clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly—he

bent her to their purpose, “I don’t see why Greece is necessary,” she

said; “but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I

can’t understand. Lucy! Let’s tell her. Lucy!”

“She is playing the piano,” Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and

heard the words of a song:

“Look not thou on beauty’s charming.”

“I didn’t know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too.”

“Sit thou still when kings are arming,

Taste not when the wine-cup glistens——”

“It’s a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!”

“What’s that?” called Lucy, stopping short.

“All right, dear,” said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the

drawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: “I am sorry I

was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias.”

Rather a hard voice said: “Thank you, mother; that doesn’t matter a

bit.”

“And you are right, too—Greece will be all right; you can go if the

Miss Alans will have you.”

“Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!”

Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the

keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother

bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the

floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips.

Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of

the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the _Santa Conversazione_,

in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together

about noble things—a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and

therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to

marry or to travel when she had such friends at home?

“Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,

Speak not when the people listens,”

she continued.

“Here’s Mr. Beebe.”

“Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways.”

“It’s a beautiful song and a wise one,” said he. “Go on.”

“It isn’t very good,” she said listlessly. “I forget why—harmony or

something.”

“I suspected it was unscholarly. It’s so beautiful.”

“The tune’s right enough,” said Freddy, “but the words are rotten. Why

throw up the sponge?”

“How stupidly you talk!” said his sister. The _Santa Conversazione_ was

broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about

Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye.

Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual

felicity of phrase, said: “This has been a day and a half.”

“Stop thine ear against the singer—”

“Wait a minute; she is finishing.”

“From the red gold keep thy finger;

Vacant heart and hand and eye

Easy live and quiet die.”

“I love weather like this,” said Freddy.

Mr. Beebe passed into it.

The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had

helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a

change in a girl’s life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or

puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part.

“Vacant heart and hand and eye—”

Perhaps the song stated “the better part” rather too strongly. He half

fancied that the soaring accompaniment—which he did not lose in the

shout of the gale—really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing

the words that it adorned:

“Vacant heart and hand and eye

Easy live and quiet die.”

However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him—now as a

beacon in the roaring tides of darkness.