TEN HOURS 
 
 CONSTANCE I. SMITH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 
 
 1921
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQ2I, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 THE QUINN 8, BODEN COMPANY 
 RAHWAY. N. J.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 MORNING DUTIES 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I SHOPPING 3 
 
 II CELIA, FATHER, AND OTHERS . . . 22 
 
 III NOON 37 
 
 IV ROBERT 74 
 
 PART II 
 GWENNIE 
 
 V DINNER 8 9 
 
 VI AFTER DINNER . . " 
 
 VII CELIA AND GWENNIE "9 
 
 VIII GWENNIE ALONE *39 
 
 PART III 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 IX SITTING SEWING '59 
 
 X LEONARD HYDE ^6 
 
 XI LOVE 2 4 
 
 XII LURE 2 3* 
 
 XIII EFFECTS .246 
 
 XIV FORESIGHT ....... 261 
 
 PART IV 
 SUNSET 
 
 XV TEA-TIME 285 
 
 XVI SIX O'CLOCK 296 
 
 2138002
 
 PARTI 
 MORNING DUTIES 
 
 . . . Centered in the sphere 
 
 Of common duties.'' TENNYSON.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 SHOPPING 
 
 THE curb lay beneath the toes of her shoes. 
 Celia stared at it, and recognizing that Dean 
 Street had now ended and that Lavender Road 
 was sliding away on the other side of Wykeham 
 Rise, she lifted her head, shot to left and right 
 a glance which noted traffic, and then crossed 
 alertly, conscious again for a few moments of 
 the things stationary and moving which filled the 
 gray morning light. 'Buses, cars, people, shops 
 they all drew near and she surveyed them. Then 
 her wide blue eyes dropped. Walking briskly 
 and buoyantly, she looked only at the surface of 
 pavement immediately before her. 
 
 She saw the lines of brown earth between the 
 paving-stones ; she saw innumerable legs waggling 
 in front and beside her; masculine legs in yel- 
 low gaiters, or baggy or tight, or light or dark, 
 3
 
 4 TEN HOURS 
 
 trousers; and feminine legs under a flop of skirt. 
 Gusts of tobacco smoke and petroleum came to 
 her nostrils; sharp sounds cut her ears; once or 
 twice she sniffed, and all the time she hummed, 
 not because she was happy; not for any reason 
 at all but quite unconsciously. She was not think- 
 ing, and yet her brain wheeled. Far away on 
 the background of her mind little dim figures of 
 thoughts moved, but they were too distant to 
 have outline. They merely buzzed senselessly, 
 and jostled each other like people moving in a 
 fog, and they tired her brain without offering it 
 the compensation of interest. 
 
 Then that tooth began to ache. She was 
 gripped and commanded by two sensations which 
 were the only real things in a nebulous world of 
 shifting gray and silver. 
 
 Most sharp, most piercing, was the toothache. 
 It was in her mouth, but it influenced almost 
 every part of her body. A little fierce, red-hot 
 thing, it screwed down into her, and her flesh 
 and her nerves shrank from it. It screwed, and 
 probed, and burnt; it jagged savagely; it was 
 visualized as a malevolent thrust of pulsing heat.
 
 SHOPPING 5 
 
 Now her mouth was a furnace; her body cold. 
 
 The other sensation was born of her heart, 
 but seemed nevertheless to be in the pit of her 
 stomach ; a heavy, laden, sickening sensation. Dis- 
 content, self-pity, hopelessness it was any of 
 these things, or perhaps, more truly, it was com- 
 posed of all three. 
 
 Celia, too, was usually so happy. 
 
 It was all the tooth. 
 
 II 
 
 Her underlip pushed at her upper so that 
 her mouth pouted resentfully. Her shoulders 
 drooped, and her eyes in their protest became 
 enormous. For the moment her step grew slow 
 and heavy. She felt the wind to be a blade 
 which slashed her face; she saw the interminable 
 road riding whitely on between the gray banks 
 of shops with, in its hardness and straightness 
 and sharpness, an air almost of ferocity. To 
 cut through thoroughfares, and houses, commons, 
 fields, and hills, indifferent to the humanity it 
 flung behind it, that was its purpose. Self- 
 sufficing, staring, clean, it drove on, watching all
 
 6 TEN HOURS 
 
 the time the clouds which, beyond leagues of sil- 
 very space, went with it. 
 
 A cold, hard, brutal morning. 
 
 This was the forlorn and self-pitying Celia; 
 the rare Celia who saw the world as large and 
 callous, and, where benefits for herself were con- 
 cerned, stingy. The real Celia was not given 
 to introspection, but with sunny acquiescence, re- 
 ceived sorrow, and compensation, denial, and 
 grants, as cognate parts of the day's evolution. 
 A fresh and extremely intrigued expression 
 usually dwelt in Celia's eyes. " It can't be helped. 
 We must put up with it." That was her natural 
 philosophy. 
 
 But for the last few months there had been 
 Gwennie . . . and Robert . . . and Mr. Hyde 
 . . . Celia crimsoned. Her thoughts, to drown 
 that last name, shrieked at her, " And the tooth 
 the tooth the tooth! You must have it out. 
 Don't think about it. Look at those apples." 
 
 Frantically Celia's ego leaped beyond the radius 
 of that grinding heat; that leaden weight; those 
 naked facts; and concentrated itself on its sur- 
 roundings.
 
 SHOPPING 7 
 
 III 
 
 But one could not get beyond the pain. It 
 was in the center of everything. Round its stab- 
 bing fierceness as round a pivot, everything was 
 grouped in shapes which for a dull moment 
 seemed all geometrical : squares, triangles, circles, 
 oblongs. One by one they lifted into vision, and 
 stood down the clear pale light, and Celia stared 
 at them, ignoring as much as possible, the waves 
 of pain rolling round them. 
 
 Lavender Road, at no time sluggish, was always 
 crowded on Saturdays. Along its right-hand side 
 where she was standing, stalls were set. You 
 could hardly move, so many were the people look- 
 ing at them, and at the shops, and coming and 
 going up the strip of pavement between. 
 
 Celia's mind ticked off comments. Those ap- 
 ples looked good; cheap, too, if they got them 
 from the front, and not from the back where they 
 had a different kind altogether. Still, you could 
 get right out into the street and stand behind 
 the stall; people did. You had to be sharp, or 
 they'd fob any old stuff off on you. Pah! how
 
 8 TEN HOURS 
 
 the fish smelt! How could people buy fish off 
 stalls! 
 
 Vegetables were different, but fish! Why, it 
 had probably been in the man's bedroom all 
 night! These costers only had one room for 
 the entire family, and the stock as well. Bananas, 
 a penny each ... but they were very soft. 
 There was a doll's stall; heaps of kiddies round 
 it. There was the cats' meat. Everybody catered 
 for, you see ! Those dates looked nice. Perhaps 
 she'd better get half a pound. Not if they were 
 already done up in bags, though, so you couldn't 
 see what you were buying. No, they weren't 
 done up. 
 
 Celia stopped before the stall. " Half a pound 
 of dates, please." 
 
 As, narrowly she watched selection and weight, 
 toothache and heartache were both forgotten. 
 Celia, the sensible, practical housewife, now pre- 
 dominated over the other more imaginative Celias. 
 The world was real enough now; no huge crea- 
 ture, intent on evading the responsibility of look- 
 ing after her and giving her adequately bright 
 housing room, but a mere accretion of air, sky,
 
 SHOPPING 9 
 
 mold, brick, and exchangeable goods. There 
 were no complexities, no insecurities, no arid 
 places, no depths, no heights. Everything was 
 simple and obvious. One bought, ate, slept, and 
 served other people that was Life. 
 
 As she walked away, deciding that Sunday's 
 joint should be followed by a date-pudding, the 
 wistfulness was smoothed from her face. She 
 was engrossed and normal. From an aggressive 
 personality, keen as steel, the road had dwindled 
 to a width of macadam patiently bearing the 
 blows of traffic. Her mind had recovered equil- 
 ibrium, and the highly-colored pictures of its pre- 
 vious nervous state were destroyed. 
 
 Wind swept down the streets. After a night 
 of almost continuous rain, stone and brick were 
 washed and stood out sharp under a sky full of 
 gray cloud and high white lights. The sun was 
 a silver spot. Faint silvery gleams came and went 
 in the air, never warming to yellow, but diffusing 
 a chill brightness over the ridged roof and shelv- 
 ing side-streets. The intense clarity of the day- 
 light made all distances bold in outline and color. 
 They pierced singly the fugitive lights, massed
 
 io TEN HOURS 
 
 collectively in hard unevenness beneath the clouds. 
 Long ropes of smoke stretched out and faded. 
 Sounds were an assault upon the hearing so strid- 
 ently they came from all quarters, a harsh core 
 to the soft booming utterance of the wind. 
 
 Celia looked calmly about her. With com- 
 plete success she held off pain and discontent. 
 Then suddenly these tossed aside her determined 
 preoccupation; they swept down on her; they 
 crushed her. 
 
 She shook herself girlishly. " Oh dear, I am 
 silly! I don't know what's the matter with me. 
 It's all this tooth. I really must have it out. Let 
 me see I want some sago." 
 
 She turned into the corn-chandler's. Think 
 hard of sago ignore that dancing blade of heat 
 in one's mouth; that chill hand squeezing one's 
 heart. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was brown and dim inside the corn- 
 chandler's. Pale sacks stood everywhere, and 
 there were piles of bright-colored packets, and 
 lines of brown drawers. The girl who served 
 Celia wore a blue cotton apron, and above it her
 
 SHOPPING ii 
 
 long face was white, her nose red, her mouth a 
 flaccid hole. She spoke thickly; she breathed 
 audibly; she stared before her with dull pained 
 eyes. 
 
 " She's simply stuffed with cold." Celia re- 
 flected, swiftly pitying. " She looks miserable. 
 All the fuss I make about toothache ! Her head 
 aches, I know." 
 
 She gave a confirmatory jerk to her round 
 chin. It was now an established fact that she, 
 Celia, was a grumbler, rooted in egoism and cal- 
 lous disregard for other people's aches and pains 
 and sinking sensations. Fancying herself so ill- 
 used! so alone in her misfortunes! 
 
 "A visit to a hospital's what I want! " 
 
 She left the shop, and in a perfect whirlwind 
 of self-contempt, searched the faces of passers- 
 by. 
 
 The crowd was composed mostly of women; 
 old women with red and brown places under their 
 loose skins, and necks lined like the bark of a 
 tree; younger women, nearly all of them in a cer- 
 tain condition, their eyes intent on the shops, their 
 movements leisurely, their gloveless shiny hands
 
 12 TEN HOURS 
 
 occupied with string bags, or the handles of a 
 " pram " wherein sat babies fat white-faced 
 babies who looked, Celia decided, " as if they'd 
 bejen steamed." 
 
 There were many children too ; boys with wiz- 
 ened and calculating faces, and girls more childish 
 and robust; here and there you saw a husband, 
 his whole mind centered on the choice of Sun- 
 day's joint, or Sunday morning's bloater; and in 
 a monotonous line behind the stalls stood the 
 costers thin, hoarse, cold, and vivacious. Occa- 
 sionally a secretive filthy man or woman slid by. 
 They looked neither to right nor left, but with 
 lips mumbling and eyes at once vacant and veiled, 
 drew gaping boots along the pavement, and loosed 
 a wave of dust and foulness on the air. Tramps 
 these. 
 
 Smell of black garments, and flesh, and breath, 
 and fish, and meat that was Lavender Road; 
 that was life for some people. 
 
 Celia's mouth, at all times pretty, grew beauti- 
 ful in its compassion. Her eyes protested again, 
 but this time impersonally. 
 
 " If you were like them you might have cause
 
 SHOPPING 13 
 
 to be sorry for yourself," her conscience said 
 acidly. " As it is you'll get a real sorrow if 
 you're not careful." 
 
 But her belief in the vengeful disposition of 
 Fortune was less strong than her sense of humor. 
 Very faintly she smiled. She was not afraid of 
 being overtaken by calamity simply because she 
 had indulged momentarily in discontent. Her 
 complaints were culpable but not criminal. Never- 
 theless, thinking about yourself was a bad habit 
 to form. 
 
 Celia's will sent messages to her feet, her 
 shoulders, her eyes. She walked briskly, her 
 body disciplined, her mouth level instead of droop- 
 ing downward. She shook her fluffy head as if 
 her cares were exterior things which hovered and 
 wailed gnat-like about her ears. Now she was 
 mistress of herself, valiant and resourceful. De- 
 liberately she, as it were, took her circumstances 
 in hand and re-cast them, abstracting sting, oblit- 
 erating dark shades, emphasizing acknowledged 
 brightnesses. Serenely she surveyed their new 
 presentment. Yes, they were like that; just like 
 that.
 
 I4 TEN HOURS 
 
 She turned into the butcher's. 
 
 V 
 
 The smell of humanity and joints nauseated 
 her. The red and cream of the meat, its coarse- 
 ness, its quality, suddenly became horrible. 
 
 The impression came and went within an in- 
 stant. She refused to recognize it, but looked 
 sharply at the tickets, seeking amid many " Im- 
 ported Meat " for one " English." Automati- 
 cally Celia the housewife rose supreme once more. 
 So little habitual were these fluctuations between 
 unrest in the face of vaguely realized apprehen- 
 sions, and competent acceptance of the day's de- 
 mands, that sight of the familiar objects which 
 composed the mosaic of the latter, were sufficient 
 to dull completely, if temporarily, those new and 
 disquieting moods. Everything now became sub- 
 ordinated to the pursuit of an English " neck," 
 the introduction of nasty meat into the house 
 meaning severe domestic trouble. 
 
 She obtained the joint. Triumphantly she 
 emerged into the street and hurried homeward, 
 her mind intent on the division of scrag, and neck,
 
 SHOPPING 15 
 
 and best end, and their apportioning to various 
 meals. Not till she had disposed of each sec- 
 tion did she become consciously aware again that 
 neither the tooth nor the heaviness of heart had 
 been robbed of their corroding power by her at- 
 tempts to reduce them to trivialities common to all 
 humanity. The elaborate tissue of her arguments 
 and reasoning was torn aside. She was in pain. 
 She was unhappy. 
 
 The tooth jumped with increased violence as 
 she neared the side-road up which she would turn 
 to gain Wykeham Common. Defensively she 
 stared at a milliner's shop, and saw herself re- 
 flected in its background of mirror. How frum- 
 pish she looked! Tired too, and with features 
 drawn a little with pain and dissatisfaction. Her 
 black felt hat was utterly without character; her 
 skirt hung unequally; her seal fur belonged to a 
 fashion extinct for three years. 
 
 She endured a sudden numbing vision of her- 
 self at thirty-five. Eleven years separated her 
 age from that, but as she inspected her reflection 
 she realized vividly what she would be like then. 
 Tall; not slender as now, but angular; face
 
 1 6 TEN HOURS 
 
 pinched into meanness; eyes wan; hands and feet 
 flat and flapping; spinstery-looking despite the fact 
 -that she was Mrs. Robert Jennings. 
 
 " You look a maiden now; not a bit as if you've 
 been married two years. You'll be bony then." 
 
 Rather languidly her conscience prodded her 
 away from the shop. She turned up the side- 
 road, rallying herself. " I don't know what is 
 the matter with me. I've got the blues, I expect. 
 One does sometimes." 
 
 There were three girls coming down the road 
 and she looked at them. They wore beautiful 
 costumes, and buff velours, and silk stockings and 
 heavy furs. Earrings swung under piquant tufts 
 of hair; their full figures were pliant and strong; 
 they walked joyously. About them was an atmos- 
 phere of richness and good-breeding, and Celia's 
 expression grew unpleasant. Her eyes hardened; 
 her upper lip lifted slightly so that cynicism sat 
 on her mouth like a wasp on a rose. She looked 
 narrow and young and acid. 
 
 The girls passed. Celia was cloaked in dark- 
 ness. All her weaknesses throbbed in her heart 
 jealousy, prejudice, swift refusal to grant beauty
 
 SHOPPING 17 
 
 to those girls, and the unjustifiable sense that they 
 had scanned her own appearance and placed her 
 socially and physically several scales below them. 
 
 Celia, educated at a private school, the daugh- 
 ter of a clerk, the wife of a clerk, had her justice 
 and her good sense blinded by hostility against 
 the upper classes. They did not want her; she 
 did not want them. With the silent forming of 
 this opinion, her upper lip curled and her soft 
 chin tilted upward. She looked neither imper- 
 tinent nor defensive ; she merely became detached, 
 and as unresponsive as a brick wall. Her naive- 
 te, her spontaneous brightness withered. FOP 
 tune had apportioned her a bourgeois position, 
 She would keep it. 
 
 In her old clothes those girls would have looked 
 nothing. . . . What lovely hats! What cos- 
 tumes! If Robert spent less money in books she 
 could have more clothes. This nasty old felt, 
 spotted with innumerable rains; these cheap 
 woolen gloves; this miserable lean piece of fur 
 . . . she hated them. 
 
 If only the tooth would stop aching.
 
 1 8 TEN HOURS 
 
 VI 
 
 Along the top of the road stretched Wyke- 
 ham Common. As she crossed from the parallel 
 line of small gray houses and walked through a 
 grove of high leafless elms, only railings separat- 
 ing her from the sodden grasses, the wind rolled 
 strongly across the open space and drowned her 
 in fresh but not cold air. On either side of the 
 narrow asphalt path, the ground was black, and 
 here and there glimmering with rain-pools. Re- 
 peated rain had made the bare widths between 
 the grass pulpy; the damp breath of soaked dead 
 leaves and soaked grass and sod came to her nos- 
 trils. Twigs and thin branches were scattered 
 beneath the trees, and in the tops of the elms 
 the wind roared; on the pensive skyline the lean 
 bushes of poplars swung like pendulums. 
 
 White lights flashed upon the green, and faded. 
 Uniformly gray and sharp-cut, the houses near 
 and distant stood round the common, wrapped in 
 that abundance of earth-scented wind. No sun- 
 light, no leaves, no warmth. Nevertheless, the 
 common was singularly bright, full of rustlings
 
 SHOPPING 19 
 
 and melodious oozings; washed, perfumed. The 
 tartness of winter was passing from it. There 
 was softness in the clouds and in the shadows. 
 The wilderness of the sky was not savage but 
 tantalizing, and as it rolled low over the distant 
 roofs, it spoke of coming blue and a yielded sun. 
 
 She passed the pond. The three islands in its 
 center were black and tangled. The water rose 
 in tiny pyramids, some of their slopes wrinkled, 
 while others were smooth like jelly. High against 
 the stone wall, the water rubbed, and its lapping 
 murmur and the sibilant whispering of the island 
 trees and grasses, followed her for some way. 
 Once she glanced back, and the pond, brown 
 when she passed it, was now steel colored around 
 its lean tufts of tree. She could see it heaving, 
 but its sound was no longer audible. 
 
 She went forward briskly. There was so much 
 to do before dinner, and father would be getting 
 up, and she liked to be in the house then. 
 
 The common grew wilder. In low waves of 
 yellow soil spaced with grass and gripped with 
 gorse, it rushed to the railway lines driving 
 through it. Single trees waved above its seats,
 
 20 TEN HOURS 
 
 and files of young saplings stood down its paths; 
 and the keen odors of its pools, and decaying and 
 sprouting allotments, were puffed across its ways, 
 made acrid by the smoke of trains coming and 
 going every minute. 
 
 Sights, sounds, scents, were all too familiar to 
 rouse Celia's attention. Often she had valued 
 highly this open space, but to-day she saw it lying 
 swarthy and limited under the sky, without beauty, 
 and without grace. To-day it was characterless. 
 No influence emanated from grass, bush, or tree. 
 It lay in the thin, pure light, with its murmurs 
 and movements empty of purpose, a mere auto- 
 matic response to the great wind. 
 
 Beyond it was hooped the white bridge with 
 'buses and cars rattling up and down. On the 
 left of the bridge stretched a row of shops and 
 houses divided by the railway and by side-roads. 
 In one of these roads Celia lived. 
 
 VII 
 
 She reached the end of the common and crossed 
 the road. The clouds were breaking apart, the 
 common was swept with silver, blue tones stained
 
 SHOPPING 21 
 
 the gray, and then the sun stood out, barred above 
 and below with cloud, and pale yellow gleams 
 floated over the trees and gilded the houses. 
 Windows flashed red-gold; a pale mist of gold 
 broadened everywhere, and the smokes of the 
 trains hung shining above the spikes of the 
 railings. 
 
 Of course it would turn nice just as she was 
 going in! There was not much chance of get- 
 ting out again to-day! 
 
 She slammed her gate and walked up to the 
 door. As she felt for her key she noted the step ; 
 it needed hearthstoning again. As she opened 
 the door she heard the reedy clamor of the wind 
 in the plane-trees, the rumors of its march across 
 the common. She entered the passage, and a dry 
 smell of smoke, and chill vitiated air met her, 
 and roused that same repulsion she had felt in 
 the butcher's. She closed the door and stood in 
 the brown dull light of the passage. 
 
 The suburb was washed by the clean humming 
 ocean of wind, sheeted with lemon-colored glows. 
 
 The house was still, cold, dark.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 
 
 SHE took off her coat and hat and hung them 
 on the hat-stand. In the room at the top of 
 the stairs father was moving. The smell of 
 smoke, and the metallic noises, showed that he 
 was lighting the fire. 
 
