Nor till mid-winter did Barfoot again see his friends the Micklethwaites. By invitation he went to South Tottenham on New Year’s Eve, and dined with them at seven o’clock. He was the first guest that had entered the house since their marriage.

From the very doorstep Everard became conscious of a domestic atmosphere that told soothingly upon his nerves. The little servant who opened to him exhibited a gentle, noiseless demeanour which was no doubt the result of careful discipline. Micklethwaite himself, who at once came out into the passage, gave proof of a like influence; his hearty greeting was spoken in soft tones; a placid happiness beamed from his face. In the sitting-room (Micklethwaite’s study, used for reception because the other had to serve as dining-room) tempered lamplight and the glow of a hospitable fire showed the hostess and her blind sister standing in expectation; to Everard’s eyes both of them looked far better in health than a few months ago. Mrs. Micklethwaite was no longer so distressingly old; an expression that resembled girlish pleasure lit up her countenance as she stepped forward; nay, if he mistook not, there came a gentle warmth to her cheek, and the momentary downward glance was as graceful and modest as in a youthful bride. Never had Barfoot approached a woman with more finished courtesy, the sincere expression of his feeling. The blind sister he regarded in like spirit; his voice touched its softest note as he held her hand for a moment and replied to her pleasant words.

No undue indication of poverty disturbed him. He saw that the house had been improved in many ways since Mrs. Micklethwaite had taken possession of it; pictures, ornaments, pieces of furniture were added, all in simple taste, but serving to heighten the effect of refined comfort. Where the average woman would have displayed pretentious emptiness, Mrs. Micklethwaite had made a home which in its way was beautiful. The dinner, which she herself had cooked, and which she assisted in serving, aimed at being no more than a simple; decorous meal, but the guest unfeignedly enjoyed it; even the vegetables and the bread seemed to him to have a daintier flavour than at many a rich table. He could not help noticing and admiring the skill with which Miss Wheatley ate without seeing what was before her; had he not known her misfortune, he would hardly have become aware of it by any peculiarity as she sat opposite to him.

The mathematician had learnt to sit upon a chair like ordinary mortals. For the first week or two it must have cost him severe restraint; now he betrayed no temptation to roll and jerk and twist himself. When the ladies retired, he reached from the sideboard a box which Barfoot viewed with uneasiness.

‘Do you smoke here — in this room?’

‘Oh, why not?’

Everard glanced at the pretty curtains before the windows.

‘No, my boy, you do not smoke here. And, in fact, I like your claret; I won’t spoil the flavour of it.’

‘As you please; but I think Fanny will be distressed.’

‘You shall say that I have abandoned the weed.’

Emotions were at conflict in Micklethwaite’s mind, but finally he beamed with gratitude.

‘Barfoot’— he bent forward and touched his friend’s arm —‘there are angels walking the earth in this our day. Science hasn’t abolished them, my dear fellow, and I don’t think it ever will.’

‘It falls to the lot of but few men to encounter them, and of fewer still to entertain them permanently in a cottage at South Tottenham.’

‘You are right.’ Micklethwaite laughed in a new way, with scarcely any sound; a change Everard had already noticed. ‘These two sisters — but I had better not speak about them. In my old age I have become a worshipper, a mystic, a man of dream and vision.’

‘How about worship in a parochial sense?’ inquired Barfoot, smiling. ‘Any difficulty of that point?’

‘I conform, in moderation. Nothing would be asked of me. There is no fanaticism, no intolerance. It would be brutal if I declined to go to church on a Sunday morning. You see, my strictly scientific attitude helps in avoiding offence. Fanny can’t understand it, but my lack of dogmatism vastly relieves her. I have been trying to explain to her that the scientific mind can have nothing to do with materialism. The new order of ideas is of course very difficult for her to grasp; but in time, in time.’

‘For heaven’s sake, don’t attempt conversion!’

‘On no account whatever. But I should like her to see what is meant by perception and conception, by the relativity of time and space — and a few simple things of that kind!’

Barfoot laughed heartily.

‘By-the-bye,’ he said, shifting to safer ground, ‘my brother Tom is in London, and in wretched health. His angel is from the wrong quarter, from the nethermost pit. I seriously believe that she has a plan for killing her husband. You remember my mentioning in a letter his horse-accident? He has never recovered from that, and as likely as not never will. His wife brought him away from Madeira just when he ought to have stopped there to get well. He settled himself at Torquay, whilst that woman ran about to pay visits. It was understood that she should go back to him at Torquay, but this she at length refused to do. The place was too dull; it didn’t suit her extremely delicate health; she must live in London, her pure native air. If Tom had taken any advice, he would have let her live just where she pleased, thanking Heaven that she was at a distance from him. But the poor fellow can’t be away from her. He has come up, and here I feel convinced he will die. It’s a very monstrous thing, but uncommonly like women in general who have got a man into their power.’

