Whether too slight or too vague the ties that bind people casuallymeeting in a hotel at midnight, they possess one advantage at leastover the bonds which unite the elderly, who have lived togetheronce and so must live for ever. Slight they may be, but vividand genuine, merely because the power to break them is withinthe grasp of each, and there is no reason for continuance excepta true desire that continue they shall. When two people have beenmarried for years they seem to become unconscious of each other'sbodily presence so that they move as if alone, speak aloud thingswhich they do not expect to be answered, and in general seemto experience all the comfort of solitude without its loneliness.

　　The joint lives of Ridley and Helen had arrived at this stageof community, and it was often necessary for one or the other torecall with an effort whether a thing had been said or only thought,shared or dreamt in private. At four o'clock in the afternoon twoor three days later Mrs. Ambrose was standing brushing her hair,while her husband was in the dressing-room which opened out of her room,and occasionally, through the cascade of water--he was washinghis face--she caught exclamations, "So it goes on year after year;I wish, I wish, I wish I could make an end of it," to which shepaid no attention.

　　"It's white? Or only brown?" Thus she herself murmured,examining a hair which gleamed suspiciously among the brown.

　　She pulled it out and laid it on the dressing-table. She wascriticising her own appearance, or rather approving of it,standing a little way back from the glass and looking at her ownface with superb pride and melancholy, when her husband appearedin the doorway in his shirt sleeves, his face half obscured by a towel.

　　"You often tell me I don't notice things," he remarked.

　　"Tell me if this is a white hair, then?" she replied. She laidthe hair on his hand.

　　"There's not a white hair on your head," he exclaimed.

　　"Ah, Ridley, I begin to doubt," she sighed; and bowed her headunder his eyes so that he might judge, but the inspection producedonly a kiss where the line of parting ran, and husband and wifethen proceeded to move about the room, casually murmuring.

　　"What was that you were saying?" Helen remarked, after an intervalof conversation which no third person could have understood.

　　"Rachel--you ought to keep an eye upon Rachel," he observed significantly,and Helen, though she went on brushing her hair, looked at him.

　　His observations were apt to be true.

　　"Young gentlemen don't interest themselves in young women's educationwithout a motive," he remarked.

　　"Oh, Hirst," said Helen.

　　"Hirst and Hewet, they're all the same to me--all covered with spots,"he replied. "He advises her to read Gibbon. Did you know that?"Helen did not know that, but she would not allow herself inferiorto her husband in powers of observation. She merely said:

　　"Nothing would surprise me. Even that dreadful flying man we metat the dance--even Mr. Dalloway--even--""I advise you to be circumspect," said Ridley. "There's Willoughby,remember--Willoughby"; he pointed at a letter.

　　Helen looked with a sigh at an envelope which lay upon her dressing-table.

　　Yes, there lay Willoughby, curt, inexpressive, perpetually jocular,robbing a whole continent of mystery, enquiring after his daughter'smanners and morals--hoping she wasn't a bore, and bidding thempack her off to him on board the very next ship if she were--and then grateful and affectionate with suppressed emotion,and then half a page about his own triumphs over wretched littlenatives who went on strike and refused to load his ships, until heroared English oaths at them, "popping my head out of the windowjust as I was, in my shirt sleeves. The beggars had the sense to scatter.""If Theresa married Willoughby," she remarked, turning the pagewith a hairpin, "one doesn't see what's to prevent Rachel--"But Ridley was now off on grievances of his own connected withthe washing of his shirts, which somehow led to the frequent visitsof Hughling Elliot, who was a bore, a pedant, a dry stick of a man,and yet Ridley couldn't simply point at the door and tell him to go.

　　The truth of it was, they saw too many people. And so on and so on,more conjugal talk pattering softly and unintelligibly, until theywere both ready to go down to tea.

　　The first thing that caught Helen's eye as she came downstairswas a carriage at the door, filled with skirts and feathers noddingon the tops of hats. She had only time to gain the drawing-roombefore two names were oddly mispronounced by the Spanish maid,and Mrs. Thornbury came in slightly in advance of Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing.

　　"Mrs. Wilfrid Flushing," said Mrs. Thornbury, with a wave of her hand.

　　"A friend of our common friend Mrs. Raymond Parry."Mrs. Flushing shook hands energetically. She was a woman offorty perhaps, very well set up and erect, splendidly robust,though not as tall as the upright carriage of her body made her appear.

　　She looked Helen straight in the face and said, "You have a charmin' house."She had a strongly marked face, her eyes looked straight at you,and though naturally she was imperious in her manner she was nervousat the same time. Mrs. Thornbury acted as interpreter, making thingssmooth all round by a series of charming commonplace remarks.