 She smoothed her hair with her palm and 
 looked half with pleasure, half with wistfulness 
 at her pale face, her pink mouth, her soft chin 
 which in itself was round, but which viewed after 
 her broad brow, appeared pointed; with a sudden 
 spurt of vivacity, she said : 
 
 "Well, your hair's straight enough, anyway! " 
 and drove her fingers through it and drew it out 
 wildly, and then looking owl-like and wondering 
 and ruffled, entered the front room. 
 
 This was the dining-room, but a small space 
 was screened off for father's bed. 
 
 She opened the window and then went into the
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 23 
 
 kitchen, calling out as she passed the staircase: 
 
 "Brekker's ready, father!" 
 
 An " all right " floated down to her. 
 
 Sharp inspection of the kitchener found her 
 statement to be justifiable. His porridge was 
 ready, and so was the jug of milk standing in 
 the saucepan of boiling water. She put some coals 
 on the fire, and then looked at the table. 
 
 One corner of it was covered with a cloth laid 
 with a blue-and- white soup plate, a napkin, cut- 
 lery, sugar and salt. She put a chair ready for 
 him, and then emptied her shopping basket. 
 
 " Good morning, dear," he said in a high plain- 
 tive voice. 
 
 " Good morning, pup," Celia rejoined cheer- 
 fully, and kissed him. " Had a good night?" 
 
 " Oh, not very good. The wind made such 
 a noise. I thought it would blow the window in, 
 and I could feel it on my face." 
 
 " Poor old pup ! you want a bit of cotton wool 
 in your ears. Our window simply danced. Rob- 
 ert couldn't find the wedge last night; consequence 
 no end of a din! Are you ready? shall I pour 
 your porridge out?"
 
 24 TEN HOURS 
 
 "Yes, quite ready, thank you." 
 
 He seated himself at the table, and with trem- 
 bling fingers opened the napkin and tucked it in 
 his collar. 
 
 " The fire didn't light very well," he said, his 
 voice still more plaintive. 
 
 " I thought the place smelt full of smoke. 
 Never mind. Have your breakfast now and for- 
 get all about it. ... I've got a lovely bit of Eng- 
 lish meat." 
 
 " Ah," father said, and watched with lusterless 
 eyes as she poured out the porridge and added the 
 hot milk to it. 
 
 "All right now?" 
 
 " Yes, thank you." 
 
 " That's the way." 
 
 She nodded her fair head at him, and he smiled 
 feebly, eating the porridge slowly and without 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 II 
 
 William Clarke was seventy-six, a small old 
 man with a high narrow head, long fat pink 
 cheeks, a rather red nose, a white beard, and wide, 
 blue rheumy eyes with deep bags beneath them.
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 25 
 
 He wore an old velvet jacket and a round velour 
 cap edged with fur. This had once been the 
 crown of Celia's honeymoon hat. She had cut 
 off the brim this winter, bound it with fur, and 
 given it to father in place of the greasy cap he was 
 then wearing on his bald head. As he sat now 
 at breakfast, his feet on the rung of his chair, 
 a rheumy tear on his cheek, and the cap a little 
 on one side, he looked a grotesque and not alto- 
 gether pleasant figure. His movements were wav- 
 ering; the droop of his thick eyelids almost sanc- 
 timonious; the smoothness of his bulging cheeks, 
 the looseness of his lower lip sharply sensual. 
 
 Father had been a bank clerk. He had mar- 
 ried when he was thirty-four a girl considerably 
 younger than himself. There were five children 
 of the marriage. 
 
 Father was not the most satisfactory of men 
 either as husband or parent. Without being a 
 drunkard he was sufficiently addicted to billiards 
 and beer, and sufficiently fuddled by a quite mod- 
 erate amount of the latter for him to be a source 
 of anxiety to his wife, and an object of fluctuating 
 scorn to himself. Father, accompanied always
 
 26 TEN HOURS 
 
 by his family, given light domestic duties to occupy 
 his mind, allowed daily two glasses of beer, petted 
 and praised, was a temperate man, and if not a 
 jovial at least a comparatively happy one. But 
 father, unguarded, left to follow the inclinations 
 which led him among boisterous companions and 
 their stimulating amusements, would in these cir- 
 cumstances have deteriorated rapidly. He would 
 have sunk into a degraded and maudlin old age. 
 
 Therefore, when twelve years ago his wife died, 
 he became the first consideration of his family. 
 As one by one its members entered matrimony, 
 he passed from household to household, and finally 
 when Celia became Mrs. Jennings, he took up an 
 abode with her which was only to end with his 
 death. 
 
 Alice, the eldest, died a year ago; and her 
 husband being a sailor, Celia had for six months 
 given a home to Alice's daughter Gwennie, and 
 expected to do so indefinitely. Gwennie was six- 
 teen. Celia, the youngest of father's family, was 
 twenty-four. 
 
 Celia, bright, firm, sensible, was a splendid 
 guardian for the irresolute old man.
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 27 
 
 III 
 
 The Clarkes were country people. Marriage 
 alone had brought Celia to Wykeham, southwest 
 suburb of London. Before that event she had 
 lived always at Barnham, that little village ten 
 miles from the metropolis, perched amid the winds 
 on the bare ridge of Barnham Downs, with a 
 view of Chelsea factory chimneys, and beyond 
 these, on the skyline, the faint heights of Hamp- 
 stead. 
 
 Celia loved the country, but she did so sanely 
 and without illusion. Imagination was not one of 
 her most noticeable qualities. As a little girl she 
 saw no fairies dancing in the humid half-lights 
 of the woods, or passing like flickering flames 
 across the hills. She had no fear of the rustlings 
 in the leaves, made mysterious and ghostly by 
 dark and stars; she would have adventured boldly 
 out on the black windy uplands, and known the 
 vague surrounding shapes to be bushes and trees, 
 and not human creatures called forth by the night. 
 When she grew older, she read no personality 
 into the downs which rippled through pale mono-
 
 28 TEN HOURS 
 
 chromes and sank at last to the fields; the trees 
 were only " green things standing in the way " ; 
 earth was no Demeter, no " Bacchante mother," 
 but a solid sphere spinning through ordered deeps 
 of space. Celia, practical, downright, and inclined 
 to flippancy, never juggled with facts. She loved 
 the country, but she did not invest it with any 
 magic. 
 
 None the less, her love was a keen, sensitive 
 thing which, raying and darting about Barnham, 
 discovered obscure beauties as well as superficial 
 ones. Amid many fair things, one or two shone 
 with an especial brilliance, lingering in her mem- 
 ory, to be recalled and visualized anew long after 
 their actual inspection. 
 
 The surpassing freshness and softness of a row 
 of firs standing down the hill-slope and rocking 
 their gray-green boughs in the blue air; after rainy 
 days, the stream of mist which rose from the wet 
 soil and widened beneath the sallow sunsets and 
 the pale washed sky, into which moons dipped 
 and stars probed; the regular columns of the 
 beech-clump on the Brighton Road wind in their
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 29 
 
 great crests, rotting leaves heaped about their 
 boles, black bushes peering and shaking beyond, 
 and across fields, beyond dark trailing hedge- 
 rows, brimming up to the sweep of sky; Epsom 
 Downs : to Celia, tripping home from school these 
 were things to be noted and stored away for con- 
 sideration when u bothers " attacked her. There 
 were others as well, but these were some of the 
 finest, or at least the clearest remembered per- 
 haps because they recurred seasonably, subtle 
 changes in them, but their essential beauty un- 
 altered. 
 
 Soil, grasslands, pools of flowers, the fall of 
 stars into view, growing and dwindling moons, 
 sudden careless scents and sounds, larks in windy 
 heights; and above all, enclosing all, the tumult 
 of the Downs, surging close at hand with roads 
 sinuously banding them, and in the distances, 
 breaking upon the sky and floating above the 
 towns these were things, recondite and beautiful, 
 in Celia's life. 
 
 More human and less esthetical pleasure was 
 given by school friendships. Celia had many
 
 30 TEN HOURS 
 
 friends. She was always in the center of girls, 
 her fair head high above theirs, her glances speed- 
 ing to left and right, her tongue as swift and pert 
 as her glances. She indulged in no violent attach- 
 ments, but, gregariously inclined, came and went 
 with a dozen companions, talking all the time, 
 preferring some to others, broadly classifying 
 them, and generally not very far out in her esti- 
 mates. These were pleasant days and scenes. 
 
 Then there was father. Of the chiaroscuro of 
 her young life, father was the shadow. 
 
 Every day he went to a bank at Epsom and 
 there were evenings when he was an hour late; 
 when he came home " flopperty " about the legs, 
 filmy-eyed, and discoursive and slow of speech; 
 when a faint horrible smell of alcohol was loosed 
 on the air of the room and hung there as a menace, 
 a weight, a fear. . . . 
 
 No one enlightened Celia as to the meaning of 
 these physical and atmospheric facts. She was not 
 to know of Father's weakness; she was so young; 
 let her at least be spared the pain of knowledge. 
 
 But Celia's sharp eyes saw he was "funny"; 
 her round little nose sniffed and recognized; her
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 31 
 
 ears caught the altered intonation of his voice 
 and of mother's; Celia knew. 
 
 Thus, very soon, she was sharing the respon- 
 sibility of watching him; she became a small but 
 stout link in the human chain which circled and 
 restricted his movements. When mother died she 
 entered into a wordless compact with Alice, the 
 only other girl, to do all for father that could be 
 done; to help the staid, serious-eyed, married sis- 
 ter of twenty-eight, with all these feminine intui- 
 tions and diplomacies and subterfuges which were 
 beyond the boys' conception. And in this at once 
 sordid and beautiful guardianship, she was as 
 pert and brisk as in her school affairs. Father, 
 weakly lashing himself for his failings and sin- 
 cerely anxious to amend them, flinched under the 
 thrust of her blue eyes, and the shake of her head 
 with its two waves of hair and its pale blue bow, 
 the poise of her long slim body, as if she were 
 the parent and he the culpable child. He dreaded 
 the derisive tilt of her chin, and the lift of her 
 mouth. He was, poor man, so anxious to be re- 
 spected and admired, and Celia had such a dis- 
 concertingly straight look! She penetrated all
 
 32 TEN HOURS 
 
 humbug; she measured all protestations; she dis- 
 cerned all motives; she was terribly honest, and 
 keen, and blunt. Father loved her. 
 
 She had her romantic side, though she did not 
 display it to her girl friends and was disposed to 
 ridicule it to herself. Sometimes, walking down 
 the Brighton Road when the fields were filling 
 with dusk and the sweeps of the hills were golden 
 in the fading light, she had thought pensively of 
 love and pictured some vague but radiant per- 
 sonality bringing it to her. 
 
 The fields dropped away in the blue silence; 
 the burning brands above the woods died out; 
 the sky, from a luminous pallor, turned green and 
 then dark mauve. She saw the village, and the 
 lights swinging above the glimmer of the road- 
 way. Now woods, lanes, meadows, were black, 
 and the moldings of the hills washed out by dark- 
 ness. Starlight lay in the upper heights of air 
 like silver smoke. Dreamy-eyed, drooping-lipped, 
 Celia would go indoors, having glimpsed across 
 the hush and perfumed breadth of the country, 
 the stir and glitter of a life other than this; hav- 
 ing breathed an unconscious summons to love.
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 33 
 
 having advanced timidly to the borderland of 
 unconscious desire. 
 
 To be admired, beloved; to love, to serve; 
 throbbing conception of happiness ! Too shy, too 
 secret to endure in the hardy gaslight under the 
 staring pictures, it slipped up amid the stars, not 
 to be recalled till evening again found her alone 
 and dreaming. The hall door closed on the night, 
 the room settled about her, Celia became practical 
 once more. 
 
 " I don't want to get married, thank you," she 
 replied to bantering questions. " I've seen too 
 much of it. I should like to keep a cats' home." 
 
 When she was twenty-two she met Robert Jen- 
 nings. He was six years older than Celia, a quiet, 
 taciturn solemn young man, to whom she appeared 
 as the incarnation of sunlight. 
 
 Celia liked him. She knew herself beloved, 
 desired. She did not feel the thrill which had 
 caught her heart in the twilight. She did not see 
 marriage as an ecstasy but as a comfortable and 
 inevitable condition. Robert loved her; she liked 
 Robert; there were no impediments; one did not 
 want to have to keep oneself for always. What
 
 34 TEN HOURS 
 
 possible reason could she have for refusing Rob- 
 ert? No girl would. As for all that sentimental 
 rubbish about adoring him " I doubt if I'm capa- 
 ble of it," Celia said wisely. " It can't be a very- 
 comfortable state either. I don't want always to 
 be kissing; never get anything done 1 And he 
 thinks I'm perfect. It's quite enough for one per- 
 son to be silly." 
 Celia married him. 
 
 IV 
 
 They came to live at Wykeham in a house over- 
 looking Wykeham station. Father came with 
 them. They were all three perfectly happy. 
 
 Celia had a woman twice a week for the rough 
 work; the other duties she delighted in attending 
 to herself. Robert earned 250 a year, and it 
 was engrossing work scheming how to run the 
 house properly and yet save a little; engrossing 
 for a while; then a little, a very little, harassing. 
 
 Robert gave her enough for housekeeping, and 
 no more. He did not smoke ; he made his clothes 
 last, he had one extravagance only books.
 
 CELIA, FATHER AND OTHERS 35 
 
 Robert wanted to become an author. He 
 bought foolscap-paper, typing paper; literary pe- 
 riodicals, books, new and second-hand. With 
 solemn ardor he " went in " for literature. 
 
 Celia, brow puckered a little, looked at the 
 books, etc., and reckoned the cost; looked at her 
 wardrobe and pondered over prices. Things were 
 very dear; one must have clothes sometimes; ob- 
 viously Robert could not buy books and costumes 
 as well; she was saving scarcely anything. 
 
 Celia let the front bed-room to a young man 
 Mr. Leonard Hyde. That meant three guineas 
 a week extra. Her spirits rose. 
 
 V 
 
 She had been married a year when Alice died. 
 
 For six months, Alice's husband, George Bur- 
 gess, was at home with Gwennie. Then, Celia 
 offered to take the girl. The sailor might be 
 away for a number of years. " I'll look after 
 her," said Celia. " I shall like it; and you'll know 
 she's all right. She'll be better with me than with 
 any of the boys. Their wives " Celia sniffed. 
 
 Therefore Gwennie, sixteen, handsome, her
 
 36 TEN HOURS 
 
 personality as yet obscure, joined the Jennings' 
 household. 
 
 She went out as bookkeeper to a large provi- 
 sion store up Wykeham Rise. The weekly ten 
 shillings she paid to Celia was all " extra." Be- 
 sides " You'll be company for me," her aunt 
 stated. 
 
 Gwennie shook her shoulders and giggled. 
 
 " Of course you will," Celia repeated as if 
 some one Gwennie by that movement, or her 
 own heart had questioned the assertion. 
 
 That was six months ago. This morning in 
 Lavender Road, Celia's mind, offering reasons for 
 depression, itemized " Gwennie, Robert, Mr. 
 Hyde." Three reasons for discontent. Mad- 
 deningly monotonous they revolved in Celia's 
 head: " Gwennie, Robert, Mr. Hyde."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 NOON 
 
 WHILE father ate his porridge, Celia put her 
 parcels away in a cupboard and talked to him. 
 
 " It looks as if it's going to be a nice day. 
 You'll get your walk to-night. Lavender Road 
 was simply crowded. Such a poor miserable- 
 looking lot of people too. I don't know how 
 they manage to live; smelly rooms and no end 
 of babies, and a few shillings a week, and they 
 look so cheerful on it! " 
 
 " I thought you said they looked miserable," 
 father observed with wan interest. 
 
 " Oh, I mean their clothes and their general 
 appearance; most of them were awfully perky. 
 There's some credit in being jolly under those 
 circumstances, I should think." 
 
 Father made an affirmative noise in his throat, 
 and solemnly passed his spoon round the porridge 
 now cooled into a jelly-like circle. 
 
 37
 
 3 8 TEN HOURS 
 
 Celia shut the cupboard door. Lavender Road, 
 summoned by her remarks into a series of dreary 
 mental pictures, both for herself and for father, 
 offered the latter a subject for rumination, and 
 served herself as a weapon with which vigorously 
 to repel those nimble apprehensions, discontents, 
 and jealousies which threatened to overcome her 
 peace of mind. Recollection of haggard faces 
 and malodorous garments was a stern corrective 
 for the " blues." 
 
 Father's meditations, however, did not crystal- 
 lize into any suggestive speech. He sat with his 
 gaze fixed on the diminishing island of oatmeal, 
 the pale sunlight giving a faint gloss to the brown 
 fur round his cap. His down-dropped lids, and 
 face elongated by the slow movements of his jaw, 
 emphasized the slight severity of his appearance. 
 
 Celia, therefore, became silent. The tooth, in- 
 active for the last few minutes, now thrust burn- 
 ingly down into her neck and beat burningly in 
 her gum. A haze of pain was round her head. 
 She was thankful for father's silence.
 
 NOON 39 
 
 II 
 
 The kitchen was a square, comfortable room. 
 The window looked westward. From it you could 
 see the black beds and paths of the garden; the 
 small lawn, the reedy bushes ; the wet garden seat 
 and also a space of sky; the traffic of white morn- 
 ing clouds, and the rose-colored drifts at evening. 
 Changing and beautiful lights fell softly into the 
 room. Sometimes the dresser, the table, the 
 wooden chairs, were bronzed into coppery rich- 
 ness; sometimes they blazed golden; often it was 
 a weak primrose glow which stole across the gray 
 town and massed faintly on the walls. When all 
 the other rooms were dim, the kitchen was almost 
 certain to have its pool of spare illumination. 
 
 In the center now it was full of colorless light; 
 in the corners clear dun shadows lay. Birds were 
 dropping short bead-like notes on the windy air; 
 the garden trees tossed, and rustlings, and thun- 
 derings, the sharp bang of gates or fall of dust- 
 bin lids, sounded beyond the window. Into the 
 room came the smell of smoke and rotting leaves 
 and the moist soil of the box on the window-sill.
 
 40 TEN HOURS 
 
 Celia cut off the scrag end of the joint she had 
 bought for dinner. Her thoughts impelled her 
 dully to get from the pantry an enamel jar, a 
 quarter filled with gravy; to put small pieces of 
 meat in this, cover it with a lid and set it on a 
 burner of the gas stove. By two o'clock the mut- 
 ton would be as tender ! Now the tapioca she had 
 soaked last night; the milkman would be here 
 directly; the potatoes need not be seen to for an 
 hour or so ; to go over all the floors with the car- 
 pet-sweeper was the next thing. 
 
 Like silver tissue, the light stretched round her 
 hot face. The bird notes were like water chiming 
 and falling, falling and chiming, without pause. 
 She felt cool china under her hands; splinters in 
 wood ; edges of knife-handles ; smooth door-knobs : 
 they all bobbed up like flotsam rising through 
 a burning sea. Waves of burning light rolled 
 round her; the tooth jagged and probed, and 
 bounded. 
 
 She kept her mouth tightly closed, her wounded 
 eyes fixed on the things she was touching.
 
 NOON 41 
 
 III 
 
 Celia at twenty-four was as a rule passably 
 pretty, at times lovely, and always disarmingly 
 lovable. Her skin was good; her mouth with its 
 pensive droop, its sudden curls, flowerlike, and 
 worthy of the poet's " some bee had newly stung 
 it; " the curve of her chin too, into her throat and 
 the little hollow beneath her underlip were of an 
 almost sensible softness, which irresistibly tempted 
 one to stroke them; her nose was small and round; 
 her eyes bluey-green and only beautiful in their 
 expressiveness; her brows fair; her head a little 
 too wide and round. She was tall, and as straight 
 as a boy. In her plain skirt and blue flannel blouse 
 with a broad turn-down collar and a blue tie she 
 looked extraordinarily young. Her neck was very 
 soft and slender; she drew her back hair high up 
 from it, and this gave her a funny prim old- 
 maidish appearance. 
 
 Most attractive of all were her " ways." The 
 way she placed her slim feet; the way she tilted 
 her head and lowered her lashes and raised her 
 upper lip; the way she shook her head till the
 
 42 TEN HOURS 
 
 waves of hair heaved on either side of their frag- 
 rant parting; the way she clinched an argument 
 by compressing that kissable mouth ; the little un- 
 expected turns of her body; her position when she 
 sat : knees close together, elbows close to her sides ; 
 an instinctively maidenly position which was some- 
 how more provocative of attention than a casual 
 sprawl would have been: all these ways were 
 Celia's chief charms. Each one captured affec- 
 tion. 
 
 IV 
 
 Just now she was wistful. Vivacity made her 
 less pretty than wistfulness. The pathetic subdued 
 Celia was the one who had those moments of love- 
 liness. 
 
 She glanced at the brown clock hanging over 
 the mantelpiece. No good going upstairs till the 
 milkman had come. 
 
 Father had finished breakfast. He got up and 
 carried the crockery into the scullery, filled the 
 washing bowl with hot water and washed up. 
 Celia, motionless by the table surveyed him so- 
 berly.
 
 NOON 43 
 
 She did not attempt to put the sugar and salt 
 in the cupboard. Father had to be occupied with 
 duties such as these or the days seemed so long 
 for him. He usually dusted the downstairs rooms 
 and the morning-room, washed the dishes, and his 
 own clothes. He had his methods: slow compli- 
 cated masculine ones which often raised a gust of 
 impatience in Celia though she never criticized 
 them. He would leave his washing in soak for 
 days; dusting was a science which could be pro- 
 longed for hours; no one else knew how to lay 
 a fire; no one else polished the plates so beauti- 
 fully. Contemplating his domestic virtues, father 
 became sensible of a subdued complacency. Per- 
 haps he saw in them also, beside their intrinsic 
 value, some slight shade of atonement. 
 