Micklethwaite shook his head.

‘You are too hard upon them. You have been unlucky. You know my view of your duty.’

‘I begin to think that marriage isn’t impossible for me,’ said Barfoot, with a grave smile.

‘Ha! Capital!’

‘But as likely as not it will be marriage without forms — imply a free union.’

The mathematician was downcast.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. It won’t do. We must conform. Besides, in that case the person decidedly isn’t suitable to you. You of all men must marry a lady.’

‘I should never think of any one that wasn’t a lady.’

‘Is emancipation getting as far as that? Do ladies enter into that kind of union?’

‘I don’t know of any example. That’s just why the idea tempts me.’ Barfoot would go no further in explanation.

‘How about your new algebra?’

‘Alas! My dear boy, the temptation is so frightful — when I get back home. Remember that I have never known what it was to sit and talk through the evening with ordinary friends, let alone — It’s too much for me just yet. And, you know, I don’t venture to work on Sundays. That will come; all in good time. I must grant myself half a year of luxury after such a life as mine has been.’

‘Of course you must. Let algebra wait.’

‘I think it over, of course, at odd moments. Church on Sunday morning is a good opportunity.’

Barfoot could not stay to see the old year out, but good wishes were none the less heartily exchanged before he went. Micklethwaite walked with him to the railway station; at a few paces’ distance from his house he stood and pointed back to it.

‘That little place, Barfoot, is one of the sacred spots of the earth. Strange to think that the house has been waiting for me there through all the years of my hopelessness. I feel that a mysterious light ought to shine about it. It oughtn’t to look just like common houses.’

On his way home Everard thought over what he had seen and heard, smiling good-naturedly. Well, that was one ideal of marriage. Not his ideal; but very beautiful amid the vulgarities and vileness of ordinary experience. It was the old fashion in its purest presentment; the consecrated form of domestic happiness, removed beyond reach of satire, only to be touched, if touched at all, with the very gentlest irony.

A life by no means for him. If he tried it, even with a woman so perfect, he would perish of ennui. For him marriage must not mean repose, inevitably tending to drowsiness, but the mutual incitement of vigorous minds. Passion — yes, there must be passion, at all events to begin with; passion not impossible of revival in days subsequent to its first indulgence. Beauty in the academic sense he no longer demanded; enough that the face spoke eloquently, that the limbs were vigorous. Let beauty perish if it cannot ally itself with mind; be a woman what else she may, let her have brains and the power of using them! In that demand the maturity of his manhood expressed itself. For casual amour the odalisque could still prevail with him; but for the life of wedlock, the durable companionship of man and woman, intellect was his first requirement.

A woman with man’s capability of understanding and reasoning; free from superstition, religious or social; far above the ignoble weaknesses which men have been base enough to idealize in her sex. A woman who would scorn the vulgarism of jealousy, and yet know what it is to love. This was asking much of nature and civilization; did he grossly deceive himself in thinking he had found the paragon?

For thus far had he advanced in his thoughts of Rhoda Nunn. If the phrase had any meaning, he was in love with her; yet, strange complex of emotions, he was still only half serious in his desire to take her for a wife, wishing rather to amuse and flatter himself by merely inspiring her with passion. Therefore he refused to entertain a thought of formal marriage. To obtain her consent to marriage would mean nothing at all; it would afford him no satisfaction. But so to play upon her emotions that the proud, intellectual, earnest woman was willing to defy society for his sake — ah! that would be an end worth achieving.

Ever since the dialogue in which he frankly explained his position, and all but declared love, he had not once seen Rhoda in private. She shunned him purposely beyond a doubt, and did not that denote a fear of him justified by her inclination? The postponement of what must necessarily come to pass between them began to try his patience, as assuredly it inflamed his ardour. If no other resource offered, he would be obliged to make his cousin an accomplice by requesting her beforehand to leave him alone with Rhoda some evening when he had called upon them.

But it was time that chance favoured him, and his interview with Miss Nunn came about in a way he could not have foreseen.