　　"I've taken it upon myself, Mr. Ambrose," she said, "to promisethat you will be so kind as to give Mrs. Flushing the benefitof your experience. I'm sure no one here knows the country aswell as you do. No one takes such wonderful long walks. No one,I'm sure, has your encyclopaedic knowledge upon every subject.

　　Mr. Wilfrid Flushing is a collector. He has discovered really beautifulthings already. I had no notion that the peasants were so artistic--though of course in the past--""Not old things--new things," interrupted Mrs. Flushing curtly.

　　"That is, if he takes my advice."The Ambroses had not lived for many years in London without knowingsomething of a good many people, by name at least, and Helen rememberedhearing of the Flushings. Mr. Flushing was a man who kept an oldfurniture shop; he had always said he would not marry because mostwomen have red cheeks, and would not take a house because most houseshave narrow staircases, and would not eat meat because most animalsbleed when they are killed; and then he had married an eccentricaristocratic lady, who certainly was not pale, who looked as if sheate meat, who had forced him to do all the things he most disliked--and this then was the lady. Helen looked at her with interest.

　　They had moved out into the garden, where the tea was laid undera tree, and Mrs. Flushing was helping herself to cherry jam.

　　She had a peculiar jerking movement of the body when she spoke,which caused the canary-coloured plume on her hat to jerk too.

　　Her small but finely-cut and vigorous features, together with the deepred of lips and cheeks, pointed to many generations of well-trainedand well-nourished ancestors behind her.

　　"Nothin' that's more than twenty years old interests me,"she continued. "Mouldy old pictures, dirty old books, they stick'em in museums when they're only fit for burnin'.""I quite agree," Helen laughed. "But my husband spends his lifein digging up manuscripts which nobody wants." She was amusedby Ridley's expression of startled disapproval.

　　"There's a clever man in London called John who paints everso much better than the old masters," Mrs. Flushing continued.

　　"His pictures excite me--nothin' that's old excites me.""But even his pictures will become old," Mrs. Thornbury intervened.

　　"Then I'll have 'em burnt, or I'll put it in my will," said Mrs. Flushing.

　　"And Mrs. Flushing lived in one of the most beautiful old housesin England--Chillingley," Mrs. Thornbury explained to the restof them.

　　"If I'd my way I'd burn that to-morrow," Mrs. Flushing laughed.

　　She had a laugh like the cry of a jay, at once startling and joyless.

　　"What does any sane person want with those great big houses?"she demanded. "If you go downstairs after dark you're coveredwith black beetles, and the electric lights always goin' out.

　　What would you do if spiders came out of the tap when you turnedon the hot water?" she demanded, fixing her eye on Helen.

　　Mrs. Ambrose shrugged her shoulders with a smile.

　　"This is what I like," said Mrs. Flushing. She jerked her head atthe Villa. "A little house in a garden. I had one once in Ireland.

　　One could lie in bed in the mornin' and pick roses outside the windowwith one's toes.""And the gardeners, weren't they surprised?" Mrs. Thornbury enquired.

　　"There were no gardeners," Mrs. Flushing chuckled. "Nobody but meand an old woman without any teeth. You know the poor in Irelandlose their teeth after they're twenty. But you wouldn't expecta politician to understand that--Arthur Balfour wouldn't understand that."Ridley sighed that he never expected any one to understand anything,least of all politicians.

　　"However," he concluded, "there's one advantage I find in extremeold age--nothing matters a hang except one's food and one's digestion.

　　All I ask is to be left alone to moulder away in solitude. It's obviousthat the world's going as fast as it can to--the Nethermost Pit,and all I can do is to sit still and consume as much of my ownsmoke as possible." He groaned, and with a melancholy glance laidthe jam on his bread, for he felt the atmosphere of this abruptlady distinctly unsympathetic.

　　"I always contradict my husband when he says that," said Mrs. Thornburysweetly. "You men! Where would you be if it weren't for the women!""Read the _Symposium_," said Ridley grimly.

　　"_Symposium_?" cried Mrs. Flushing. "That's Latin or Greek?

　　Tell me, is there a good translation?""No," said Ridley. "You will have to learn Greek."Mrs. Flushing cried, "Ah, ah, ah! I'd rather break stones in the road.

　　I always envy the men who break stones and sit on those nice littleheaps all day wearin' spectacles. I'd infinitely rather breakstones than clean out poultry runs, or feed the cows, or--"Here Rachel came up from the lower garden with a book in her hand.

　　"What's that book?" said Ridley, when she had shaken hands.

　　"It's Gibbon," said Rachel as she sat down.