 The milkman came while he was still at the sink. 
 Celia went to the scullery door with a jug and 
 stood there while the man served her, wrapped in 
 wind, staring at the ivy leaves plunging along the 
 wall. The woman next door was calling from a 
 window to her little girl. 
 
 " Come off that wet grass or you'll catch your 
 death of cold."
 
 44 TEN HOURS 
 
 The rumble of buses, the ring of horses' hoofs 
 and the fainter rhythm of footsteps coming and 
 going on the bridge just beyond the garden's end, 
 made a pulse of sound beating steadily amid the 
 creaking and scraping noises of inanimate things. 
 
 The milkman departed, Celia shut the door, 
 made the tapioca pudding, put it in the oven, and 
 then armed herself with the carpet sweeper. 
 
 " I'd better go and see how that fire's getting 
 on," father said, in the tone of one who expected 
 the worst. 
 
 "Perhaps you might as well," Celia assented. 
 
 They went upstairs, his slow shuffling tread 
 following her light one. 
 
 V 
 
 Father entered the morning-room; Celia 
 mounted the second flight of stairs and paused on 
 the landing, her eyes traveling from her own bed- 
 room door to Mr. Hyde's. 
 
 With a jerk she turned and -went up the next 
 flight of stairs; glanced through the landing 
 window at the birds hopping on the damp flat roof
 
 NOON 45 
 
 of the morning-room, at the houses climbing up 
 the milky sky, at the white railway signals; and 
 then mounted the last four stairs and went into 
 Gwennie's room. 
 
 This was the back attic ; next to it was the bath- 
 room and then the front attic. 
 
 Celia looked round, her eyes a little hard, her 
 mouth cynical. 
 
 The ceiling slanted down to a wide low window, 
 from which the bridge and the common beyond 
 were visible. The window was shut. Of course 
 it would be ! Gwennie never remembered to open 
 it. How could she sleep with it shut all night! 
 Celia's hardening gaze transfixed the other con- 
 demnable items: the bed littered with a hat, a 
 handbag , a half-knitted jumper ; a coat thrown 
 over a chair back; one drawer of the dressing- 
 table wide open; a rug ridged up. 
 
 Celia opened the window, cleared the bed, shut 
 the drawer sharply, and pulled the rug into shape. 
 Then she began to drive the carpet-sweeper to 
 and fro. 
 
 The curtains blew out; sounds rippled up to the
 
 46 TEN HOURS 
 
 window and flowed into the room ; cloud-shadows 
 gloomed the air, light blanched it. Celia did not 
 lift her eyes from the rugs. 
 
 From the mantelpiece photographs of Gwennie 
 and Gwennie's friends stared pertly at her. 
 There was Gwennie in profile ; Gwennie full-faced 
 and laughing; Gwennie linked with a friend. 
 Picture-postcards of actors and heroes of the V.C., 
 a silver-framed photograph of Alice, one or two 
 letters and a small china doll with a rolled eye, and 
 its " fums up," completed the furniture of the 
 mantelpiece. On a table by the bed were some 
 gaudy magazines, a cheap novel, and a box of 
 mauve stationery. The dressing-table was littered 
 with a steel bag, a pink bead necklace, a phial of 
 cheap scent, and the photograph of a youth with 
 an unnaturally bright and alert expression. 
 
 Celia, when she had finished the rugs and began 
 to tidy up, glanced contemptuously at this youth. 
 What a little silly Gwennie was ! 
 
 Her accumulated indictments awoke a flurry of 
 self-rebuke. "Alice's daughter don't forget 
 that; very young, motherless; don't forget that." 
 She was not like Alice though.
 
 NOON 47 
 
 " All the more reason to be patient with her 
 and make her like Ally," Celia murmured half- 
 audibly. A little sigh fluttered through her lips. 
 She was tired of looking after people, enduring 
 their humors, training, soothing, guarding. 
 Gwennie was fast, empty headed and vain. The 
 glances she gave Robert were too precocious. She 
 was lazy and slovenly. She resented authority 
 . . . Anyhow Mr. Hyde never looked at her! 
 
 Celia swept out of the room. 
 
 " Oh, you are out of sorts ! The sooner you go 
 to the dentist the better." 
 
 She charged down the silvered staircase as if 
 she were fleeing from something: a demoniacal, 
 grinning something, sure of its power, eager to 
 grip her, master, and crush her. 
 
 VI 
 
 She went into Mr. Hyde's room. She closed the 
 door and stood for a moment with her hands 
 trembling on the stick of the carpet-sweeper, and 
 her eyes, shamefaced, defiant, furtive, glancing 
 round her. 
 
 Panels of light, wedges of shadow in the angles
 
 48 TEN HOURS 
 
 of walls, the faded colors of the carpet, the flash 
 
 of glass, white spaces of counterpane and marble 
 
 and china : there was nothing terrifying here, there 
 
 was nothing that was not commonplace and 
 
 familiar. 
 
 She moved away from the door, and head bent, 
 lids down dropt, began to travel backwards and 
 forwards over the rugs. 
 
 Her cheeks were very hot, and her heart beat 
 quickly. She traced the windings of red amid 
 squares of blue in the carpet; she saw a little piece 
 of dried mud, and a little gray blot of cigarette 
 ash, she was conscious of chair legs, the hem of 
 the counterpane, and the cream skirting of the 
 wall. Her lids refused to lift. Her personality 
 seemed to be shrinking far down into the fleshy 
 shrine which was bared to the scrutiny of the 
 room. It seemed to be trying to hide itself; by 
 silence, by unresponsiveness, to all exterior sum- 
 mons, to be as if non-existent, evading questions, 
 consequences, sensation. 
 
 The milkman was calling down the road and 
 the rumble of his barrow over the stones was 
 audible, together with the clanging of gates.
 
 NOON 49 
 
 Celia looked up. Her self-conscious glance 
 wandered round the room. So much did it express 
 to her the personality of the man who occupied it, 
 so vividly could she see him in its midst, that walls 
 and furniture seemed to have become full of sensi- 
 bility, to throb with life and perception. Witness- 
 ing her embarrassment, they understood its impli- 
 cation and stared mercilessly. 
 
 As if they were indeed sentient spectators who 
 could betray her, she dissembled her vehement 
 interest and looked about her coolly. 
 
 On the table by the bed was a pipe, a pair of 
 gloves, and a red cloth novel. She bent to see the 
 title. It was a detective story. 
 
 Her mouth twitched into a smile. She walked 
 round the room, her head a little on one side like 
 a bird's, her glances swift and veiled. All the 
 furniture was her own, yet she forgot this and felt 
 almost afraid to touch anything. The room was 
 hers, yet she started at every sound and looked 
 doorwards as if she dreaded being discovered 
 here. 
 
 Her interest in Mr. Hyde discomposed her, 
 more because it 'was provoked by a man, than
 
 5 o TEN HOURS 
 
 because she saw any danger in it, or grasped the 
 fact that it was a current on which she moved 
 without resistance. The things he had said to her, 
 his appearance, his candid smile, his youth, were 
 all clear-cut in her memory. Her intuitions played 
 among them. Rapidly she built up his character, 
 knowledge of what actually was becoming a basis 
 for knowledge of what she wished should be. She 
 fashioned him as her predilections directed and 
 did not realize that he, as she imagined him, 
 embodied that fascinating ideal of her girlish 
 dreams. 
 
 By the dressing-table she paused and looked at 
 herself in the mirror. In the strong light, her face 
 was very pale, her skin might have been under a 
 microscope so revealed was its texture. Ponder- 
 ingly she studied herself: her glinting hair, her 
 soft throat, the glaze on the cheek behind which 
 the tooth throbbed, the little round brilliant brooch 
 at her neck. 
 
 Mirror, windows, walls receded. She saw the 
 dim gold-brushed staircase, Mr. Hyde coming 
 down, her own figure pressed against the wall, his 
 open smiling glance, soft with admiration. She
 
 NOON 51 
 
 felt his hand-shake, warm, firm. . . . Then her 
 brain jerked, shutting off that picture and throwing 
 her back into the room. She felt as if she were 
 bathed in platinum-colored light which searched 
 all nooks both of herself and of the room, and 
 allowed no secrecies. She was stunned by sounds 
 which were hard as missiles. 
 
 Mr. Hyde admired her ; he thought her pretty, 
 awfully pretty. Her face relaxed. Robert never 
 looked at her like that now; he never fussed her; 
 he took everything for granted. Mr. Hyde's gaze 
 was full of homage. 
 
 For a moment she stood lost in dream, con- 
 verging towards perilous emotions and yet imagin- 
 ing herself stationary. Her brows were arched in 
 resentment, her lips pouted in a smile. 
 
 Then Celia the practical, the sensible, hustled 
 the emotional Celia aside. She gave her head a 
 twirl, gripped the carpet-sweeper and flew into her 
 own room. 
 
 VII 
 
 The wind puffed the chimes of church bells into 
 hearing. Eleven o'clock. A cup of coffee now, 
 and a biscuit.
 
 52 TEN HOURS 
 
 She returned to the kitchen. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Father was washing out some handkerchiefs. A 
 cloud of steam from the water misted his face; 
 soapsuds frothed fragrantly over his hands. The 
 kettle was boiling on the kitchener, and water, 
 brimming over from the spout, hissed on the top 
 of the stove. 
 
 " Don't touch that water," father called out. 
 " It's for my rinsing." 
 
 "Oh, blow your rinsing!" Celia muttered 
 without spleen. " I'm just going to take some of 
 it for a cup of coffee. I'll fill it up at once and 
 it'll be boiling in a jiffy." 
 
 Father did not protest, but went on rubbing, the 
 warm smell of the suds eddying round him and 
 flowing into the kitchen. 
 
 " The place smells like a laundry," Celia com- 
 mented. " For goodness sake have a door open." 
 
 She opened the scullery door, and glanced at 
 the spare laburnums shaking their tatters of dead 
 pods in the next garden, at the walls emerging 
 gray through a golden smoke of sunshine; then
 
 NOON 53 
 
 she re-entered the kitchen and made the coffee. 
 
 She put a biscuit in the saucer and sat down by 
 the fire. The half-burnt coals were turning gray 
 and lifeless in the strong daylight. She put on 
 some more, and when they caught stared at the 
 plumes of flame, withering to smoke and then 
 burning again with a small splutter of sound. 
 
 She drank some coffee, and at once she was 
 soaked with pain as with red-hot lava. It bubbled 
 up to her head and filled her eyes, sank to her 
 heart and drowned it. She sat rigid. The next 
 moment she seized on thought as on a weapon with 
 which to repel sensation. 
 
 Thoughts hammered in her brain, memories 
 swept through it. Her surroundings became fluid 
 and unessential. The things actually affecting her 
 were those past experiences which did not seem 
 so much to be re-acted by her brain, as to stand 
 before her vision; completed dramatic scenes pro- 
 jecting sharply from a background of bronzed 
 light pain colored all things hotly and throb- 
 bing with emotions which had stirred her heart 
 when she passed through them. 
 
 Without moving her eyes from the fire she
 
 54 TEN HOURS 
 
 could see father's small figure, the rising and fall- 
 ing of his arms as he drew the handkerchiefs in 
 and out of the water, the wringing motion of his 
 hands. She heard the water swishing down the 
 sink, the bowl set back, the drag of his slippers; 
 but all these things and the persistent train whis- 
 tles, thin distant voices, and the breaking of wind 
 over the land, belonged to another world, one 
 high above her from which she had fallen like a 
 plummet into deeps of darkness filled with those 
 still relevant memories. 
 
 Pressing her fingers savagely against her gum, 
 she surveyed them. 
 
 She was miserable, chagrined, hopeless, and 
 the causes which made her so were Robert and 
 Gwennie, and and the tooth. Why Robert? 
 Because he was wrapped up in his books, settled 
 down into undemonstrative stolidity, careless 
 whether she looked pretty or not, accustomed to 
 her; very different from Robert the lover. She 
 had said frequent kisses would be a nuisance; a 
 pastime which clogged the brisk wheels of the 
 work day's evolution; but now it was all work day, 
 all fact, all plainness, all routine.
 
 NOON 55 
 
 Her lusterless eyes were fixed on the black and 
 orange mass glowing and flickering above the bars 
 of the grate. Slender fawn-colored sprays of 
 smoke puffed out, flames, primrose-yellow, licked 
 corrosively over the coal. The fire in her mouth 
 was as hot as they and all the more malevolent for 
 its silence. 
 
 She was seized and shaken by a sudden hunger 
 for kisses. She wanted an arm crooked about her, 
 a mouth hard on hers, a chest heaving against her 
 own. It was not passion which roused this desire. 
 The giver of the embrace was featureless, it was 
 neither Robert nor any other; merely an urgent 
 demand from her tired body, and her uneasy 
 heart, for protection and sympathy. It rose from 
 the satiety of responsible independence. She was 
 wearied with looking after people; she desired to 
 be governed and guarded; to luxuriate in freedom 
 from responsibility; to be a child in the arms of 
 its mother, or a woman wrapped in the solicitude 
 of a man. 
 
 A scene in which Robert figured as ardent lover 
 stood round her. 
 
 A January afternoon soon after their marriage.
 
 56 TEN HOURS 
 
 Wykeham Rise with sunlight blooming in soft 
 yellowness over it, and wind driving dried leaves 
 and eddies of dust along the pavements. She saw 
 the buildings in flight, one beyond another and 
 finding ultimately the sheet of blue horizon. 
 Tilted where the sky's wall curved upward into 
 its hollow was the thin daylight half-moon. She 
 felt the stuff of Robert's overcoat under her palm; 
 she moved her body involuntarily as again in 
 retrospect she kept pace with him. The road 
 heaved up to the common with its plumes of tree, 
 its black network of railings. 
 
 She and Robert had looked at the shops. The 
 furniture dealers were the most tempting. They 
 had looked at sidepieces and tables, saying which 
 they would have when they became rich. The 
 various woods with all their carving daintier in 
 memory than in fact, the black gleaming pools of 
 the table tops, the wavy graining of doors, were 
 all before her again, and the hot dry atmos- 
 phere which had stolen through the open shop 
 door to her nostrils, brooded thickly about her 
 now. 
 
 She saw Robert and herself threading the
 
 NOON 57 
 
 windy streets, while the afternoon light withdrew 
 to the high places and lay there in gold and pink, 
 leaving the town gray; she saw walls of dusk mass- 
 ing like smoke at the ends of roads and on the 
 distant parts of the common; lamps, pale and 
 ineffectual, converging into the dusk; the sheets of 
 lemon light fail and the sky lie like a white sea 
 about the moon. Robert's hand was on her wrist; 
 shadows cut the pavements, and London became a 
 monstrous gloom humped under a sky darkening 
 for the stars. She and Robert had entered the 
 house as these pricked through and the green haze 
 of the night sky swung like a silver-beaded curtain. 
 
 In the passage Robert had crushed her against 
 him and kissed her furiously. 
 
 She drank some more coffee, its fumes and its 
 flavor running like a pleasant dream beside a dark 
 river of pain. Father came in from the scullery, 
 mounted on a chair and hung his handkerchiefs on 
 the line. He descended heavily and looked 
 vaguely about him. 
 
 " Some one's just opened the gate," he said in 
 his mournful sing-song. " I daresay it's the baker. 
 How many do you want? "
 
 5 8 TEN HOURS 
 
 Celia looked at him, her eyelids heavy on 
 her pupils. 
 
 " Two large white and two little brown. 
 Crusty ones and we owe him for yesterday. 
 There's some money on the dresser shelf." 
 
 Her gaze returned to the fire. 
 
 Drawn back momentarily into the present she 
 listened to father and the baker, looked at the 
 loaves he brought in, and had stamped on her mind 
 a picture of the tea-table and Gwennie nibbling 
 that golden crust with her little square teeth and 
 looking sleepily, smilingly, at Robert. She heard 
 Robert say, " What have you been doing to-day, 
 Gwen? Getting on all right ? . . ." 
 
 Smoke stung her nostrils. She looked at the 
 fire, took up the kitchen poker and pushed in a 
 piece of coke. Her thoughts began suddenly to 
 whirl; those past experiences crowded about her 
 again, and the room thinned, father was a shadow. 
 
 She saw Gwennie as she had been the day she 
 had come to live here : her figure, its curves hidden 
 by a loose black coat, very youthful, her face 
 flushed, her black eyes sober, under a little round 
 black hat pushed rather to the back of her head.
 
 NOON 59 
 
 Her black hair was in a plait, she wore thick low 
 boots and thick stockings and carried a plush muff. 
 Rain sprinkled grayly on the muff and on her coat; 
 her cheeks were damp and cold; she looked like 
 Ally and very young, very passive. 
 
 Now she wore her hair bobbed, a jumper clung 
 to the womanly curves of her body; silk stockings 
 and big-bowed shoes made her look up-to-date; 
 she was not passive ; and her youth was no longer 
 lovable, but exasperating since it teemed with all 
 the faults of adolescence. 
 
 Celia stirred in her chair. She finished the 
 coffee and the biscuit. Last Monday moved into 
 the perspective of memory. She saw the hall, the 
 open door, Robert coming in, and she and Gwen- 
 nie meeting him; Gwennie with a blue-black sheen 
 on her short hair, her neck plump and creamy, her 
 red lips tilted upward, her eyes as brilliant as coals 
 between a mesh of lash. Robert had looked at 
 her, and she had looked back and smiled, Celia 
 heard the shriek of train whistles, saw squares of 
 light in the houses opposite and lamps spacing with 
 yellow the windy blackness, felt the cold air lap- 
 ping over her ankles, felt her anger like water
 
 60 TEN HOURS 
 
 from her heart to her ears and babble there. . . . 
 
 Mr. Hyde had come downstairs then, nodded 
 to Robert, seemed scarcely to observe Gwennie, 
 and wrapped Celia in a warm wide smile. He had 
 gone out, and for one moment before she closed 
 the door she had seen stars scattered over the 
 ridge of roofs, and her personality had seemed to 
 precipitate itself out of her body, and race across 
 the common with its jerking trees and faintly 
 gleaming pools to where the downs sprang in 
 strong curves from the tilled land and rolled unim- 
 peded, wind-bathed under those flaming stars. 
 Her liberated spirit had been drowned in a huge 
 bowl of darkness and wind, over which the stars 
 shook and the curled moon was like a burning 
 feather. 
 
 Then the closing of the door clicked her imme- 
 diate surroundings about her again. She was 
 caught by a sudden rush of pity for Gwennie, 
 motherless, like Ally sometimes too; had put her 
 arm round the girl, felt the wool jumper's soft- 
 ness, and the softness of the uncorseted figure; 
 humming had led her into the dining room. ...
 
 NOON 61 
 
 IX . 
 
 She jumped up, controlled by a force stronger 
 than sadness since it was habitual whereas reverie 
 was a rare indulgence. Commonsense it was that 
 impelled her to her feet. Dreaming, regretting, 
 wishing, to unbuild things which are established 
 and left behind on not-to-be-recovered paths: all 
 these were not only useless, but evil since they 
 bit into her spirit and left scars there. She 
 was not herself to-day; she needed a good shaking. 
 
 " Now I'm going to have the oven on," she said 
 briskly to father, " and make some little cakes, 
 biscuits and a mince-pie. Will you put the things 
 out while I wash these? " 
 
 "Yes." Father's eye kindled. He liked 
 Celia's biscuits. With accelerated movements he 
 went to a cupboard, and one by one brought from 
 it and placed on the table, oatmeal, self-raising 
 flour, salt, sugar and rolling-pin. 
 
 " Er mince meat, currants, lard and tins," he 
 said aloud and went to the pantry. 
 
 Celia returning with the cup and saucer glanced 
 at the table.
 
 62 TEN HOURS 
 
 " Good boy! Now if you get a fork you may 
 prick them." 
 
 " One man in his time plays many parts," father 
 observed, a smile crinkling his bags of cheeks. 
 
 " You ought to do a poem on your domestic 
 duties," Celia said, swinging from cupboard 
 to table. 
 
 " That's a very good idea." 
 
 Father wrote poetry, a gift which had been 
 encouraged by Celia because it extended the list 
 of those activities which kept him from reverie, 
 and the dark specters of desire and grievance and 
 cunning latent in him, and responsive to solitude 
 or thought. He now seated himself on a high 
 stool by the table, and dangling the fork, brooded 
 over stanza and meter, his eyes fixed on the white 
 sky and the stiff restless boughs spreading like the 
 spokes of a fan across it. 
 
 Celia did not disturb him. She was accustomed 
 to long periods of silence from father, Gwennie, 
 and Robert. The first and last of these persons 
 were both of taciturn and reflective dispositions. 
 Gwennie did not talk simply because her mind was 
 almost barren of ideas suitable for communication
 
 NOON 63 
 
 to such mature companions. With the girls at the 
 office she could chatter volubly enough, but at 
 home she was smiling and monosyllabic. 
 