At the end of the first week of January he was invited to dine at Miss Barfoot’s. The afternoon had been foggy, and when he set forth there seemed to be some likelihood of a plague of choking darkness such as would obstruct traffic. As usual, he went by train to Sloane Square, purposing (for it was dry under foot, and he could not disregard small economies) to walk the short distance from there to Queen’s Road. On coming out from the station he found the fog so dense that it was doubtful whether he could reach his journey’s end. Cabs were not to be had; he must either explore the gloom, with risk of getting nowhere at all, or give it up and take a train back. But he longed too ardently for the sight of Rhoda to abandon his evening without an effort. Having with difficulty made his way into King’s Road, he found progress easier on account of the shop illuminations; the fog, however, was growing every moment more fearsome, and when he had to turn out of the highway his case appeared desperate. Literally he groped along, feeling the fronts of the houses. As under ordinary circumstances he would have had only just time enough to reach his cousin’s punctually, he must be very late: perhaps they would conclude that he had not ventured out on such a night, and were already dining without him. No matter; as well go one way as another now. After abandoning hope several times, and all but asphyxiated, he found by inquiry of a man with whom he collided that he was actually within a few doors of his destination. Another effort and he rang a joyous peal at the bell.

A mistake. It was the wrong house, and he had to go two doors farther on.

This time he procured admittance to the familiar little hall. The servant smiled at him, but said nothing. He was led to the drawing-room, and there found Rhoda Nunn alone. This fact did not so much surprise him as Rhoda’s appearance. For the first time since he had known her, her dress was not uniform black; she wore a red silk blouse with a black skirt, and so admirable was the effect of this costume that he scarcely refrained from a delighted exclamation.

Some concern was visible in her face.

‘I am sorry to say,’ were her first words, ‘that Miss Barfoot will not be here in time for dinner. She went to Faversham this morning, and ought to have been back about half-past seven. But a telegram came some time ago. A thick fog caused her to miss the train, and the next doesn’t reach Victoria till ten minutes past ten.’

It was now half-past eight; dinner had been appointed for the hour. Barfoot explained his lateness in arriving.

‘Is it so bad as that? I didn’t know.’

The situation embarrassed both of them. Barfoot suspected a hope on Miss Nunn’s part that he would relieve her of his company, but, even had there been no external hindrance, he could not have relinquished the happy occasion. To use frankness was best.

‘Out of the question for me to leave the house,’ he said, meeting her eyes and smiling. ‘You won’t be hard upon a starving man?’

At once Rhoda made a pretence of having felt no hesitation.

‘Oh, of course we will dine immediately.’ She rang the bell. ‘Miss Barfoot took it for granted that I would represent her. Look, the fog is penetrating even to our fireside.’

‘Cheerful, very. What is Mary doing at Faversham?’

‘Some one she has been corresponding with for some time begged her to go down and give an address to a number of ladies on — a certain subject.’

‘Ah! Mary is on the way to become a celebrity.’

‘Quite against her will, as you know.’

They went to dinner, and Barfoot, thoroughly enjoying the abnormal state of things, continued to talk of his cousin.

‘It seems to me that she can’t logically refuse to put herself forward. Work of her kind can’t be done in a corner. It isn’t a case of “Oh teach the orphan girl to sew.”’

‘I have used the same argument to her,’ said Rhoda.

Her place at the head of the table had its full effect upon Everard’s imagination. Why should he hold by a resolve of which he did not absolutely approve the motive? Why not ask her simply to be his wife, and so remove one element of difficulty from his pursuit? True, he was wretchedly poor. Marrying on such an income, he would at once find his freedom restricted in every direction. But then, more likely than not, Rhoda had determined against marriage, and of him, especially, never thought for a moment as a possible husband. Well, that was what he wanted to ascertain.

They conversed naturally enough till the meal was over. Then their embarrassment revived, but this time it was Rhoda who took the initiative.

‘Shall I leave you to your meditations?’ she asked, moving a few inches from the table.

‘I should much prefer your society, if you will grant it me for a little longer.’

Without speaking, she rose and led the way to the drawingroom. There, sitting at a formal distance from each other, they talked — of the fog. Would Miss Barfoot be able to get back at all?

‘A propos,’ said Everard, ‘did you ever read “The City of Dreadful Night”?’

‘Yes, I have read it.’

‘Without sympathy, of course?’

‘Why “of course”? Do I seem to you a shallow optimist?’

‘No. A vigorous and rational optimist — such as I myself aim at being.’

‘Do you? But optimism of that kind must be proved by some effort on behalf of society.’

‘Precisely the effort I am making. If a man works at developing and fortifying the best things in his own character, he is surely doing society a service.’

She smiled sceptically.

‘Yes, no doubt. But how do you develop and fortify yourself?’

She was meeting him half-way, thought Everard. Foreseeing the inevitable, she wished to have it over and done with. Or else  —

‘I live very quietly,’ was his reply, ‘thinking of grave problems most of my time. You know I am a great deal alone.’

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