　　"_The_ _Decline_ _and_ _Fall_ _of_ _the_ _Roman_ _Empire_?"said Mrs. Thornbury. "A very wonderful book, I know. My dearfather was always quoting it at us, with the result that we resolvednever to read a line.""Gibbon the historian?" enquired Mrs. Flushing. "I connect himwith some of the happiest hours of my life. We used to lie in bedand read Gibbon--about the massacres of the Christians, I remember--when we were supposed to be asleep. It's no joke, I can tell you,readin' a great big book, in double columns, by a night-light,and the light that comes through a chink in the door. Then therewere the moths--tiger moths, yellow moths, and horrid cockchafers.

　　Louisa, my sister, would have the window open. I wanted it shut.

　　We fought every night of our lives over that window. Have you everseen a moth dyin' in a night-light?" she enquired.

　　Again there was an interruption. Hewet and Hirst appearedat the drawing-room window and came up to the tea-table.

　　Rachel's heart beat hard. She was conscious of an extraordinaryintensity in everything, as though their presence stripped some coveroff the surface of things; but the greetings were remarkably commonplace.

　　"Excuse me," said Hirst, rising from his chair directly hehad sat down. He went into the drawing-room, and returnedwith a cushion which he placed carefully upon his seat.

　　"Rheumatism," he remarked, as he sat down for the second time.

　　"The result of the dance?" Helen enquired.

　　"Whenever I get at all run down I tend to be rheumatic," Hirst stated.

　　He bent his wrist back sharply. "I hear little pieces of chalkgrinding together!"Rachel looked at him. She was amused, and yet she was respectful;if such a thing could be, the upper part of her face seemed to laugh,and the lower part to check its laughter.

　　Hewet picked up the book that lay on the ground.

　　"You like this?" he asked in an undertone.

　　"No, I don't like it," she replied. She had indeed been tryingall the afternoon to read it, and for some reason the glory whichshe had perceived at first had faded, and, read as she would,she could not grasp the meaning with her mind.

　　"It goes round, round, round, like a roll of oil-cloth," she hazarded.

　　Evidently she meant Hewet alone to hear her words, but Hirst demanded,"What d'you mean?"She was instantly ashamed of her figure of speech, for she couldnot explain it in words of sober criticism.

　　"Surely it's the most perfect style, so far as style goes, that's everbeen invented," he continued. "Every sentence is practically perfect,and the wit--""Ugly in body, repulsive in mind," she thought, instead of thinkingabout Gibbon's style. "Yes, but strong, searching, unyielding in mind."She looked at his big head, a disproportionate part of which wasoccupied by the forehead, and at the direct, severe eyes.

　　"I give you up in despair," he said. He meant it lightly, but shetook it seriously, and believed that her value as a human being waslessened because she did not happen to admire the style of Gibbon.

　　The others were talking now in a group about the native villageswhich Mrs. Flushing ought to visit.

　　"I despair too," she said impetuously. "How are you going to judgepeople merely by their minds?""You agree with my spinster Aunt, I expect," said St. John in hisjaunty manner, which was always irritating because it made the personhe talked to appear unduly clumsy and in earnest. "'Be good,sweet maid'--I thought Mr. Kingsley and my Aunt were now obsolete.""One can be very nice without having read a book," she asserted.

　　Very silly and simple her words sounded, and laid her opento derision.

　　"Did I ever deny it?" Hirst enquired, raising his eyebrows.

　　Most unexpectedly Mrs. Thornbury here intervened, either because itwas her mission to keep things smooth or because she had longwished to speak to Mr. Hirst, feeling as she did that young menwere her sons.

　　"I have lived all my life with people like your Aunt, Mr. Hirst,"she said, leaning forward in her chair. Her brown squirrel-likeeyes became even brighter than usual. "They have never heardof Gibbon. They only care for their pheasants and their peasants.

　　They are great big men who look so fine on horseback, as peoplemust have done, I think, in the days of the great wars. Say whatyou like against them--they are animal, they are unintellectual;they don't read themselves, and they don't want others to read,but they are some of the finest and the kindest human beings onthe face of the earth! You would be surprised at some of the storiesI could tell. You have never guessed, perhaps, at all the romancesthat go on in the heart of the country. There are the people, I feel,among whom Shakespeare will be born if he is ever born again.

　　In those old houses, up among the Downs--""My Aunt," Hirst interrupted, "spends her life in East Lambethamong the degraded poor. I only quoted my Aunt because she isinclined to persecute people she calls 'intellectual,' which iswhat I suspect Miss Vinrace of doing. It's all the fashion now.

　　If you're clever it's always taken for grante............