 Usually Celia herself talked without pause. 
 Everything interested her. Her intelligence drove 
 sharply into motives, actions, interactions, social 
 problems, politics, hygiene. She formed opinions, 
 not quickly, but by careful reasoning and deduc- 
 tion. At times prejudice made her stupid, dulling 
 her perceptions chiefly where those delicate social 
 lines were drawn, where she felt herself and her 
 status to be personally involved. Otherwise she 
 was honest and well-balanced; she made allow- 
 ances for temperament; admitted the fallibility of 
 human insight; and was, without sentimentalizing, 
 prone to merciful judgment. On two points only 
 she was impervious to reason, justice, and good 
 sense: those points were social class, and femi- 
 nine beauty. 
 
 She could therefore talk intelligently on a wide 
 range of subjects. This morning, however, she 
 was out of sorts, silly, grumpy, entirely repre- 
 hensible, but none the less to be humored within 
 reasonable limits. She must govern her thoughts,
 
 64 TEN HOURS 
 
 but her tongue at least should not be forced i.ito 
 service. If father found her dull she could not 
 help it. 
 
 Besides, he was thinking out a poem. 
 
 At once, with the rising of that last word into 
 her mind, her heart felt chilled. She could not for 
 the moment understand why. As she greased a 
 cake tin, she pondered on the nature of this new 
 darkness, the atmosphere of some unpleasantness 
 which at an earlier hour had projected itself upon 
 her consciousness, been hustled into the back- 
 ground and so lost sight of, and which was now 
 vibrating again through a chance touch. Poem: 
 it had responded to that word. 
 
 Remembrance flowed over her like a turgid 
 tide. Of course; Robert's poems had come back 
 this morning after he had gone up to town. The 
 long envelope addressed and stamped by himself 
 was now staring grimly from the morning-room 
 table. She knew the poems were returned by 
 its thickness. 
 
 Sympathy was followed by a kind of mental 
 grimace. Poor Celia too, since she would have to 
 bear with added gloom and silence! Robert,
 
 NOON 65 
 
 when these MSS. came back, was not the most 
 pleasant of companions. His depression grew to 
 sulkiness, and Celia did so like happy people. 
 Why could not Robert admit that he had no 
 literary gift and cease wasting time and stamps, 
 and wearing out his own spirit! Now he would 
 be somber for days. One thing, he was going 
 cycling this afternoon. 
 
 " Will you pick the stalks off the currants, 
 Father? It'll save my time." 
 
 " You've put me out. I thought you knew I 
 was making verses. I had the first two lines and 
 now you've put me out. I wish you'd be more 
 understanding, Celia." 
 
 " Sorry." 
 
 He turned his funereal face to her, gazed at her 
 with eyes over which anger seemed to have drawn 
 a film, and then dropped his thick lids and looked 
 what she termed " mouthey." 
 
 She stared at the cake tin, her lips drooping, 
 and her face a white spot in the silvered room. 
 The little round tins stared at her like black 
 malevolent eyes; the lard was white and nauseat- 
 ing, the gas fumes in the scullery puffed towards
 
 66 TEN HOURS 
 
 her, and the air grew suddenly thick and stifling. 
 
 What was the good of standing over this table 
 with these messy things; of hanging over the hot 
 oven? Robert never praised the biscuits. She 
 hardly ever burnt any, and they were beautifully 
 light, but Robert never said so; he just munched 
 stolidly. . . . Her limbs, her heart, were soaked 
 and heavy with weariness as clothes are weighted 
 with water. 
 
 X 
 
 At half-past one she went up to the morning- 
 room to see to the fire. 
 
 The first thing she noticed was Robert's MSS. 
 She slid the envelope under a book on a side table. 
 'At least dinner should not be made unpleasant by 
 it ! After the mince-pie he might be fortified for 
 a blow ! 
 
 When she had put on some coals she looked 
 about her with hard eyes as though at a bristling 
 array of enemies. The room was full of tilings 
 which she would have liked to break, obliterate. 
 His typewriter humping its shiny black case in a 
 corner near the window, ugly clumsy thing I- 
 the high pile of literary papers, the books staring
 
 NOON 67 
 
 at her from the walls, she viewed them all with 
 hostility. In the shadowless light the books were 
 squares of darkness as they filled the small book 
 cases with their dim browns and dark blues. 
 Their gold titles glinted; they were slender and 
 alert; bulky and squat; massive and full of dignity. 
 They detached themselves from the other things 
 in the room. At once combative and aloof, they 
 stood shoulder to shoulder in their own peculiar 
 atmosphere, ignoring the homely things which 
 occupied her, but ready to be keen weapons in the 
 hands of a devotee. Set a little higher than her 
 head they had an aspect of looking over her into 
 some suitable cultured world which her intelligence 
 could not attain. 
 
 Celia cocked her head impertinently at them. 
 The tooth was still at last; she had burnt neither 
 the cakes nor the biscuits, and the mince-pie looked 
 lovely! Father, soothed by their fragrant smell, 
 their golden lightness, as she brought them from 
 the oven, and complacent over the completed first 
 verse which he had memorized, had grown posi- 
 tively jocular; faint lights were probing the neutral 
 tones of the house, and through open doors and
 
 68 TEN HOURS 
 
 windows the wind blew, a clean cool stream which 
 agitated and freshened the inside air. Her spirits 
 were mounting; her natural jauntiness returning. 
 She hummed. . .. 
 
 XI 
 
 She said aloud, putting down the shovel, 
 " There you are ! Everything ready to a tick ! 
 Criticize as much as you like, my good people ! I 
 defy you to say I'm not punctual and any one 
 who doesn't like that pastry ! " 
 
 She pouted her lips and nodded her head. 
 "Oh dear! Don't be so emphatic, my child! 
 You'll shake your chignon down ! And now to sit 
 down for a few minutes if it's not too lazy to 
 stop working! " 
 
 Ironically she addressed that grim figure of duty 
 which clanked about after the housewife, daring 
 her for one moment to remove her manacles and 
 become free and careless. Girls in offices shirked; 
 they did as little work as possible ; chattered, lived 
 only for their money, had their fixed hours, and 
 when these were passed with a minimum of mental 
 and physical output, they came home and enjoyed
 
 NOON 69 
 
 themselves; they went to dances and theaters. 
 The housewife was always on. She mustn't stop. 
 There was a pile of mending to be done in the 
 evening, or shirts to make, or something. Dances 
 indeed ! 
 
 Celia sat down with a bump on a chair by the 
 window. She shook her head over this outburst. 
 All office girls weren't shirkers. " You shouldn't 
 have married if you didn't like keeping house." 
 
 Thus attacked, her mind sought defensively for 
 extenuating circumstances, but desisted almost at 
 once through sheer distaste for further introspec- 
 tion. She'd been thinking about herself all* the 
 morning. 
 
 " Shocking bad habit. I shall have to take you 
 in hand. You'll get a nasty, self-centered, moody 
 little wretch. . . . Let's see what's happening in 
 this giddy place. Hum: one torn cat, looks as if 
 he's been out all night; a family of sparrows; the 
 kiddies next door dancing on Papa's crocus, won't 
 there be a shindy! " 
 
 She stared through the window at the gardens. 
 
 Their corners were brown and damp, and 
 padded in soft moist masses with the fallen leaves
 
 7 o TEN HOURS 
 
 of successive seasons, and with twigs and thin 
 boughs snapped off by winds; but the end walls 
 and those facing south blazed golden, and em- 
 phatic shadows cut the ground cleanly like blades 
 or shutters. Spare bushes rocked along the walls ; 
 on the soil were sprawling spaces of half-withered 
 green, violas and saxifrage, and other low plants, 
 whose sprouting new growth was not visible from 
 this distance. The daffodils too, an inch high, 
 were alike undistinguishable. 
 
 Ivy covered the walls, shaking its brown sprays 
 violently, and for some distance bare trees waved, 
 the tiniest twigs distinct as a lace-like edging to 
 the boughs. Sharply detached from the horizons, 
 everything was angular and harsh. Even the 
 trees seemed like metal rods, and the few stems 
 and shoots were like wire, whipping the air which 
 lapped above the stony soil. 
 
 Celia looked across the plunging laurels and 
 privets into the garden on the left. The cat was 
 there, the sparrows, and the children. She 
 watched the latter with interested but cool eyes. 
 Her maternal instincts were not very strongly 
 developed. She did not particularly want to have
 
 NOON 71 
 
 children. The moon-faces and comeiy legs of the 
 boy and girl next door dragged at no cords of her 
 heart. They were " jolly little things, that 
 was all." 
 
 In the garden beyond theirs a woman was at 
 the dustbin. Presently she left this and walked 
 down the garden to the rabbit hutches at its end. 
 Celia could just perceive bounding brown bodies 
 behind the wire doors. Another cat stalked along 
 the path, a rough ugly creature with a broad face 
 and misanthropical eyes. The sparrows were 
 chattering shrilly, whirring up to walls where they 
 stood round-bodied and stiff against the shimmer 
 of light, descending again to the lawns, and hop- 
 ping and pecking amid the grass. A train whistle 
 split the air; a train rattled by. 
 
 "Hum!" Celia ejaculated again, "and that's 
 that. A fearfully exciting scene ! " 
 
 The rounded contours of the downs, the soft- 
 ness of the plowed fields, the depths of pine- 
 woods perfumed by the yielding beds of cones and 
 needles, the gentle fall of meadows to the hamlets, 
 and the sweet lush grasses, tangled and drenched : 
 these hovered beyond the aggressive suburb and
 
 72 TEN HOURS 
 
 she sighed. Barnham was so rich and large, 
 Wykeham so meager. Look at these grass plots, 
 tufted, and with pulpy trodden spaces; look at the 
 next door garden; it was shamefully kept, paper 
 on the beds, the white brittle stalks of uprooted 
 flowers scattered about the grass, the rambler 
 roses casting long trails over the paths, withered 
 chrysanthemums and snap-dragons raggedly sway- 
 ing, all despite the sunlight, melancholy and mean. 
 
 She shivered. Recurrently during these last 
 few weeks Barnham had come before her mental 
 vision, oppressing her with longing for its easy 
 flight of hill and its smokeless air, intensifying 
 into positive dislike what had hitherto been merely 
 indifference to the suburb. In her dreams it was 
 always Barnham which surrounded her, never 
 Wykeham. 
 
 With an effort she roused herself. She ought to 
 live in the slums for a little while. . . . 
 
 In a month or two Robert would have his holi- 
 days and then they would go away. Her eyes 
 sparkled. She sniffed; the salt sea air, the wet sea 
 fogs, seemed to steal to her across the town and 
 hang on the warm air of the room with their
 
 NOON 73 
 
 haunting rumors of surf, and their recalled loveli- 
 ness of dwindling foam. Beautiful. 
 
 She sat, staring dreamily at the woman in the 
 next garden but one. Those ghostly cliffs, and 
 yellow sands, and windy caves faded suddenly; 
 the woman was hanging out some handkerchiefs 
 and Celia's keen eyes detected holes. Fancy hang- 
 ing such shabby old things in the garden ! 
 
 " I wouldn't show them off at any rate. She 
 henpecks that poor man. I believe she secures all 
 the cash and just allows him so much for tobacco. 
 If I were a man I wouldn't put up with it, but he 
 looks a mean-spirited little worm ! Sorry, I didn't 
 mean to be so harsh." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and stood up. " I'd 
 better go and lay dinner now; five minutes, and 
 Robert will be here. Thank goodness the tooth's 
 stopped." 
 
 She tripped to the door, casting a glance over 
 her shoulder at the mirror and the reflection in it 
 of her head, fluffy on a stem-like neck.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 ROBERT 
 
 ROBERT came home just before two. He put his 
 hat and coat on the hall-stand, glanced at the 
 dining-room door behind which he could hear 
 Celia moving, and then went up to the morning- 
 room. It was more pleasant to sit till dinner-time 
 over a coal fire than over a gas one. 
 
 He found the morning-room empty. Appre- 
 hensively his glance wandered round; then, his 
 eyes mild with relief, he walked to the fire and 
 stood there whistling softly, and with the aspect 
 of one who has slipped off a burden. He thought 
 of the MSS. It was three weeks since he sent 
 them up. Surely they would have been returned 
 by now if. ... He'd be satisfied if only one was 
 taken. It would show Celia that he had it in him. 
 She didn't believe that, he knew she didn't. . . . 
 The one on " The Train " was jolly good. 
 74
 
 ROBERT 75 
 
 He experienced a little thrill of hopeful expecta- 
 tion. Again he glanced round the room, ap- 
 proving the blue wall paper, the brown wood, the 
 blue casement curtains, the fat arm chairs, and the 
 lines of books. Hopefulness colored everything 
 he surveyed. The sun was shining; a three hours 
 cycle ride was before him; from the atmosphere 
 of the hall he deduced that Celia had had the oven 
 on; and the manuscript envelope w s not visible. 
 His whistle grew louder. 
 
 Robert Jennings was nearly thirty. He ap- 
 peared less tall than he was because of the stout- 
 ness of his figure, a stoutness which displeased him. 
 His generous waist line and the fatness of his 
 shoulders were, he considered, more suitable for a 
 man of forty. Almost as unsatisfactory to him 
 were his long face, his sober eyes, his rather snub 
 nose, and his immature mouth. He looked like 
 a pig, or a podgy baby. How Celia had ever come 
 to have him, he could not imagine. Girls liked a 
 good-looking fellow, and he was ugly. 
 
 Perhaps it was this humility which had appealed 
 to Celia, this and other physical attractions which 
 he was ignorant he possessed. His eyes, for
 
 76 TEN HOURS 
 
 instance, were good, and so, too, was the shape of 
 his head. He carried his solid body with a de- 
 liberation which was not without dignity, and the 
 repose of his movements was pleasant. 
 
 Even his solemnity had its value, Celia having 
 a glance as sharp as a rapier for the detection of 
 " cheekiness," and a crushing brusqueness of man- 
 ner towards " puppies." She had found Robert 
 modest, unassuming, and reverential. If his 
 plainness deterred her from placing him on that 
 secret pedestal as the dreamt-of Prince Charming, 
 she would not admit the fact. She refused to 
 measure Robert by his minimum of good looks. 
 "He can't help it, poor man! Handsome is ! 
 He's really very nice! As if I'd marry a man 
 because I liked the shape of his nose ! Why, my 
 own's like a button ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, his unromantic appearance had 
 frustrated the growth of that capacity for ideal- 
 istic and unreasoning worship, for that manifesta- 
 tion of homage and awe, which lay dormant in 
 her. With Celia, passion would be preluded, if 
 not by fear, at least by a tremendous respect. The 
 knowledge that one whom she considered high
 
 ROBERT 77 
 
 above her in status and beauty had stooped to love 
 her would alone be sufficient to throw her off her 
 balance. Robert inspired no such emotional ex- 
 perience; no illusive glamor covered him; no 
 fascinating speculations as to his character were 
 possible. He was merely a good young man who 
 showed to better advantage in common-place sur- 
 roundings than on a pedestal. 
 So Celia classified him. 
 
 II 
 
 He now stood listening to the sounds in the 
 house, and to the sound of wind and birds in the 
 garden, his equanimity pronounced; his figure up- 
 right and immobile. 
 
 A slow shuffle of feet became audible on the 
 staircase, and he looked at the door. It opened 
 and father came in. 
 
 " Ah good morning, Robert." 
 
 " Good morning," Robert nodded and smiled. 
 Father smiled back and advancing to the hearth- 
 rug took up a position there with a somewhat 
 oratorical air. 
 
 " And how are things? " he inquired, fixing his
 
 78 TEN HOURS 
 
 son-in-law with a protuberant and slightly water- 
 ing eye. 
 
 " They're all right," Robert replied, knowing 
 the general term to refer particularly to office 
 matters. "Quite all right, thanks. And you? 
 All right?" 
 
 " Yes. I am not in what I believe is called the 
 * rosy ' but I mustn't grumble. I'm getting old." 
 
 Father laughed, a thin cackle which broke forth 
 high up in his head and which was entirely without 
 muscular expression. 
 
 Robert laughed too. Encouraged by this ap- 
 preciation father put his hands behind him, palms 
 turned firewards, rocked up and down on his heels, 
 and continued in a still more monotonous drawl. 
 
 " I have been combining the useful with the 
 artistic; that is to say, pricking biscuits and writing 
 some verses. Quite a small thing on my domestic 
 duties. Celia suggested it." 
 
 He ceased with a jerk. He had been about to 
 mention the return of Robert's MSS. but remem- 
 bered Celia's warning given just before he came 
 upstairs. The narrowness of his escape dis- 
 ordered him. He stared into space.
 
 ROBERT 79 
 
 "Oh, have you?" said Robert. "Rather 
 a good idea. Can I see them, or hear 
 them?" 
 
 Father laughed again, self-consciously. He 
 glanced sideways at Robert with an almost spright- 
 ly expression. " I found the muse flowed freely," 
 he stated and slid a hand in his pocket. " I was 
 reminded of * Oh Duty who art a light to guide, 
 a rod to check the erring and reprove.' It was 
 the word * rod ' which ah which inspired me, 
 if such a poor result can be called the fruit 
 of inspiration." 
 
 " Dunno what else it is," Robert said, his face 
 perfectly blank and stodgy. He hoped to good- 
 ness father hadn't run to length ! 
 
 As the poet smoothed out a used envelope 
 Robert stared at him, noticing the rakish tilt of 
 the velour cap and the patches of flour on the 
 velvet coat. His brain seemed to stop working; 
 a pleasant languor stole over him. He was con- 
 scious of the comfortable chair, the warmth of the 
 fire, and the colorless haze of light streaming 
 through the window. He saw the little golden 
 hairs of father's brows standing out over the
 
 8o TEN HOURS 
 
 puffed lids; very thin and far away he heard 
 
 father reading. 
 
 " O Duty, in my days of manhood's prime, 
 Not wholly mean and ne'er effeminate, 
 
 What are you now in this slow present-time, 
 Why bring you me unto a woman's state ? " 
 
 The voice stopped. Robert roused himself and 
 said, "That's jolly good; best you've ever done, 
 father. I'll type it for you when it's finished; if the 
 rest is as good as that! " 
 
 u Ha! ha! You natter me, Robert." His 
 laugh was more than usually cracked; his hands 
 shook; embarrassed pleasure kept his eyes from 
 Robert. 
 
 " Jolly good," the latter repeated. 
 
 There was a pause. Father, pretending to be 
 doing nothing, furtively studied the envelope. 
 The bang of the oven door came up the stairs. 
 
 Presently father looked round. His eyes 
 searched Robert rather vaguely; then his glance 
 became fixed. He waggled a finger in the direction 
 of Robert's chin. 
 
 " You haven't got the mauve tie on to-day then. 
 Why have you shed your glory? "
 
 ROBERT 8 1 
 
 " Oh, the chief's son's buried to-day, you know. 
 I told you last night; thought I wouldn't blaze a 
 color like that up there." 
 
 " Ah, of course not, no." Father's vivacity 
 withered. He looked with painful intentness at 
 nothing, his brows very arched. Robert looked 
 at the fire. There was a long pause. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Then Celia came in. 
 
 " Hallo, Robert," she said. 
 
 Robert echoed " Hallo." His face was ex- 
 tremely wooden; his brain said to him, " Doesn't 
 she look pretty? " 
 
 " Everything's ready," Celia continued, " Just 
 waiting for Gwennie. You're not changing before 
 dinner then?" she added. 
 
 " No, it won't take a minute." 
 
 She smiled at them both, and then looked at her 
 husband with an odd waiting expression, one con- 
 siderate, reticent now but betraying eagerness to 
 be expansive. 
 
 Robert missed its shades as he missed a good 
 many things. To him she appeared absolutely
 
 82 TEN HOURS 
 
 candid, and fragrant: revealed as a blown rose; 
 not with the sealed seductiveness of the bud. Far 
 as he was from thinking her shallow, he neverthe- 
 less considered her transparent. Her briskness, 
 her matter-of-fact, independent manner were so 
 habitual that he imagined them to be the very es- 
 sence of her character, just as he imagined the 
 contradicting wistfulness of her eyes and mouth to 
 be purely accidental. His conviction that she was 
 without romance or sentiment, dreams, or emo- 
 tional complexities of any kind made him shy of 
 revealing his own depths. He was sentimental. 
 He knew it. But he was also self-conscious. He 
 dreaded her good-natured ridicule, he loved her 
 little verbal thrusts, but he was afraid of making 
 them malicious which now they never were. Often 
 he wanted to caress her, to be caressed. He would 
 have liked her to stroke his hair and flirt with him, 
 but his tongue, his eyes, his hands, were rebels; 
 they refused to obey his impulses; they seemed to 
 be entirely without powers of volition. To say to 
 Celia, when she was looking so business-like, and 
 natural, and easy, "I wish you'd stroke my hair," 
 this was a madness, contemplation of which made
 
 ROBERT 83 
 
 him shrink. She would stare, laugh, shake her 
 bright head, and exclaim, " Gracious ! You are 
 spoony! Dear little boy, does it want to be 
 petted then ? " She would not understand that the 
 fatuous request was the only outward expression 
 he could manage of his towering love for her. 
 The more he wanted to hold her, the more rigid 
 his body became, and the blanker his face. 
 
 Celia did not know this. Both were deceived 
 by the other's superficial aspect, an aspect which 
 each elaborated through fear of having if: pierced 
 and the underlying softness exposed to misunder- 
 standing. " I'm sure to let Robert see I'd like 
 him to kiss and fuss me," Celia thought. " If he 
 doesn't want to do it I'm not going to force him ! " 
 
 " She'd think you a maudlin fool. She wants 
 you to be a good pal. She doesn't like being 
 mauled." Thus Robert. 
 
