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‘And vestments,’ said Mrs Keeling again going on precisely at the point where sleep had overtaken her, ‘I can’t see that there’s any harm in them, though your father——’ηפ֢¥¥He took his cheque-book out of his drawer and wrote.¤¥­ó°Î¥§µFor one brief moment a certain clear-sightedness penetrated her infatuation, a certain business-like unidealising vision, inherited probably from her father, came to her aid, giving her a warning both peremptory and final. For that one moment she saw this adored priest as he was, more or less, to whom this baby-talk and this squeezing of hands and this lighting of matches were not symbols of anything that lay behind them, but only expressive of an amorous an?mia. Had he been in earnest with a hundredth part of her intention, he would have caught at it, made plain his want, and even if marriage was not within the scope of his desire, reached a hand to the love she brought him, and claimed the comradeship of it, even if he could do no more. But, in this moment of clear vision, she saw and she knew that he did not even do that. He but sat on the hearth-rug and wagged his tail and barked for biscuits.... Then the clouds of her own foolishness, derived perhaps from her mother’s side, and strangely swollen by her individual temperament obscured that brief ray of common sense, and she yielded herself up to the{204} entrancement of having Mr Silverdale sitting on the floor at her feet and lighting his cigarette from her match.¤¥¤¤éÈ¥ÊË¥Ù©

�Óc¥�¤¤Õ¥¥This, though the last of Mrs Fyson’s misdeeds, was not the first, and Mrs Keeling almost forgot the duty of thankfulness for blessings when she remembered that dreadful occasion. Shortly after Norah’s final appearance in the evening, Mrs Fyson had called, and under the pretext of a digestion-visit after her dinner had hissed out a series of impertinent questions as to how ‘it had all ended.’ Fool though she might be, Mrs Keeling was not of that peculiarly hopeless sort that confides domestic difficulties to the ears of gossips, and had with some appearance of astonishment merely said that she and Miss Propert had had a very pleasant chat while Mr Keeling was telephoning for a cab to take Miss Propert home. On which Mrs Fyson had looked exactly like a ferret and said, ‘Did he bring her into your drawing-room? That was very clever!{179}’¥¥ò¥¤¤¥¤¤¢äç¤

�¥Ü¦¥¤¤¤¥ó¥‘His lordship is waiting, sir’ he said, ‘and{72} wants to know if you can see him for ten minutes.’¤¤¥But other things extraneous to the temple had come in with him as he entered, like flies through an opened door, and still buzzed about him. His wife’s want of comprehension was one of them. It was not often that Mrs Goodford had the power to annoy him so thoroughly as she had done to-day, but when she did, all that Emmeline had to contribute to the situation was such a sentence as, ‘What a pity you and Mamma worry each other so.’ She did not understand, and though he told himself that in thirty years he should have got used to that, he found now and then, and to-day with unusual vividness, that he had not done so. She had never become a companion to him; he had never found in her that for which ultimately a man is seeking, though at the time he may not know it, when he goes a-wooing. A mouth, an eyebrow, the curve of a limb may be his lure, and having attained it he may think for a few years of passion that in gaining it he has gained what he sought, but unless he has indeed got that which unconsciously he desired, he will find some day when the gray ash begins to grow moss-like on his burning coals, that though his children{35} are round him, there is but a phantom opposite to him. The romance of passion has burned itself out, and from the ashes has no ph?nix arisen with whom he can soar to the sun. He desired the mouth or the eyebrow: he got them, and now in the changing lineaments he can scarcely remember what that which so strangely moved him was like, while in the fading of its brightness nothing else has emerged.¥¡¤¤¥¥Ù¥Çòã

Keeling suddenly pointed an awful forefinger at her.¤¥¤¥�¥¤d¤¥µð¤¥�¤¤ç

She sighed.Ê×·ßñ¿¢Å¤�¥½¤�Ü£¥È¤

She pointed, and then bending down found in{236} the centre of one the bud from which the blossom would expand.é¤ë¤Í¥··�É¥Ô¤¤À¬Ñ॥»¥‘Delicious!’ said Alice, beginning to be naughty with her pomegranates.ñ¥¤À¥¤é¤

�©¤¤¥¤ÈÖòÇ‘I think so. As you said to me the other day, sir, good work is always cheap in comparison with bad work.’¨¤¥ðHitherto Mr Keeling had devoted his mind to his own immediate concerns which were those of eating. He had no wish to get worried with Mrs Goodford, but it seemed that mere politeness required an answer to this.¤ó¤¤¥Ñ¥×¥

‘Yes, they’ve told you right there,’ said he. ‘Or perhaps you’ve got some fault to find with that, Mrs Goodford.’¾¡¦ÃHe picked up his crook.ÑÔÄThen followed the usual acclamation, and it{248} was sweet to the donor’s ears. But sweeter than it all to him was the moment when, as the guests sat down again and he rose to reply, he looked across at the table near the wall, and caught Norah’s eye. Just perceptibly she shook her head at him as if to reproach him with his ingeniousness the day before, but all her face was alight. He had never met so radiant an encounter from her....½¥©

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‘Mr Silverdale’s not at home, miss,’ he said. ‘But he will be given your note when he comes in, and send an answer.’¿ã¥‘Yes, sir. The highest certificates in both. She’s a bit of an artist too in drawing and wood-cutting.’«©õShe had the satisfaction—and that made her step the more briskly and gave the sunshine this mysterious power of exhilaration—of knowing that she was serving and supplying. She loved the knowledge that never had Keeling’s typewriting been done for him so flawlessly, that never had the details of his business, such as came{195} within her ken, been so unerringly recorded. He might ask for the reference to the minutest point in a month-old letter, and she could always reinforce his deficient memory of it, and turn up the letter itself for confirmation of her knowledge. When days of overwhelming work had occurred, and he had suggested getting in a second typewriter to assist her, she had always, with a mixture of pride in her own efficiency, and of jealousy of a helping hand, proved herself capable of tackling any task that might be set her. Probably she could not have done it for any one else, but she could do it for him. It was easier, so she told herself, to do his work herself, than to instruct anybody else what to do. She allowed herself just that shade of self-deception, knowing all the time that there were plenty of ‘routine’ letters that any one else could have done as well as she. But she did not want anybody else to do them.¤¥ÎÖ¤ÉÚ¤¤ç¤