 Now he looked at her stolidly. 
 
 " You'll have a lovely day for your ride," she 
 said. " Back about six, I suppose?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I'll put you up something to eat. Awfully risky 
 I call it, having tea on a gate this time of year.
 
 84 TEN HOURS 
 
 But you know. If I did it; this tooth ! It'd start 
 dancing at once. It's been going strong all 
 the morning." 
 
 "Has it?" Concern drove through his 
 phlegmatic face, it thrilled his voice. 
 
 Celia kindled. Her eyes dwelt softly on him. 
 
 " Oh, it's my own fault," she said, hastening 
 to disclaim martyrdom. " I ought to have it out. 
 It's stopped now, thank goodness." 
 
 Words of sympathy and love babbled in Rob- 
 ert's heart and swelled to his lips. And at once 
 the headlong impulse to hide his solicitude gripped 
 him. "Of course you must have it out; it's silly 
 to wait." Carefully he copied her careless 
 manner. 
 
 She was conscious of a chill. " Yes, it is," she 
 agreed, her eyes widening a little, her voice flat. 
 " Awfully silly, but one always makes a fuss over 
 a little thing." 
 
 " You don't make a fuss," Robert said 
 dispassionately. 
 
 " I'm sure she doesn't," father confirmed. 
 
 She looked from one to the other, a wry smile 
 on her lips. "Well, it hasn't prevented my having
 
 ROBERT 85 
 
 the oven on, anyway," she said, her voice brisk 
 again. 
 
 Neither answered her at once. She wondered 
 whether they would take her speech as a simple 
 statement of fact or suspect it to be an allusion to 
 the fortitude expected of her. They accepted it 
 as the former, and father who spoke next, only 
 seemed to be answering it. As his second sentence 
 proved, he was intent on his own achievements, 
 not on Celia's He observed casually, " I've just 
 been reading my literary effort to Robert. He has 
 been kind enough to approve it." 
 
 " It was jolly good," Robert said monotonously. 
 
 " I'm longing to hear it," Celia exclaimed. 
 " But wait till after dinner when there's more 
 time. Then you must read it to me." 
 
 A creaking of the front gate was followed by 
 the ringing of the house bell. 
 
 " There's Gwennie," said Celia, and ran 
 downstairs. 
 
 IV 
 
 She opened the hall-door. On the step stood 
 Gwennie looking narrowly at the road. She 
 turned when the door opened and her black eyes
 
 86 TEN HOURS 
 
 smiled at Celia. Without speaking she stepped 
 into the hall. 
 
 " Here you are then ! Robert's in, and every- 
 thing's ready." Celia shut the door. Her voice 
 was studiously easy but her eyes were sharp and 
 at the same time baffled. They scanned Gwennie 
 defensively. Though she was not aware of it, her 
 attitude was more upright and authoritative than 
 it had been all the morning. When Gwennie 
 smiled at her still without speaking she smiled back 
 indulgently as from an altitude of accumulated 
 years and wisdom. Her smile was intended to 
 show that she saw nothing in Gwennie except 
 extreme youth; no unusual prettiness; certainly no 
 personality. When she moved towards the kitchen 
 it was with a composed and assured air. 
 
 " Take your things off and then call the others," 
 she said. 
 
 Gwennie said " All right." She walked upstairs 
 putting her foot down firmly, unbuttoning her coat 
 with leisurely fingers, looking straight before her, 
 eyes vague, mouth serene.
 
 PART II 
 GWENNIE 
 
 The idle life I lead 
 
 Is like a pleasant sleep, 
 
 Wherein I rest and heed 
 
 The dreams that by me sweep." 
 ROBERT BRIDGES.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 DINNER 
 
 THE Jennings always had breakfast in the kitchen, 
 lunch and dinner in the dining-room, and tea in 
 the morning-room. On Saturday, dinner was at 
 midday and then tea and supper were the meals 
 had upstairs. This variety was observed on ac- 
 count of the fires and convenience. Celia let the 
 kitchen fire out at one o'clock, except on Saturdays 
 when father bathed. It was easier to light the 
 gas-fire in the front room and carry hot meals 
 there than to take them up to the dining-room. 
 But for the presence of father's bed the dining- 
 room would have been used consistently as a 
 living room. 
 
 Father slept downstairs partly because it re- 
 duced his traffic on the stairs, thus benefiting his 
 heart and his rheumatism, and partly because all 
 the other rooms were occupied. The front attic 
 alone was empty, but then its position made it 
 unsuitable for father's use.
 
 90 TEN HOURS 
 
 A high green screen patterned with green 
 dragons was drawn modestly round the bed. The 
 rest of the room was furnished with a light oak 
 dining-room suite, arm-chairs, and two book-cases 
 with glass doors. The bay window commanded a 
 view of the road and the houses opposite. Celia, 
 from the head of the table, could see the privet 
 hedge, and the three laurels scraping each other 
 in their peevish movements; she could see the 
 spikes of the railings, and the hard-edged houses 
 holding off the sky. The scene made no imme- 
 diate impression on her, but often at night she 
 would dream of the outlook from the home win- 
 dows at Barnham: the rutted roadway with its 
 screen of Scotch firs; the orchard trees beyond, 
 and, leaping above them, the eastern sky from 
 whence the dawn stole to her across the still silent 
 and shadowy fields. She never dreamed of the 
 railings, the laurels, the houses. Yet, in the day- 
 time, it was only occasionally that she thought 
 of Barnham. 
 
 Now, as she served dinner, her mind was en- 
 tirely occupied with the tenderness of the meat, the 
 flouriness of the potatoes, and the freshness of the
 
 DINNER 91 
 
 brussels-sprouts. She told Robert all about 
 Lavender Road, including father and Gwennie in 
 the conversation with quick turns of the head. 
 
 Robert nodded by way of response, and once 
 or twice lifted his eyes from his plate to look 
 unwinkingly at her. Father attended solely to his 
 dinner, transforming it by his almost clerical sol- 
 emnity into a kind of ritual; one, too, of a pleasant 
 nature judging by the unctuousness of his mastica- 
 tion. Frequently his eyes roved to the bottle of 
 ale standing near Celia. She had grudgingly 
 poured him out one glass and there was one left. 
 This he would have for supper. His gaze now 
 was inexpressive but lingering. 
 
 Gwennie looked chiefly at her food and at the 
 space of screen level with her eyes. Once or 
 twice, however, she sent a deliberate inscrutable 
 glance at Celia or Robert. 
 
 She was nearly seventeen, tall, with a long full 
 throat, and with round arms and breasts defined 
 by a skimpy, buff-colored jumper. The thick black 
 hair ending a little below her ears, and the fringe 
 covering her brows, accentuated the breadth and 
 shortness of her face. Her eyes were set well-
 
 92 TEN HOURS 
 
 apart. They were always half-closed and seemed 
 on superficial inspection to be vacant and dull, but 
 a second glance sometimes surprised a glint, an 
 intelligence, which was so swiftly subdued that 
 their momentary existence seemed a matter for 
 doubt, and was often explained as an illusion of 
 the spectator's brain. Her short broad nose was 
 much nearer her eyes than her mouth. In the long 
 upper lip was a perpendicular groove; the lips 
 were scarlet, and their curves sharp cut; the chin 
 was very broad. When she smiled two deep dim- 
 ples came in her cheeks, and she showed small 
 even teeth. She sat comfortably, drawing support 
 from the chair back, the table, and the rungs of 
 the chair, yet with a certain sensuous grace in the 
 boneless subsidence of her body. Her laziness 
 was so great that she would not even move her 
 head. When she wanted to see anything she 
 turned her eyes only. 
 
 To Celia, all vitality and swiftness, this immo- 
 bility was supremely aggravating. As she talked, 
 her eyes wandered to Gwennie, and confronted 
 with that lusterless fixity of gaze, that curving 
 body surrendered to complete repose, she was
 
 DINNER 93 
 
 occupied once more with the insoluble problem: 
 was Gwennie really inert, unthinking, childish, or 
 did her mind, active all this time, receive clear 
 impressions, her ears detect every shade of 
 tone, her eyes miss no movement? What was 
 Gwennie ? 
 
 Presently, Robert, too, looked at the young 
 girl. He was without suspicion. To him her out- 
 ward simplicity was a true manifestation of char- 
 acter. He was incapable of seeing this silence, 
 this sleepiness, as a possible mask. He thought 
 Gwennie looked " out of it." She always did. 
 Of course the things he and Celia discussed could 
 not interest a child. She must find Uncle and 
 Aunt thunderingly prosy. And father in this 
 flood of light, all the puffiness, rheuminess, and 
 vacillation of father's face were inexorably appar- 
 ent. She must think father antediluvian! A stir 
 of sympathy awoke in him. 
 
 "What have you been doing this morning, 
 Gwen? " he asked. 
 
 Celia glanced at him and then at Gwennie. 
 Unconsciously her brows arched. As she waited 
 for Gwennie's answer she was again aware of that
 
 94 TEN HOURS 
 
 baffled sense of being on strange ground, distrust- 
 ful of its apparent openness, and yet ashamed of 
 her distrust. 
 
 " Oh, nothing much." Gwennie spoke through 
 scarcely parted lips in a voice that had little more 
 volume than a breath. Too much energy was re- 
 quired for a throaty voice ! " We're not very 
 busy." 
 
 "So I suppose you sit and drink tea?" Rob- 
 ert suggested. 
 
 Gwennie giggled. "I only have one cup 'bout 
 'leven." 
 
 She slurred her words into indistinctness. Her 
 eyes, drowsily smiling, rested on Robert's which 
 were also smiling. 
 
 Celia turned to father. " More meat, father?" 
 
 " Just a trifle, please." 
 
 As she served him she listened to Robert. 
 
 "How's that red-haired girl getting on?" he 
 was saying. " The one you don't get on with. 
 What was it she called you ? " 
 
 " Sh' didn't call me anything; said there was 
 too much fav'ritism. She meant me. I haven't 
 seen her lately."
 
 DINNER 95 
 
 " Cessation of hostilities, I suppose," Robert 
 murmured. " You couldn't have a real good 
 ' hate,' Gwen; you're too lazy." 
 
 Gwennie giggled again. She sent him a side- 
 long glance and then bent her eyes on her plate. 
 
 Sharp little reflections stung Celia. " He just 
 nods when I talk, but he can chaff her. I can't 
 think how he can find her amusing. I suppose he 
 thinks her pretty. That covers a multitude of 
 sins. And if she smiles like that at him of course 
 he thinks she thinks him clever. Simpleton ! " 
 
 A tide of self-reproach drowned these thoughts. 
 " You are a mean beast, always snapping at some- 
 thing. He wants to make Gwen happy, and of 
 course she's what she seems. It's so silly to think 
 she's posing. She's just a child and she doesn't 
 know there's anything well, cheeky in her way of 
 smiling. I don't know why you should think she's 
 subtle. Ally wasn't." 
 
 This flurry of self-judgment lasted a second; 
 then it crystallized into speech. 
 
 " Gwen's not lazy; she's only resting. You 
 have to look alive at the office, don't you, Gwen? 
 Of course you want to be quiet here."
 
 96 TEN HOURS 
 
 She smiled at Gwennie and then at Robert. 
 " Anybody would seem quiet next to a chatterbox 
 like me," she added. 
 
 Robert regarded her gravely. " Oh you 
 you're inconsequent; mere cackle." 
 
 Celia grimaced at him. She stood up. " No 
 mince-pie for that! None of your impertinence! 
 . . . Father marked all round the edge. He did 
 it beautifully, bless him ! " 
 
 "A great task in which to excel," father 
 commented. 
 
 She swung out of the room. It made it so much 
 nicer when they all talked instead of sitting there, 
 glumly munching ! 
 
 When she entered the kitchen she was only half 
 aware of its hot stale smell. As she took from the 
 oven the mince-pie and the pudding she approved 
 their color, and cast a glance at the plate of bis- 
 cuits. Those round ones were for Mr. Hyde's 
 tea. The less perfect shapes did for the family. 
 Mr. Hyde would be at home soon after three; he 
 lunched in town. 
 
 A slight heat pricked her skin and for a moment 
 she heart beat unevenly. When she went from
 
 DINNER 97 
 
 the brilliant kitchen into the dim chill passage, she 
 saw no outlines, only a well of brown shadow with 
 a bar of silver the glass of the hall-door at its 
 end. Her mind was like that: an empty well with 
 light hovering distantly above it; a light unnam- 
 able, vague, and not to be explained. 
 She entered the dining-room. 
 
 II 
 
 Sharp and shadowless, the room lay before her. 
 She saw Gwennie lolling back in her chair, her 
 hands clasped on the cloth, her almost closed eyes 
 smiling at Robert, her mouth closed, but curled 
 and broadened in a smile. Robert was looking 
 at her, not actually reflecting her expression, 
 but friendly and interested. Father was drink- 
 ing. 
 
 Thoughts stormed Celia's mind, and emotions 
 her heart. There was intimacy and understanding 
 in the steady regard of Robert and Gwennie. 
 They might have just shared a joke or a confi- 
 dence, or, worse still, they might neither have 
 spoken since Celia left the room, but simply estab- 
 lished and found sufficient a silent communication.
 
 98 TEN HOURS 
 
 They seemed oblivious to Father, engrossed in 
 
 their crossing glances. 
 
 As jealousy thrust this point into her, common 
 sense no less rapidly planted a defensive one. 
 Gwennie smiled like that because Robert's stare 
 embarrassed her; she felt self-conscious. Rob- 
 ert had this habit of looking absently at peo- 
 pie 
 
 But there was no preoccupation in his gaze; 
 Gwennie did not look self-conscious, but madden- 
 ingly, languorously at ease, and content. . . . 
 
 Celia set the things on the table. " There 1 I'm 
 expecting this to be all right. I used heaps 
 of lard." 
 
 " Looks all right," Robert said. " When are 
 we going to have a boiled pudding roly-poly, or 
 apple, or something like that? " 
 
 Celia's brow puckered. " Would you rather 
 have that than this? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, no. I only meant we haven't had one for 
 a long time, and we've had a lot of these." 
 
 He nodded at the tapioca. 
 
 Celia's eyes, large and without expression, 
 moved in the same direction. " I suppose we
 
 DINNER 99 
 
 have. I didn't know you were tired of them. 
 They're more digestible than suet puddings; not 
 so heavy for father. Still I always like you to 
 say what you want." 
 
 Robert did not answer. He received his por- 
 tion with perfect contentment, having made his 
 remark with no sense of ill-usage. It did not for 
 one moment occur to him that, Celia having been 
 over the oven for an hour, that remark was tact- 
 less and even ungracious. 
 
 Gwennie, however, possessing the average 
 amount of feminine perception, saw his maladroit- 
 ness and its effect on Celia, unostentatious as this 
 last was. Celia might hide her vexation and her 
 sense of the ineptitude and density of her family, 
 but Gwennie realized her emotions, not so much 
 through intuition, as through knowledge of what 
 her own feelings would be in the same circum- 
 stances. When she thought at all she was accus- 
 tomed to generalize. She attributed to Celia the 
 irritation she would have felt herself, but she was 
 not moved to sympathy. On the contrary, she 
 found humor in Robert's innocent sting. She 
 laughed.
 
 ioo TEN HOURS 
 
 All three turned to her. Irrepressible giggles 
 seized her. She humped -her shoulders and shook 
 herself slightly; her face became scarlet with her 
 efforts to regain sobriety. 
 
 Robert and Father looked owlishly uncompre- 
 hending. Celia, piercing unerringly to the cause 
 of this mirth, flushed and then grew pale. Her 
 mouth tightened. Now her eyes were hard as 
 crystals. 
 
 "Tell us the joke, Gwennie," she said. "I 
 told you she wasn't lazy, Robert. She's far more 
 intelligent than any of us. We haven't seen any- 
 thing to laugh at yet, but she has. You might take 
 pity on our, our obtuseness, Gwen, and tell us 
 where the humor is." 
 
 Her chin was up, her lip curled. Her eyes 
 struck Gwennie's like blades. Underneath her 
 soft skin her bones seemed rigid as steel. 
 
 Gwennie stopped laughing but she did not look 
 abashed. Naively she pressed her hand on her 
 hot cheek. 
 
 Celia did not repeat her challenge. She turned 
 disdainfully to father. " Is there plenty of mince- 
 meat in your piece, father? That's right. . . .
 
 DINNER 101 
 
 I'm longing to see that verse. I suppose you'll do 
 the rest this afternoon? " 
 
 She heard but did not attend to father's reply. 
 Her eyes went to Robert. He looked uncom- 
 fortable. As she studied him his glance roved 
 apprehensively to Gwennie as if he feared to find 
 her tearful with mortification. 
 
 Of course he took Gwennie's part! He didn't 
 see how rude Gwennie was; he didn't care if Celia 
 was laughed at; it was Gwennie's feelings that 
 mattered. 
 
 She ate fiercely, the pastry like ash in her mouth, 
 the pudding tasteless. In her annoyance she for- 
 got to bite only on the side where the tooth was 
 not, and at once, sunken in the hot pudding, it 
 lunged into fiery, racking protest. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Robert had detected the edge in her voice, had 
 seen the animosity of her eyes, but he could think 
 of no adequate reason for such anger. He was 
 innocent of any subtle alliance with Gwennie. 
 The admiration and enjoyment Celia read into 
 his glance were absent from his heart. To Gwen-
 
 102 TEN HOURS 
 
 nie he was a man and therefore one on whom to 
 bestow smiles and dimples, but to Robert Gwennie 
 was not a woman. He was blind to the precocity 
 of her regard. She was a jolly kid that was all. 
 He did not even think her very pretty since he 
 thought Celia lovely and aunt and niece were most 
 dissimilar. Celia fretted by pain, unaccustomed 
 weariness and inexplicable unrest, distorted his 
 kindly friendliness into a sexual interest which 
 Robert was quite incapable of feeling for any 
 woman but his wife. That Gwennie should be 
 viewed as its object was an inconceivable thing 
 which would fairly have stunned him had he 
 recognized its existence in Celia's mind. 
 
 Now, a few minutes having passed since Celia 
 spoke, his thoughts slid away from the material 
 objects about him and played among fascinating 
 possibilities. Was there a chance that any or all 
 of the poems had been accepted? If it were so 
 
 His heart jumped a little; the pudding and 
 pastry became suddenly delicious; the room was a 
 shell, softly golden, and visited by the fluting ut- 
 terance of the birds and the drumming traffic of
 
 DINNER 103 
 
 the wind. Tiny scenes swung into his mind, were 
 reviewed, and faded, and were succeeded by 
 others still more brilliant. The morning-room to- 
 night and the seven o'clock post that was the 
 first. He saw the long envelope, the slip inside 
 and its outstanding sentences: " The poem en- 
 titled ' The Train ' . . . two guineas . . . pub- 
 lished in due course." 
 
 This vanished, and another moved into vision: 
 the check, Celia's delight, and deference ; the pur- 
 chase of those two large volumes of the Morte 
 D' Arthur which stood in the dun shadow of the 
 bookshop at Wykeham Rise ; they were five shill- 
 ings; Celia should have the rest for a hat. Sup- 
 posing he had a poem taken every week; that 
 would be two guineas extra and as his name became 
 known he would be paid more. ... Of course 
 he would bring them all out in book form. 
 
 The vague outlines of a publisher's office, his 
 own voice discussing terms of publication: his 
 imagination could not soar beyond the splendor of 
 this last scene. Its flame filled him; a dilating 
 heart drove him into speech.
 
 104 TEN HOURS 
 
 Casually he turned to Celia. " Talking of 
 poetry my flights haven't come back then? It's 
 three weeks now." 
 
 The middle sentence was an assertion, not a 
 question. Father gave him a swift dismayed look 
 and then averted his eyes. Celia looked at him, 
 too. For an instant there was silence, and in it 
 there became tartly audible, train whistles, voices 
 of hawkers, and the hissing of trees, the pushing 
 vehemence of the wind. 
 
 He saw Celia sheeted in light, little glints in 
 her hair, her eyes filmily staring at him, her cheeks 
 flat on either side of a pinched nose, a glazed red 
 blotch on her face. 
 
 He came into sharp impact with the knowledge 
 that she did not look well. His mouth opened. 
 Concerned inquiry and the hazard that the tooth 
 was aching were just about to be voiced when, 
 tortured by pain, concentrated on that torture 
 to the utter annihilation of all thought for 
 other people's feelings, savagely desirous indeed 
 to deal a blow and involve everybody in a trouble 
 which she would view callously, Celia spoke. 
 
 " They came back this morning; all of them. I
 
 DINNER 105 
 
 wasn't going to let you see them before dinner. I 
 thought we'd have that in peace at any rate." 
 
 Collision with this stunning fact drove from 
 Robert's mind all thought of Celia's pallor. His 
 darkness was accentuated by the brightness of 
 those dreams, unjustifiably elaborated into prob- 
 abilities. Frantically his brain strove to persuade 
 him that neither he nor Celia had spoken; that the 
 MSS. were still unreturned, the dreams, still fore- 
 tastes of an actual future ; but its deception ceased 
 almost at once ; it settled into blankness. 
 
 For a moment he sat silent while he assimilated 
 all the bitterness of disappointment. Then he 
 turned blackly to his wife. 
 
 " I like to be told at once. It's all rot about its 
 spoiling a meal." 
 
 " Oh." Celia's exclamation dismissed this pro- 
 test as something not worthy of attention, dis- 
 missed the whole affair, indeed, as an exasperating 
 ineptitude. " We don't want to be worried during 
 meals. What's the good? You might have 
 known they would come back. They always do." 
 
 The poison of this last statement sank into Rob- 
 ert's heart and turbidly filled it. A crowd of ac-
 
 io6 TEN HOURS 
 
 cusations, injuries, and judgments flocked into his 
 mind. " They always do." The curt sentence, 
 more deadly still for its truth, summed up Celia's 
 view of his literary output, her lack of faith, her 
 impatience. She never asked to read his poems; 
 she talked when he was writing them, refusing 
 by her vivacity to classify them among serious 
 labors; she protested when he bought books; she 
 was more than unsympathetic: she was actively 
 hostile. 
 
 He turned his face to her, his mouth stubborn, 
 his eyes like points in their anger, his aspect one 
 of subdued but -steadily smoldering temper. 
 
 " I know that. You needn't point it out. But 
 in future give them to me at once." 
 
 " Certainly." She forced her mouth into a 
 shapeless smile. "More pudding, Gwennie ?' T 
 
 Robert's staring eyes moved towards the girl. 
 Was this a cruel adroit reminder that Gwennie 
 witnessed his discomfiture and his sulks? In any 
 case, whether intentional or not, it did so remind 
 him. He wished he had shown more dignity, and 
 concealed his chagrin. " They always do." 
 Gwennie knew that. She could tell it to the girls
 
 DINNER 107 
 
 at hei office. Deducting from Celia's offhand 
 manner that he as a poet was no good, that this 
 period of failure was not the mere temporary one 
 of apprenticeship but a merited condition which 
 would last as long as he persisted in sending his 
 poems to papers, she too would grow contemptu- 
 ous, she would think him conceited, unamenable to 
 the repeated assurances that he was simply wasting 
 his time ; blind, uncritical, fatuous. . . . 
 
 His cheeks were hot. The intolerable distinct- 
 ness of the bodies of his companions; the intoler- 
 able silence charged with unspoken, but raging 
 thoughts, with feelings carefully hidden but no 
 less powerful; the dulling fragments of his 
 dreams strewn about him; the knowledge that if 
 Celia had shown him the manuscript at once he 
 would have been spared the keener pain won 
 through the prolonging of ignorance and its oc- 
 cupation of castle-building; the sickening suspicion 
 that the poems really were worthless; that he 
 never would do anything; all weighed upon him 
 like real substances, bruising and crushing him. 
 
 "Where are they?" he said. 
 
 " Upstairs, under a book on the side-table."
 
 io8 TEN HOURS 
 
 " Hiding them like that, childish." 
 His muttter drew a hard glance from Celia. 
 The tooth was settling down into a dull throbbing 
 but though it was the factor which had spurred 
 on all her rebellions and angers, she now scarcely 
 heeded it. Like Robert she was engaged with 
 judgments, injuries, and complaints. Why couldn't 
 he admit that he was a failure in this special 
 line and abandon it? It was the cause of all their 
 dissensions. He recognized her indifference and 
 was made sore by it. He would be a far more 
 agreeable companion if he were not always stuck 
 over a book or the typewriter. She hadn't meant 
 to be so tart, but it was all so silly. She had no 
 patience with people wilfully deceiving them- 
 selves ; it was much better to know the truth and 
 admit it to be the truth, and have everything 
 cleared up and done with. 
 
 She looked with softening eyes at father. He 
 at any rate, good man, didn't submit his effusions 
 to an editor! She did not mind Robert scribbling, 
 but it was the conceit of imagining the verses 
 worthy of publication that was so irritating. 
 Father, at least, recognized his unfitness for the
 
 DINNER 109 
 
 press and contented himself with the applause of 
 his family. Why couldn't Robert? . . . 
 
 Her glance traveled to Gwennie. With envy 
 she saw the latter's placid survey of the road and 
 the passers-by, the indolent attitude of shoulders 
 and arms, the fresh smoothness of cheek and 
 brow. Worries, responsibilities, jars, pains; none 
 of these attacked Gwennie. Like a cat she blinked 
 in the light, composed herself luxuriously, and 
 with detached calm, watched the afflictions of 
 others. An inaudible sigh parted Celia's lips. To 
 be sixteen, with at once all the advantages of free- 
 dom, and all the protection of the nest; without 
 foresight, without memory; untroubled by regrets, 
 unchastened by experience; to be thus was to 
 be happy. 
 
 In dignified straightness Celia sat in the strained 
 silence and looked wistfully at the clouds climbing 
 over the crisp roofs, at the smokes streaming out 
 with steel-colored glitters in their gray folds. She 
 was conscious of every line of Robert's figure, of 
 his long heavy face and his brooding eyes. A 
 hand, cold, and nervous, was probing her heart, 
 was squeezing it. ...
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 AFTER DINNER 
 
 AFTER dinner she and Gwennie went into the scul- 
 lery to wash up. Father and Robert withdrew 
 upstairs. 
 
 Father sat by the fire and filled a pipe. Robert 
 lifted the books on the side-table and removed 
 the envelope. 
 
 He walked to the window and standing there 
 with his back to father, slowly drew out the poems 
 and stared distastefully at the folded sheets 
 through which typewriting was faintly visible. As 
 he shifted them the enclosed " editor's regrets " 
 met his eyes. Angry repugnance shook him. He 
 laid the papers on the hood of the typewriter and 
 then stood staring moodily at the railway. 
 
 He heard father's chair creaking, he smelt unlit 
 tobacco, heard the contact of plate with plate 
 downstairs, and close at hand, a puffing; now the 
 pronounced smell of tobacco smoke was in the
 
 AFTER DINNER in 
 
 room. He pondered over every noise, he knew 
 the exact movement which inspired it, but all the 
 time his mind wove swift intricate phrases, and 
 placed clear scenes before him, and was full of 
 bewildering energy. 
 
 Presently the room and its sounds lost signifi- 
 cance. He concentrated himself entirely on those 
 subterranean workings of his mind. What was 
 wrong with the poems? He was pinned to that 
 question ; till he had answered it neither his brain 
 nor his heart could have rest. 
 
 His eyes followed the lines of roof traveling 
 down the sky, the railway banks spaced with long 
 grass and muddy growth, the gorse beyond, and 
 the poplars, gray and impalpable as vapors, 
 shaken by the wind. Across them all, pushing 
 them back into shadowy unimportance, were the 
 bold lines of his verses; what was wrong with 
 these ? 
 
 Tobacco smoke stole to him, strong-smelling, 
 catching the light as it mounted in smooth eddying 
 sweeps above his head. The scent was the one 
 external thing of which he was conscious. 
 
 Father smoked peacefully, having despite the
 
 ii2 TEN HOURS 
 
 noises in the house and in the streets, a sense of 
 profound quietude. His eyelids drooped. Pon- 
 dering over his poem he was bothered by confused 
 irrelevant images of golden pools and runnels of 
 water stealing with the sound of saturation amid 
 grasses. Water suggested by the swishing wind, 
 the dewy bird-songs, obsessed him. He could 
 almost see the stealthy shimmer of its descent; he 
 heard it sinking in the woods; smelt stagnant 
 pools, and steeped roots, endless marshes. He 
 nodded. 
 
 II 
 
 At the end of ten minutes, Robert had found 
 the verses dull, flat, commonplace. Of course 
 they would not be taken. . . . 
 
 His agreement with the editor's verdict relieved 
 him, since it proved that he was not, as he had 
 feared, without critical perceptions. The poems 
 were not the best he could do. Had they been, 
 then indeed their return would have plunged him 
 into unbearable despondency, but once convinced 
 of their faults, there came in natural sequence the 
 hope that he could remedy these faults, turn out 
 better work, and at last win success. 
 
 His heart lightened. Slow, tenacious and per-
 
 AFTER DINNER 113 
 
 vasive, the determination to win this success 
 seized on him; he held himself still more uprightly, 
 and stared pugnaciously at a passing train. He 
 would do it. No labor should be shirked. He 
 would read and think and observe and practise; 
 then some day he would do it. 
 
 Calmly he turned to the clock; it was time 
 to change. He moved from the window 
 and regarded father, his glance almost benevo- 
 lent. 
 
 Father's head had fallen to one side, the pipe 
 hung on his sagging underlip, his brows were knit 
 uneasily, and the cap was awry. He did not look 
 particularly pleasing, but Robert's expression re- 
 mained mild. When a sound between a wheeze 
 and a rattle broke forth in father's nose, alarm 
 stamped his face. Regained ease of breathing, 
 however, reassured him. Very quietly he left the 
 room and went upstairs to change. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Presently he came down again to the hall. The 
 bicycle stood in the second passage and he felt 
 the tires as he passed it on his way to the kitchen. 
 . . . They were hard as bricks. . ...
 
 ii 4 TEN HOURS 
 
 He entered the kitchen. 
 
 Gwennie was sitting on a chair, sitting squarely, 
 comfortably. Celia was in the scullery. A corner 
 of the table was spread with a cloth, a thermos 
 flask, bread, a plate of buns and a cake-stand filled 
 with Celia's biscuits. On the fire the kettle was 
 boiling. 
 
 Gwennie looked at him and smiled. He smiled 
 in return and stood by the fire, his eyes on Celia. 
 Again he was struck by the droop of her shoulders, 
 the inward dip of her cheeks, the wanness of her 
 eyes. Uneasily he asked Gwennie: 
 
 "Is she all right?" 
 
 Gwennie showed how superficial was her de- 
 tachment from the scene and how thoroughly she 
 lived in it by instantly understanding him. 
 
 " Think so, she's had toothache, y'know." 
 
 " Mm. Has she got it now? " 
 
 " Don't know, she hasn't said. I expect 
 she has." 
 
 Their voices were low but they reached Celia's 
 ears. The confidential murmur brought her eyes 
 to the speakers. Secretive, companionable; no 
 doubt Robert got on well with Gwennie. As she
 
 AFTER DINNER 115 
 
 met his eyes she missed their not very apparent 
 concern and read into his attitude and his gaze 
 only a reminder that he was waiting. 
 
 " Shan't be a minute," she said pertly. 
 
 Robert said, " No hurry." 
 
 Celia's glance wandered to Gwennie. She was 
 sitting down, of course. " Have you got every- 
 thing for uncle's tea? " she demanded. 
 
 "Yes," said Gwennie, "think so." She 
 scanned the table. " Oh, I forgot the teapot." 
 
 " And the sugar and milk," Robert supple- 
 mented. " Poor uncle ! Scurry now; see how fast 
 you can move." 
 
 Gwennie laughed as she went to the dresser. 
 
 " His highness has got over the jar," thought 
 Celia. " He likes to chaff her. It's a good thing 
 something makes him forget his troubles." 
 
 She entered the kitchen and took up the loaf. 
 " Where's the butter, Gwennie ? " 
 
 " Haven't I put it on? Sorry." She moved to 
 the pantry. 
 
 Celia looked impassively at the loaf. A thin 
 call came from the pantry, " Which shall I bring? 
 There's two here."
 
 n6 TEN HOURS 
 
 One was margarine, the other the weekly ration 
 of butter. For a second Celia hesitated. She 
 shot a furtive glance at her husband. 
 
 His eyes were downcast. It was constraint that 
 kept him silent but she imagined that he was still 
 sulking and a sudden indignation smothered all 
 scruples. Her mouth and her eyes hardened. He 
 could be pleasant to Gwennie. Standing there so 
 impatiently; bidding her to attend to his comfort! 
 At the sight of his heavy face and body, all the 
 morning's clouds seemed to culminate in an over- 
 whelming gloom. She was swept up to brief 
 hysterical fury. She hated the shackles of mar- 
 riage; she hated Gwennie with her laziness, her 
 plumpness, her ready response to Robert's friendli- 
 ness; most of all she hated the kitchen with its smell 
 of dried food and gas and steam. Blindingly she 
 saw what she wanted. Through that acute sus- 
 ceptibility to smell, those desires which had hither- 
 to only influenced her dreams, found sudden com- 
 munication with her conscious self. She wanted to 
 get out into the air, into the light. Away from 
 duties, away from this discordant bustling suburb, 
 she wanted to stand, with downs swelling around
 
 AFTER DINNER 117 
 
 her, skies rushing down to clear distances, and the 
 bitterness of newly turned furrows, the breath of 
 sprouting leaves and rain pools, and washed 
 roadways, sweeping hugely by. No smoke, no 
 sound of toil. Space, fragrance, great spaces of 
 light dipping over woodlands. . . . 
 
 " Bring the roll," she said clearly. 
 
 Gwennie came in and laid the margarine on 
 the table. She looked intelligently at Celia. 
 
 Those thrilling desires died, fury died. Miser- 
 able and ashamed, Celia cut the bread. Her 
 meanness was known to Gwennie, her petty 
 revenge. 
 
 " Put some hot water in the thermos," she said, 
 and proudly beat down Gwennie's confidential 
 smile. 
 
 " I'll do that," said Robert 
 
 " That's right, spare Gwennie." 
 
 Like wasps, venomous thoughts seemed to flock 
 through her head to-day. She was utterly 
 odious. . . . Every time the knife went into the 
 margarine she felt that Robert's glance was on 
 her. . . . Any one could see it was marg. 
 
 Her cheeks grew hot, she could not lift her eyes. 
 
 \
 
 n8 TEN HOURS 
 
 IV 
 
 The sun was moving into the west. Blackly the 
 trees spread out across the light burning redly 
 amid dispersing clouds. The wall facing the win- 
 dow was yellow, splashes and bars of yellow were 
 in other parts of the room, and sharp little flashes 
 came from copper things and pewter. The garden 
 held light as a cup holds water; its straggling 
 growth folded into the soft glow and swayed more 
 gracefully. Along the fence the rambler roses, 
 already leafy, were a haze of greeny-gold. 
 
 Robert did not notice that it was margarine; 
 he had filled the flask, not to spare Gwennie, but 
 to prevent accidents. He was thinking what a 
 ripping day it was, how pretty Celia looked, how 
 he wished she'd soften, how sorry he was about 
 the tooth. 
 
 He watched the movements of her soft wrists, 
 the bends of her neck, the pouting beauty of her 
 mouth. What a fool he had been to scowl at her; 
 if only it wasn't so difficult to make the first 
 advances ! 
 
 He tried to think of something to say, but sub-
 
 AFTER DINNER 119 
 
 jects evaded him. Silently he watched her 
 spreading jam, packing buns and biscuits. 
 
 She was aware of his scrutiny, and her hands 
 trembled, she moved jerkily. His regard was an 
 accusation, she thought, of the margarine, the 
 thickness of the bread, even of the shape of the 
 biscqits. So unhabitual had been all the emotions 
 of the day that tearfulness seemed almost an 
 inevitable end to them. Nothing she did could 
 surprise her now. 
 
 Feelings whirled through her, she wanted to sit 
 down, to be bathed in fresh air, to be held in 
 some one's arms and soothed and kissed, to be 
 considered, and waited on, and sympathized with. 
 She was so terribly tired. . . . 
 
 She lifted her appealing eyes to Robert just as 
 he addressed Gwennie. 
 
 " What are you going to do this afternoon, 
 Gwen? " 
 
 " Don't know, go out I expect, and muck 
 about." 
 
 His good-natured smile, Gwennie's breathy 
 little voice, stung Celia into firmness. She made 
 the tea.
 
 120 TEN HOURS 
 
 Robert came to the table, tipping up Gwennie's 
 chair as he passed. Gwennie uttered a reedy little 
 shriek. She jumped up with more agility than 
 usual and struck him lightly. He chased her 
 round the table and into the scullery. She was 
 laughing, humping her shoulders, and glancing 
 back over one, her eyes sparkling. Knowledge of 
 Auntie's displeasure made her impish, and also 
 she was avid for admiration. She threw open the 
 scullery door and ran into the garden and stood 
 with her head thrown back, her strong throat 
 broadened, her teeth, her dimples, her impertinent 
 nose, her narrow eyes, challenging him. She 
 looked handsome and womanly. Her glance sped 
 past Robert to Celia; and its triumph, its defiance, 
 its equalizing directness, sank into Celia's heart. 
 For the moment she could not dissemble. She 
 watched Robert. 
 
 " Now then, young lady," he was exclaiming. 
 " I'll teach you how to treat uncle with a proper 
 reverence." 
 
 He put out his hands towards her shoulders 
 meaning to shake her, but her body's fullness and
 
 AFTER DINNER 121 
 
 height, the slyness of her sidelong glance, were 
 disconcerting, they checked and confused him. He 
 had chased a child and found a coquettish warm 
 palpitating girl. He had never before noticed 
 how tall Gwennie was, how well-developed of 
 body, how competently roguish of eye. 
 
 He stared. Then unstirred by her prettiness, 
 but irritated by the suspicion that she was fooling 
 him, he turned and walked indoors. " Got my 
 tea ready?" he asked Celia. 
 
 " Yes. Don't be later than six, the best of the 
 day's over long before then." She walked past 
 him to the cupboard, her eyes indifferently averted. 
 
 " All right, I won't. Good-by," he spoke with 
 some helplessness. 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 He stood looking soberly at the roll of hair 
 about her long neck, at her shoulders, and at her 
 flat back. He heard Gwennie come in and shut 
 the door, but he did not turn. Gwennie was less 
 to him than a shade. He wanted to kiss Celia. 
 Irresolutely he stepped towards her. Gwennie 
 entered the kitchen, her eyes on him. He was
 
 122 TEN HOURS 
 
 suddenly conscious that he must look absurd, hold- 
 ing the flask and the packet of food, and gazing 
 amorously at Celia's back. 
 
 He went sharply into the passage. Confound 
 everything! It was cheek of Gwennie to watch 
 him, a kid like that; more cheek still if she 
 wasn't such a kid after all. Why was Celia pro- 
 longing her coldness so? 
 
 In the passage it was shadowy, and cold, 
 and dispiriting. 
 
 V 
 
 A little later he rode over the bridge, past 
 the common and the shops, to Charwood Lane, 
 dipping down between fences to cricket fields 
 and allotments. 
 
 The road went by him, lined with wheel marks, 
 sparkling with puddles, stained here and there 
 with motor oil ; trees were tossing wisps of black, 
 lamp-posts came and stared and were gone, the 
 shops ceased and now Charwood Lane leapt under 
 the bicycle. In the face of the wind rolling and 
 murmuring over him, he strove forward, great
 
 AFTER DINNER 123 
 
 heights of sky shooting above him and meeting in 
 a plain marched over by shining clouds. 
 
 His blood began to tingle. Wind was in his 
 hair, his eyes, his nostrils; streaming like cool 
 water through his sleeves, standing stiffly before 
 him, and then suddenly yielding and breaking over 
 and beyond him with a great resonant roar. 
 
 He thought of Browning's line " We rode, it 
 seemed my spirit flew." Like a bird his mind 
 sped from point to point of thought, reconstruct- 
 ing the day's scenes, seeing them not fragmen- 
 tarily as when he had lived in them, but in their 
 entirety, so that Gwennie's part, father's, Celia's, 
 most of all, Celia's, were as plain to him as 
 his own. He had brilliant insights as he pushed 
 against the wind. 
 
 Those manuscripts, how fed up Celia must 
 have been with them ! And with his depressions, 
 and his elation. Of course, she hadn't faith in 
 him. How could she have when he had never 
 given her the proof. Yes, and in the meantime, 
 more snubs for her to endure ! more neglect. 
 Neglect, eh? Yes, might she not consider herself
 
 124 TEN HOURS 
 
 neglected while he was poring over paper and 
 
 furious if any one spoke to him? . . . 
 
 The cricket fields and the allotments drew near, 
 passed. Rows of mean houses closed upon him, 
 the wind whistled down side streets and pierced 
 him; he saw fluttering rags in gardens, attenuated 
 bushes, broken fences, channels of mud. . . . 
 People made a dark shifting pattern on the 
 sunlight. . . . 
 
 And the money he spent too ! She never asked 
 for more housekeeping. What an egotistical, 
 thoughtless fool he was ! She was the finest little 
 thing; he adored her, and he was always hurting 
 her. He wouldn't buy any more books, wouldn't 
 let literary work make him morose. . . . He 
 wouldn't stand this kind of frozen politeness with 
 each other any longer. It was rotten having Celia 
 on her dignity. When he got back he'd make her 
 see that he was sorry. . . . 
 
 He reached Wimbledon Common. Clusters of 
 birches trembled above the flats of green, streaks 
 of water gleamed, Kingsmere, filled with sky, 
 rose into small pyramids, steel-colored and crim- 
 son. Soft browns and grays, broad etchings of
 
 AFTER DINNER 125 
 
 black, brimmed up to horizons cut cleamy round 
 them. He saw spaces of flooded grass, the blade 
 tips pricking above the silvery sheet, the sound of 
 its sinking amid the roots not audible but suggested 
 to him. Small rustlings and pipings came to him 
 from the tangled edges of ditches, and from the 
 brown depths of the woods, they came as a slender 
 underhum on the booming wind. The tops of 
 the firs tarnished by the sun which moved above 
 them, rocked violently, sudden ripples shook the 
 birch boughs. 
 
 Higher and higher Iiis spirits rose. He felt 
 himself to be riding through a sea, strong yet 
 kindly, sweet-breathed, deep. 
 
 Gwennie, too; he had no idea she was growing 
 up so; it wouldn't do to take too much notice of 
 her. Rather rough on Celia, having to look after 
 her, Celia so young herself, and Gwennie ob- 
 viously beginning to feel her feet. No end of a 
 responsibility. She'd be getting fast if they didn't 
 look out. The way she challenged him when he 
 chased her! 
 
 Displeasure furrowed his brow. He didn't 
 like a girl to be too old for her age. If Gwennie
 
 126 TEN HOURS 
 
 thought he admired her, she was making a thun- 
 dering big mistake. 
 
 More vividly still he saw Gwennie's expression. 
 She did think so. Vain little thing! He'd never 
 given her any cause to think so, but she did. She'd 
 be flirting with him next. Alarm and annoyance 
 seized him. He'd have to be careful; he'd have 
 to show that he thought only one person pretty, 
 Celia. 
 
 Putney Vale Cemetery went by. Beverly Brook 
 slid with a dun shimmer between its banks, grass 
 darkened by wind into the semblance of smoke 
 plunged away to south and west, the gates of 
 Richmond Park sped by. 
 
 Celia, there was only Celia. And to have Celia 
 wounded, ignorant apparently of the singleness of 
 his devotion. 
 
 Swift and stabbing, came the suspicion left 
 her imagining that he thought Gwennie pretty. 
 
 The whole mosaic of dinner's events was now 
 complete and distinct before him. Blinding illu- 
 mination was on all things. Celia was jealous. 
 Jealous of that silly, flighty, cropped headed little 
 doll! . . Celia. ,
 
 AFTER DINNER 127 
 
 Fixedly he stared at the road swimming through 
 the cowslip-colored light. His mouth was set in 
 a smile; the color in his cheeks was not only due 
 to exercise . . . All around him stretched a 
 world, depopulated, sucking moisture into its 
 depths, heaped fragrantly with moldering leaves, 
 hazed with sun, stormed by wind. No human 
 being existed any longer, like shadows they melted, 
 only trees and sod remained, grouped about Celia. 
 He'd break anybody who came between him 
 and Celia. . . . 
 
 VI 
 
 He entered Kingston. Without hesitation he 
 went to the first jeweler's, leant the bicycle against 
 the curb and then inspected the window. 
 
 Outwardly imperturbable he was nevertheless 
 thrilled with a slight excitement. In his contempt 
 for Gwennie and for himself, the flame of his 
 engagement days, never extinguished but a little 
 dimmed, was burning again with a fine ardor. He 
 and Celia were getting too stodgy. That glamor, 
 that romance, must be re-captured. Somehow or 
 other he must overcome the difficulties of self-
 
 128 TEN HOURS 
 
 expression and show Celia that his love was 
 greater, not less. 
 
 Impulsively he entered the shop. 
 
 Celia would look splendid in earrings.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CELIA AND GWENNIE 
 
 CELIA and Gwennie finishing tidying up the 
 kitchen. Gwennie would have stood motionless 
 watching Celia working had not orders been given 
 her, but when these came she obeyed them amiably 
 enough. She evaded action whenever possible 
 but she did not resent being forced into movement. 
 She considered Celia to be as justified in giving 
 her duties as she herself was in shirking them. You 
 had to look after your own comfort in this world. 
 By making Gwennie work Celia was looking after 
 hers. Quite right. By being blind to all hints, 
 all sarcasms, everything indeed short of actual 
 commands, Gwennie was equally self-considering. 
 It was all perfectly fair. 
 
 Celia put the margarine away. As she did so 
 
 she knew that Gwennie's gaze was on her, not 
 
 sleepy now, but intelligent. Gwennie could be 
 
 sharp enough sometimes, usually when one wanted 
 
 129
 
 130 TEN HOURS 
 
 her to be obtuse. Celia's suspicions as to the 
 depths of this preoccupation were growing. She 
 believed Gwennie was very much " all there," 
 noting the immediate scenes and drawing infer- 
 ences, not pondering extraneous subjects. The 
 conviction did not deepen her affection for Gwen- 
 nie. She liked straight people ; open people. 
 
 II 
 
 " That's done," she said, putting the broom 
 behind the scullery door. " And now I'm going 
 to tidy. Are you? " 
 
 " Oh, not for a minute ; think I shall have a 
 read in front of the fire." 
 
 "All right; don't wake father if he's asleep." 
 
 Gwennie uttered something which sounded like 
 " Ner," but which was evidently meant for 
 agreement. 
 
 She went upstairs in front of Celia. The latter 
 surveyed her broad shoulders and hips, her creamy 
 neck with the hair turning in charmingly to it. 
 She sighed a little, envying Gwennie's strength 
 and plumpness. She wouldn't be scraggy when 
 she was thirty 1
 
 CELIA AND GWENNIE 131 
 
 Gwennie entered the morning-room, closed the 
 door quietly, and stood for a minute regarding 
 father. 
 
 He still slumbered; the pipe had slid from his 
 mouth and lay on a ridge of his waistcoat; his 
 head, fallen to his shoulder, had a dislocated ap- 
 pearance; he breathed noisily. Gwennie moved to 
 the fire, knelt down by it, and put coal on. She 
 was obediently quiet but the splutter of the coal 
 as it caught fire, aroused father. His lids rose, 
 his head regained its normal position, he looked 
 at her dully. Gwennie sat back on her heels and 
 smiled at him. 
 
 " Hur," said father, and picked up the pipe; 
 then surreptitiously passed the back of his hand 
 over his moist mouth. " I've had forty winks." 
 
 Gwennie's smile broadened but she did not 
 speak. 
 
 "Robert gone?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Celia?" 
 
 " She's gone up to dress." 
 
 " Ah." Father dusted some ash off his waist- 
 coat and gazed vaguely at the pipe.
 
 1 32 TEN HOURS 
 
 "Want a spill?" Gwennie got up and took 
 one from an ornament on the mantel-piece. She 
 lit it and handed it to him. 
 
 " Thank you, my dear." He puffed. 
 
 Gwennie remained standing, her legs planted 
 squarely, her eyes turned window-ward. 
 
 A moment passed. Father smoked. Gwennie 
 stood, her body slack, only her stirring breasts 
 showing her to be alive. Her gaze rested without 
 expression on a chair. She seemed to be waiting 
 for a rise of energy into her limbs to propel her 
 to it. 
 
 Then father got up. " Ah, well, I think I shall 
 do a little gardening. I must justify my existence. 
 It is a beautiful afternoon; beautiful." 
 
 He walked to the door, looking old and tremu- 
 lous and uncertain. 
 
 When the door had closed on him, Gwennie at 
 once sat down in his armchair. She lay back in 
 it, her hair pushed to her cheeks, her face pink and 
 calm, her eyelids heavy on her pupils. There was 
 nothing ethereal about her. Warmth flushed her; 
 her breath coming regularly through her little 
 round nostrils, slightly damped her nose and her
 
 CELIA AND GWENNIE 133 
 
 upper lip. She looked like a sunned cat, hot and 
 soft to the touch. 
 
 At the end of a quarter of an hour Celia 
 joined her. 
 
 Gwennie, who had not moved, was redder and 
 warmer than ever, more thoroughly incarnate, 
 more apparently without soul. 
 
 Celia, on the contrary, seemed to be made " of 
 spirit, fire and dew." She had put on a pale blue 
 silk blouse, and brushed her hair, and washed her 
 face. She was pale and serious. Her neck, bared 
 now, gave her by its length and slenderness, a still 
 more flower-like appearance. The little upward 
 tilt in the middle of her mouth, making fullness, 
 the droop of its thin corners, were alluring. 
 
 She glanced at Gwennie, and then brought to 
 the fire a small table and a work-box. " Where's 
 father?" she asked. 
 
 " Gone into the garden." Gwennie looked at 
 her with heavy filmy eyes. 
 
 " Sensible boy. It's simply beautiful out, but 
 I want to finish this." 
 
 She sat down and took from the work-box a 
 roll of crochet lace.
 
 134 TEN HOURS 
 
 "What are you going to do?" she continued, 
 scrutinizing her work. 
 
 " Dunno." 
 
 " Three treble, three chain, three treble, that's 
 it" She twirled the cotton and began to crochet. 
 " You ought to go out such a lovely afternoon." 
 
 11 'Spect I shall later on." Gwennie's lids 
 drooped; only a line of lack-luster eye was visible. 
 The warmth of her huddled position was broaden- 
 ing her features a little. 
 
 Celia, sitting erect, crocheted rapidly. She was 
 aware of a slight excitement which ran up and 
 down her like a live thing, communicating itself to 
 all her nerves. She had felt it first when she went 
 into her room to dress, and noticed that it was 
 ten to three. Her heart had jumped as if the hour 
 were somehow portentous, and, as if she dreaded 
 the discovery of what made it so, she had scuttled 
 to the dressing-table and pulled out hairpins and 
 shaken her hair down with great briskness. 
 Nevertheless the excitement remained, and it gov- 
 erned her actions, making her put on this blue 
 blouse, which was new; making her decide not to 
 go out but to finish her crochet; making her deter-
 
 CELIA AND GWENNIE 135 
 
 mined to throw aside all moods and be sensible 
 and cheerful. 
 
 Now as she glanced from the crochet to Gwen- 
 nie, she was reminded of Alice. Gwennie was 
 frightfully like Ally sometimes. Ally, of course, 
 was much more braced-up. A much better girl 
 too, Celia's mind said tartly, wriggling out of the 
 duty of being nice about Gwennie. Yes, but she 
 was older; you can't remember what she was like 
 when she was Gwen's age; Gwen'll improve; she 
 wants looking after, that's all. You mustn't be 
 too hard. 
 
 " Four chain, one double-crochet in there, go 
 in, four chain. It's a pretty pattern, isn't it?" 
 
 " Mmm." 
 
 "How are you getting on with your jumper?" 
 
 "Allri'." 
 
 " Have you made any more mistakes? " 
 
 " One; doesn't show much though." 
 
 " Good thing. . . . You ought really to have 
 undone it, you know, when you went wrong; it's 
 worth it. You want it to look decent, and you'll 
 have little lumps all over it from what I can
 
 136 TEN HOURS 
 
 " Too much fag." 
 
 " Oh, Gwennie, Gwennie, you are a lazy 
 bones ! " Gwennie laughed briefly. 
 
 Celia looked across at her kindly enough, and 
 found those misted lines of eye fixed on the blue 
 blouse. For a fraction of a second Gwennie's lids 
 lifted and a glance, sharp, inscrutable, darted at 
 Celia's face; then her lashes swept her cheeks 
 again. She yawned. 
 
 Celia was conscious of a jolt. Why did Gwen- 
 nie look like that? Straight at the blouse, and 
 then at the wearer? Her wide perturbed eyes 
 stared at the hot face, the closed eyes, the col- 
 lapsed body in the armchair. She must have 
 dreamt that look. But she had not. 
 
 Uncomfortably she returned to the crochet. 
 She felt as she would have felt had she been 
 standing without protection of any kind in a place 
 raided by forked lightning. She wanted a shield, 
 a covering. Gwennie's glance had stripped her, 
 it had thrust right down into her heart. She knew, 
 what she had so often suspected, that Gwennie 
 watched her, watched every one; was alive to 
 every piece of self-revelation. 
 
 She was shaken momentarily not only by the
 
 CELIA AND GWENNIE 137 
 
 knowledge, but by the way it illuminated other 
 disquieting facts. If it was justified it placed 
 Gwennie in a very unlovable light; it showed her 
 to be secretive, distrustful, cold, dissimulating. 
 Dismay filled her as in this manner she estimated 
 Gwennie afresh, yet she kept tenaciously to that 
 subject, in an endeavor to avoid the other fact: 
 she hated to have Gwennie observant because she 
 did not wish to be observed. Why? She had 
 nothing to conceal; nothing that she minded 
 Gwennie discovering. 
 
 Her hands trembled; waves of heat surged 
 over her and subsided, leaving her shivering. 
 There was something she wished to hide, some- 
 thing which she had hidden even from herself, 
 hidden so successfully that she did not know its 
 nature, its lineaments were veiled to her. Only 
 the conviction that something existed in her which 
 was unfamiliar and of recent growth was palpable. 
 If Gwennie discovered it. ... 
 
 Rubbish. All this flurry because Gwennie had 
 looked at her new blouse! But that was it. 
 Somehow the blouse was connected with that hid- 
 den possession. It was the outward manifesta- 
 tion of it.
 
 138 TEN HOURS 
 
 And Gwennie knew this. . . . 
 
 Ill 
 
 A few minutes passed. At the end of them, 
 Gwennie very slowly rose from the chair. 
 
 " S'pose I must go and tidy," she said, and be- 
 stowed her invariable smile on Celia. 
 
 " I should, and then go for a walk. You're 
 wasting all the best part of the day." 
 
 " Feel dreadfully messy," Gwennie continued, 
 smoothing her disordered hair. 
 
 Celia's scrutiny was steady. Rather clumsily 
 she tried to mask her expression, but her distrust 
 and pain lay on her expressive mouth and in the 
 bend of her fair brows. She showed that with 
 quivering apprehension she was examining Gwen- 
 nie afresh and at the same time trying to make 
 herself unreadable. She betrayed also her in- 
 ability to learn anything from Gwennie's rosy, 
 good-tempered little face. 
 
 With a slight jerk of her head, she directed hef 
 gaze to the crochet. 
 
 Gwennie went out.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 GWENNIE ALONE 
 
 THE staircase struck cold after the warmth of 
 the fire and the chair, and Gwennie's movements 
 quickened. She almost ran up the first flight and 
 into her room. 
 
 She closed the door and very quickly turned the 
 key. Then she looked about her, her eyes more 
 open, more frank, more childish. 
 
 She went first to the dressing-table and sitting 
 down before it, scrutinized herself with a pro- 
 found and unwavering interest. She took up the 
 comb and drew it through her hair, opened a 
 drawer, produced a length of narrow velvet ribbon 
 and tied it round her head as a fillet; then she 
 picked up the hand-mirror and surveyed the effect 
 from all angles. 
 
 " Doesn't suit me," she said aloud, and removed 
 the ribbon. For a few moments she remained 
 139
 
 1 40 TEN HOURS 
 
 without movement, still regarding her reflection. 
 When her gaze shifted it fell on the photo of the 
 youth which lay near the hair-brush. She smiled, 
 and leaning forward, stared at the photo without 
 touching it. There was, now, nothing enigmatical 
 about her expression. She was girlishly simpering 
 and confused. 
 
 The salient features of a conversation, this 
 morning with her friend at the office moved into 
 her mind: their shoulders and heads touching, her 
 own rapid, whispered confidences, Doris's ejacula- 
 tions and looks of envy. " He wrote me four 
 whole pages, quite close pages, and he asked me 
 to go out with him to-night, but I wouldn't 
 promise; said I didn't know." Thus Gwennie. 
 Her smile broadened now, and her eyes glinted 
 with sudden triumph. She raised her head and 
 again looked in the mirror. Her cheeks were 
 turning and she pressed her palms to them. She 
 was pretty, awfully pretty, much prettier than 
 Doris. ... It was nice to be pretty, it must be 
 dreadful to be plain. " Shouldn't want people to 
 see me if I was ugly, if I had a mouth like Ida 
 Thome's. It was an accident, poor girl; must be
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 141 
 
 dreadful to have your face spoiled." . . . Then 
 there was Nora Simpson, her nose " frightfully 
 broad, takes up half her face and she makes it 
 worse powdering it; don't like powder; makes you 
 look mauve." 
 
 She giggled. 
 
 Rousing herself at last from these congratula- 
 tory meditations, she put the pink beads round her 
 neck. They looked ripping. She closed the 
 drawer, walked to the wash-stand and washed 
 her hands. 
 
 II 
 
 The sun was low now, poised, a great flaming 
 bubble above the low roofs, bronzing them, send- 
 ing a haze of gold up to the arch of the sky. The 
 clouds were smaller, and longer, and darker than 
 those of the morning. At the dip of the west they 
 formed into headlands and smooth close banks, 
 orange-edged but with gray hearts. The garden, 
 the roads, and the common were all dark bronze. 
 Only the eastern-facing house-fronts and the dis- 
 tances vanishing into the cloudy rose of the west 
 were cold and gray. 
 
 Gwennie, indifferent to the external beauty, but
 
 1 42 TEN HOURS 
 
 appreciating the look and the feel of the light as 
 a cat does, walked to the bed which was pooled 
 with sunshine. She kicked off her slippers, turned 
 down the counterpane and scrambled on to the 
 bed. From the table by it she took a paper bag 
 and a book. Then she lay down, covered herself 
 with the counterpane, and opening the bag, 
 extracted a chocolate and ate slowly and 
 voluptuously. 
 
 The windows rattled in the gusts of wind which 
 beat against it; sibilant hissings went by; she could 
 hear father's footsteps up and down the gravel 
 path ; she could see a slip of pearly sky and clouds 
 mounting into it and passing. The warmth of 
 the bed rose round her and the pleasant smell and 
 softness of clean linen. Through the counterpane 
 she could feel the sunlight warm on her ankles and 
 legs; the chocolates were delicious; all her senses 
 were gratified. 
 
 For a little while she reveled tranquilly in her 
 sensations. Then, not with swift, strenuous effort, 
 but placidly, somnolently, she began to think. 
 
 She thought first, of the photo on the dressing- 
 table, the letter which had accompanied it, and the
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 143 
 
 confidences to Doris. She had a " boy " ; one 
 who was nineteen, and big, and adoring; who 
 treated her to chocolates, and pictures; and who 
 thought her frightfully pretty. These were the es- 
 sentials of happiness, and she possessed them, but 
 more than that, innumerable delicate little pleas- 
 ures rose out of them; other girls' envy, jealousies, 
 cutting innuendoes, coldnesses, manoeuvers; all 
 these things added piquancy to office life. 
 
 It was awfully nice to be admired, and to have 
 every one know you were admired ! 
 
 She smiled, snuggled deeper into the pillow, 
 and ate another chocolate. Should she go out 
 with Harry, the youth of the photo, to-night, or 
 should she make him cross by not appearing? 
 Her dimples grew very pronounced. The sense 
 of power seduced her. Supposing she went. . . . 
 
 She smoothed the pillow with her cheek; heat 
 bathed her, the yellow sheen in the air caressed her 
 eyes. She was drifting on a wave of dreamy 
 speculation in which she saw herself going to meet 
 Harry; going, she would tell auntie, to meet one 
 of the girls at the office. The streets were about 
 her, gray under a sky faintly mauve and in the
 
 144 TEN HOURS 
 
 west, coppery. Shops were alight, shadows stole 
 from walls, and filled the ruts in the roadway and 
 like smoke rose and hung, and rose higher, seeking 
 the sky. She would meet Harry. Her conscious 
 smile broadened, her face grew redder. She 
 would meet him, and she would tuck her arm in 
 his as they crossed the road, and then they would 
 go to the pictures. When they came out again it 
 would be quite dark and he would see her as far 
 as the top of this road. Then they would stand 
 in the blackness and say good-by. He would be 
 silly and stammering, and perhaps, almost cer- 
 tainly, he would try to kiss her like he did the 
 other night. 
 
 She gave a little convulsive jerk to her body; 
 laughter shook her. It was all such fun. She 
 had not let him kiss her. She had scuttled 
 across the road through an instinctive, rather 
 than a deliberate, stirring of coquetry, leav- 
 ing him confused and tremulous. She did not 
 particularly want to be kissed, but neither was 
 she fastidiously opposed to such a proceeding. All 
 she wanted was that he should have the desire for 
 the caress. It was such fun !
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 145 
 
 She sighed happily. It was awfully nice to be 
 a girl, and pretty; to be able to make a boy look 
 silly and buy you things, and do what he was told. 
 
 For a few minutes she lingered on this fasci- 
 nating subject; then she turned to the other 
 alternative, that of piquing him by not " turn- 
 ing up." 
 
 Slow but diligent, her mind searched the mazes 
 of each course, missing nothing, thirstily absorbing 
 all the pleasure of the sex game which she was 
 playing crudely and with restricted understanding 
 but with increased zestfulness. 
 
 Of course she never had deliberately deceived 
 auntie before. Reservations there had been and 
 distortions which almost amounted to untruths, 
 but she had never lied outright. The other night, 
 for example, when she said she was going out with 
 Doris, she was speaking truthfully; what she 
 withheld was that Harry and his friend would 
 join them, and that formation into couples was 
 likely, and possibly even a divergence of routes. 
 There was no need to mention that; and when 
 auntie asked, obviously by way of making con- 
 versation, and not because she was suspicious,
 
 i 4 6 TEN HOURS 
 
 whether Dons came all the way home with her, 
 Gwennie had answered, " No, not all the way," 
 and that again was true. If it established in 
 auntie's mind a fact which was non-existent, that 
 of Gwennie coming home alone, when all the time 
 Harry was with her it was not Gwennie's place 
 to confute chimeras of thought. She had an- 
 swered candidly the spoken question; no more 
 could be expected of her. 
 
 But to-night was different. To say flatly, " I'm 
 going out with Doris," when Doris would not 
 appear on the scene at all, was an enormity from 
 which she shrank. It- was not only uncom- 
 promisingly wrong, it was also likely to involve 
 her in a tissue of further lies which would be cer- 
 tain to reduce her to a state of extreme embarrass- 
 ment. Exposure was certain. Auntie was so 
 sharp, and then: strict guard on her movements 
 and endless restrictions ! 
 
 On the other hand, if she said honestly, " I'm 
 going with a boy I know," auntie was sure to bring 
 up all her old fashioned notions and forbid 
 Gwennie to move from the house. " She'd say 
 it looked bad; people wouldn't like me; she
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 147 
 
 wouldn't have me running about with boys; or 
 something awfully silly like that." 
 
 The situation bristled with difficulties. Gwen- 
 nie's brain grew fogged and bewildered. Such 
 close seeking and examination of consequences 
 was unusual with her and she found it exhausting. 
 She ate another chocolate and sank, mind and 
 body, into lethargy. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Gray shades grew up to the window and rolled 
 into the room, the sunlight was at once shut off 
 and the air smoked over. Straight up beyond the 
 roofs, across the sun, a mass of cloud had leaped, 
 and under it, controlled by it, rushes of air veered 
 and whistled, and boughs yapped. Then the rain 
 rattled on the window; and hissed down past it on 
 to the rotten leaves and the lawns. 
 
 Gwennie opened her eyes. The rain battered 
 the glass; the scent of the garden steamed up more 
 powerfully. There were distant murmurs of rain 
 and wind : rain biting into the common, wind bow- 
 ing its trees to the drenched grasses; there were
 
 148 TEN HOURS 
 
 whisperings close at hand as dead leaves were 
 driven down the paths; continuous rustlings broke 
 upon the house, and falling back, sank moaning, 
 and rushed and chattered amid the low stems, and 
 drew hissings from the heaped leaves. The room 
 was quite dark. 
 
 Gwennie watched the raindrops starting up on 
 the window, breaking and falling. " Uncle'll get 
 wet " she reflected. 
 
 The name suggested a fresh subject-matter for 
 her thoughts. Uncle considered her pretty. 
 Closed mouth broadly smiling, damp lids heavy 
 on her eyes, she recalled his expression as it 
 had been when she had faced him in the garden. 
 She felt the stream of wind sluicing her legs, and 
 dabbing her bare neck, she saw Robert's stare and 
 arrested arms; and beyond him, the kitchen and 
 auntie standing by the table, watching her 
 jealously. 
 
 Again she was delighted. It was all " such 
 fun." Auntie was frightfully cross with uncle, 
 and all because he thought she, Gwennie, was 
 pretty. . . . 
 
 The swish of the shower was no longer audible.
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 149 
 
 She opened one eye. A line of sky stained into a 
 deeper blue looked down on her. She stretched 
 herself and sighed luxuriously. Her lazy thoughts 
 dwelt on Robert. 
 
 Little doubts of his admiration troubled her. 
 If, when he stopped at the scullery door and 
 stared, it was because he suddenly realized her 
 prettiness, why did he frown, and return to the 
 kitchen, and when she followed him, ignore her, 
 and look at auntie? Vexation furrowed her brow. 
 He had ignored her and gazed at auntie. . . . 
 And he had been anxious about auntie's health. 
 She believed he was really fearfully fond of auntie. 
 
 The conviction at once intrigued and ruffled her. 
 It was nice to watch romantic revelations, specu- 
 late on his desires to kiss auntie, muse over the 
 manifestations of his love and use them as a touch- 
 stone for her own affairs, but on the other hand it 
 was galling to be considered inferior in prettiness 
 to some one else. She wanted uncle to admire her, 
 she rather liked making auntie wild. 
 
 She rolled over on her back. " Mustn't be 
 greedy," she murmured. 
 
 The protest was sincere enough. Gwennie was
 
 1 50 TEN HOURS 
 
 not wantonly cruel. Celia's displeasure was a 
 stimulating side-issue, not an object. She desired 
 Robert's admiration as food for her own vanity, 
 not as a weapon with which to wound auntie. 
 Merely annoying auntie was nothing, actually 
 hurting her, however, was not sporting, " Beastly 
 mean," Gwennie breathed, as she pondered the 
 rules of the game. 
 
 Languidly she dismissed all thought. Her nos- 
 trils moved very slightly, her chest rose and fell, 
 stirring the counterpane, her skin looked humid 
 in the light which again flowed weakly in the room. 
 She was floating on sun-warmed gentle currents, 
 there were splashings and lapping all around her, 
 and piercing sounds as well; gratings and screw- 
 ings and vibrations, as of innumerable small tools 
 all working together, and making a kind of musical 
 shrillness. " Birds like the rain," she thought. 
 
 IV 
 
 She was perfectly happy. Had Celia seen her 
 now and read the previous workings of her mind 
 and its present apathy, she would have understood 
 that Gwennie was neither very subtle nor very
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 151 
 
 vapid. She was merely normal, only she seemed 
 to be alternately more or less than this because of 
 her sphinx-like inscrutability. 
 
 The qualities which were most mature in her 
 were selfishness, laziness, and romance. All her 
 actions were guided by these things. Her mother 
 had spoiled her; the six months following Alice's 
 death had been ones of entire independence. 
 Father was a companion, not a director. When 
 life with Celia began, Gwennie saw immediately 
 that it held disciplines and she determined to 
 thwart these disciplines. At all times it had been 
 easier to smile than to speak; now inclination be- 
 came diplomacy. She distrusted Celia as she 
 would have distrusted any one invested with 
 authority and the power to affect her comfort. 
 Therefore like a little snail she curled her person- 
 ality up in her shell and refused to respond to any 
 amount of prodding. Her silences, her unrespon- 
 siveness, were temperamental. She had displayed 
 them ever since she was a child, but she now saw 
 their advantages and she elaborated them for the 
 purpose of throwing dust in the eyes of spectators. 
 She knew that, conceiving her to be half-asleep,
 
 152 TEN HOURS 
 
 people talked unreservedly in her presence; and 
 she discovered the charm of reclining in an arm- 
 chair and following the windings of unguarded 
 and allusive conversations. She learnt all sorts 
 of things that way; it was most interesting. 
 
 The third powerful emotion in her was romance. 
 She was saturated with sentiment, with, in its 
 crudest form, the interest of sex. To her a boy 
 was a prey. With sidelong glances, murmurs of 
 laughter, natural girlish confusions, and premedi- 
 tated neglects and refusals, she won the attention 
 of masculine adolescence. To her, admiration was 
 a sun. She flushed under it, basked in it, and 
 preened herself, as in a warm and gracious atmo- 
 sphere. Though she was hardly conscious of the 
 nature of the power she was exerting, its effects 
 were plain to her, and its delights also. She looked 
 at the boys she passed in the streets; she fluttered 
 her lashes at her friend's brothers; she spent long 
 languorous hours musing on her conquests, on 
 coming meetings, on the features, and very super- 
 ficially, on the natures, of her admirers. Her 
 ambitions were most elementary; recurrent male 
 glances, the tribute of embarrassed manners,
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 153 
 
 " treats " at the cinemas, chocolates, flowers, the 
 envy of her girl friends, for the time she desired 
 no more than these, and when her fancy strayed 
 into the future, its demands were scarcely more 
 mature. The horizon of that future was flushed 
 with love; it was filled with love; but Gwennie's 
 conception of love was the slavery, the gifts, 
 pleasures, and privileges of an engagement, not 
 the physical and spiritual joys of union. She was 
 not innocent but neither was she sophisticated. 
 She was merely intent on the securing of all things 
 which gratified her and though these things were 
 in themselves harmless and trivial, inordinate de- 
 sire for them and a lack of scruple in their pursuit, 
 were not having the best effect on her character. 
 There was, too, a latent sensuousness in her which 
 rendered her susceptible to the appeal of those 
 evening walks, to the influence of the dim, windy 
 side streets, the stars burning and shaking above 
 the bulk of the town, and the warm contact of an 
 arm, of a hand, knocking hers, and a face bending 
 to her own. She was barely aware of the response 
 of her body, far less of the meaning of that re- 
 sponse, but she knew that the walk with Harry
 
 154 TEN HOURS 
 
 held a thrilling delight, which was absent when 
 Doris was her companion. The ring of their foot- 
 steps; the immediate silence broken only by the 
 slipping of the wind through the dry trees and 
 laurels; at the core of the town that swelling 
 rhythm of sound advancing and receding like 
 water over stones; the immediate darkness sweep- 
 ing up to the jets of the stars; at the street-ends, 
 a mist of yellow, and the luminous scarves of the 
 smokes blown out against chimney-stacks they 
 all contributed to her enjoyment. They gave to 
 the walk a romance, a secrecy, which would not 
 have been possible in the daylight. She did not 
 look at the stars, the wind passed almost unheeded, 
 the dark common with its lines of trees drawn 
 sharply beneath the lower and fainter stars, re- 
 ceived no glance, but nevertheless they influenced 
 her. The very breath of romance stole to her 
 across their spaces, and the night, with its con- 
 stellations and its murmurs, inspired in her the 
 exquisite sense of being abroad with a huge com- 
 pany of lovers. All lovers met at twilight. She 
 was one of them, she was one with them.
 
 GWENNIE ALONE 155 
 
 V 
 
 At last she sat up, yawned, shook her hair out 
 of her eyes and looked about her. Slowly she 
 swung her legs off the bed, thumped on to the 
 floor and padded across the room to her coat 
 which was hanging behind the door. From its 
 pocket she took a newspaper and a novel. Return- 
 ing to the bed she slid under the counterpane 
 again and opened the newspaper. She searched 
 through it till she found the headline : " Soldier's 
 Divorce Suit," and then she began to read. Her 
 face was grave and her eyes did not wander from 
 the letterpress. Very far away and completely 
 detached from her, she heard the hall door open 
 and shut, and some one come up to the landing 
 below hers. Mr. Hyde had returned. Her brain 
 merely ticked off the knowledge but passed no 
 comment on it. She had forgotten all actual cir- 
 cumstances; uncle, auntie, dinner-time, after din- 
 ner, the blue blouse, the wonder why auntie was 
 wearing anything so new and dainty on an ordinary 
 week-day; they were all forgotten. The sounds 
 in the house, and in the garden, and in the streets,
 
 156 TEN HOURS 
 
 did not pierce through to her intelligence. She 
 lay in a nest of warmth and fragrance, greedily 
 reading the love-letters of a neurotic girl. By her, 
 on the pillow, the novel was a dark crimson 
 splash. . . . 
 
 The door on the landing below was opened and 
 then shut; footsteps went down to the morning- 
 room, its door opened and closed. The house 
 was quiet again.
 
 PART III 
 RESPONSIBILITY 
 
 "Till the house called hers, not mine, 
 With a growing weight 
 Seems to suffocate, 
 If she break not its leaden line, 
 And escape from its close confine." 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 SITTING SEWING 
 
 FOR a little while after Gwennie had gone upstairs, 
 Celia did not move from the fireside. Then she 
 reflected that it might be as well to see what father 
 was doing. He was certain to be in the garden; 
 he had never been known to slip out and seek a 
 public-house; tender supervision had apparently 
 dulled those inclinations. Nevertheless, it was 
 best to be on the safe side ! 
 
 She took her crochet to the chair by the window. 
 
 The first thing she saw was father. A black 
 velvet Homburg hat had replaced the cap; he 
 wore an overcoat and gardening gloves, and he 
 was bending over the rockery at the end of the 
 garden, removing from it handsful of the stone- 
 colored skeleton leaves fallen from the poplars. 
 
 Celia watched him affectionately. She saw the 
 little heap of leaves on the path beside him grow- 
 ing larger; she knew, though she could not at this 
 distance see, the nature of the litter on the sticky 
 159
 
 160 TEN HOURS 
 
 mold: dry curled creeper leaves which chattered 
 when touched; brown tangles of last year's ferns, 
 and amid them the tight little golden knots of the 
 new fronds; white sapless stems, trails of jenny- 
 creeper and budding masses of rock arabis. 
 
 " Poor old garden," she thought, " I'd like to 
 have it filled with flowers, not just a few lanky 
 things. I'd like violas, and pansies, and roses; 
 all the ducky little low plants. It would cost such 
 a lot though." 
 
 She sighed, shaking her head. Say she bought 
 a few roots, they wouldn't make much of a show; 
 you wanted great splashes of color. She would 
 like to have it all mauve and white. It would cost 
 a frightful lot. 
 
 Her glance wandered deliberately to the type- 
 writer, the periodicals, and then rose to the book- 
 shelves. They cost a lot too. For half their value 
 she could have the garden splashed with violas, 
 frothed with marguerites, and auriculas, and 
 white Paris daisies. . . . The withered rags of 
 dead chrysanthemums and the fawn hummocks 
 of dead thrift lay mournfully under the window. 
 The books stared at her, the typewriter glittered.
 
 SITTING SEWING 161 
 
 Her gaze returned to father. Then she looked 
 across the bridge to the common. 
 
 Cloud towered above its rim, threatening but 
 not yet engulfing the sun. The allotment holders 
 were out on their plots, and the sound of spade 
 striking against stone came clearly through the air. 
 
 Her mood was not such as to find beauty or 
 interest in the common. Playing silently and 
 sedulously within her was that craving for the 
 country, for its liberal heights poised above the 
 breast of the fields, for the mildness of its grays 
 and greens, the warm tones of its villages. Though 
 she had driven these discontents from her mind 
 and regained something at least of her usual se- 
 renity, the rising and falling of pistons, and the 
 smokes drowning the perfume of the garden, 
 jarred on her nerves. She wanted profound un- 
 ending silence; great wells of silence in which one 
 could lie and watch the soundless traffic of the 
 clouds, and the noiseless movements of ants, and 
 tiny flies, and snails, while in the distances horses 
 drew the plows down between the markings of the 
 tilled land. 
 
 The cloud mounted over the sun, the burning
 
 162 TEN HOURS 
 
 fires amid the trees in the side roads flickered out, 
 rain sheeted down, and all the savagery, all the 
 sullenness of the open space, leapt to meet the 
 wind. The meager trees rocked violently; the 
 gorse bushes gripped the sand, shaking themselves 
 like black humped animals; the grass with its stony 
 patches and its fawn widths rotted in last year's 
 drought, its gravel paths thrusting here and there, 
 all seemed to greet the squall with a ferocious 
 pleasure, writhing angular boughs, baring soil to 
 the stabs of the rain, rattling and hissing. . . . 
 
 Father came hurrying up the path and she 
 heard the scullery door slam. 
 
 "Poor Robert!" she thought, "but he's sure 
 to have his poncho, and he can stand up some- 
 where." Then, " Mr. Hyde'll get caught." 
 
 Involuntarily her eyes sought the clock. Ten 
 minutes past three. She bent her eyes over the 
 crochet, her mouth in a nonchalant pout. Father 
 came in. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! I was driven indoors, but it's only a 
 passing shower. You can see the end of it." 
 
 " Have a rest while you're waiting," Celia sug- 
 gested. " Then you can go out again."
 
 SITTING SEWING 163 
 
 " Yes. I'm not sorry for the chance as I've 
 done two more verses. The inspiration of man- 
 ual labor, you see ! Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 He sat down and began to write. After a few 
 minutes he looked consciously at her. 
 
 " Read it out," she said, her eyes dwelling on 
 him with that tolerant, wise, and yet faintly pro- 
 testing look. " I haven't heard the first yet, 
 you know." 
 
 " I'll read all three." 
 
 In his high drone he recited, 
 
 " O duty, in my days of manhood's prime 
 Not wholly mean, and ne'er effeminate, 
 What are you now in this slow present time? 
 Why bring you me unto a woman's state? 
 
 " A rod by Celia wielded every day, 
 
 You check my movements and direct the same; 
 1 A light to guide ! ' But in this winter gray 
 You shine but as a winter candle flame. 
 
 " Such little tasks to fill the manly mind, 
 
 And yet each plays no unimportant part 
 In that machine the household, and I find 
 E'en pricking biscuits can its peace impart." 
 
 He paused. 
 
 " That's ripping," his daughter said, " simply 
 ripping. I like that line, ' You check my move-
 
 164 TEN HOURS 
 
 ments and and ' I forget the rest, but it came in 
 
 awfully pat." 
 
 Father waved a deprecating and shaky hand. 
 " It suggested Pope to you, perhaps, if that isn't 
 too large a claim to make. 1 think I belong 
 to the classical school rather than to the ro- 
 mantic." 
 
 His eyes brooded over the poem. 
 
 II 
 
 When the rain stopped he roused himself, and 
 after a few rambling remarks, left her alone. In 
 a moment she saw him walking down the gar- 
 den again. 
 
 " He really ought not be out in all that damp," 
 she reflected. " It's fearfully bad for his rheu- 
 matism still, he seems happy enough. I'd better 
 leave him alone. He's on the gravel too." 
 
 The house was very quiet. 
 
 Then the front gate creaked. She heard the 
 sound of a key inserted in the lock, the opening 
 and closing of the front door, and light firm steps 
 on the staircase. 
 
 Two red spots appeared in her cheeks. Her 
 crochet needle stabbed at the close pattern, and
 
 SITTING SEWING 165 
 
 missed its hole. She was aware from head to 
 foot of the strong light which bathed her, of the 
 silence of the little room, and its warm fire- 
 smelling air. 
 
 The footsteps passed the door and went up to 
 the next landing. 
 
 She began to hum breathlessly, her mind bent 
 on the evolution of the crochet pattern. Her ears 
 seemed to tremble with the strain of listening to 
 the movements in the front bedroom. 
 
 The steps descended again. Her breath came 
 in pants; gold and blue currents swirled before 
 her eyes; the steel crochet hook was the one firm 
 thing in a world slipping away from her with the 
 smooth facility of water. 
 
 Outside the door, which was slightly open, the 
 steps paused. A voice said weakly, 
 
 "Are you there, Mrs. Jennings?" 
 
 Her heart jerked. Solid things emerged from 
 that flowing tide and touched and supported her: 
 floor, walls, the chair, the window-frame. " Yes. 
 I'm in here." 
 
 "May I come in?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Mr. Hyde came in.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 LEONARD HYDE 
 
 CELIA turned her head and looked at him. The 
 light behind her made her hair like yellow smoke ; 
 her face was in shadow, but her eyes and her 
 mouth were noticeable, and the wildness of the 
 former and the blossomy bunch of the latter made 
 Leonard think of Rossetti's Blessed Damozel. 
 
 He came slowly into the middle of the room. 
 
 Neither spoke but their glances held and their 
 attitudes, imperceptibly changing as each felt the 
 influence of the other's personality were expressive. 
 
 Celia's right shoulder had risen to her ear and 
 she looked at him over it as over a barricade; her 
 knees had come together and her elbows were 
 pressed to her sides. 
 
 Leonard was hollowing his chest and lessening 
 his height as he came to her as if in involuntary 
 deference or submission. He smiled, too, although 
 timidly. 
 
 166
 
 LEONARD HYDE 167 
 
 Celia smiled back with a suddenly regained 
 composure, 
 
 " Do you want to know if you can dry your 
 overcoat in front of the kitchen fire?" she said, 
 giving her head a pert little shake. " I expect 
 you were caught? " 
 
 " No, I was in the tram. I saw the door open 
 and and I thought I'd just like to like to 
 look in." 
 
 " Very kind of you," Celia said briskly, and 
 scanned his overcoat and the hat he was carrying. 
 
 He laughed nervously and his glance shifted 
 to the window. His mouth twitched a little. 
 
 Celia said no more. She thought Mr. Hyde a 
 tremendous gentleman and she was at once de- 
 fensive and impressed. She was not going to 
 trouble to be nice to him. On the other hand, no 
 one could deny that he was very nice to her. Her 
 sharpest gaze could detect no patronage in his 
 manner. 
 
 Leonard Hyde was twenty-six. He was tall 
 and compactly built but his stoop now made him 
 appear slighter and shorter than he actually was. 
 He had a broad white brow which furrowed
 
 1 68 TEN HOURS 
 
 deeply when he smiled; brushed straight back 
 from it was a high sweep of slightly waving black 
 hair. His eyes were golden brown and rather 
 humorous and pleasant; his nose straight, and the 
 flesh beneath it full though the lips themselves 
 were thin. He wore a navy blue overcoat, and 
 showed a good deal of shirt front, which together 
 with a black bow at his neck, and light mauve 
 socks, gave him a dandyish appearance. Celia 
 thought him extremely good-looking. 
 
 This opinion stirred in her again now though 
 she would not admit its existence. She continued 
 her crochet, every nerve aware of his figure, his 
 uneasiness, and his fading smile. Her mind felt 
 like an empty room with thoughts whispering and 
 pushing outside its door. She did not think; she 
 did not even reflect that she ought to speak to him 
 or offer him a chair. She was made utterly numb 
 and helpless by his presence. Yet she was un- 
 aware of what his influence over her portended; 
 she hardly realized its intensity. 
 
 He was scarcely less constrained. His eyes 
 wandered to the nearest chair; his lips moved \n
 
 LEONARD HYDE 169 
 
 unspoken words. When at last she glanced des- 
 perately at him, he crimsoned. 
 
 " May may I stop for a minute? I mean > 
 I'm not bothering you? I ... There are one 
 or two things I'd like to say." 
 
 Her sensible briskness returned now that his 
 visit was partially explained, or at least justified. 
 
 " Of course you're not bothering me. Sit down. 
 I can do this without looking at it almost." 
 
 She shook the crochet and smiled at him in a 
 friendly manner which at once reassured him. He 
 pulled the chair near to hers and sat down. 
 
 " Thanks." He beamed, looking at her from 
 the corners of his eyes with an engagingly mirthful 
 expression which was yet free from any familiarity. 
 
 Because she liked the expression, and because 
 she was overwhelmed by his nearness, Celia's 
 momentary return of ease withered suddenly. 
 Her head drooped, but the flush of her face sank 
 down to her throat and burnt there. 
 
 Leonard plunged into rapid speech. " It's so 
 awfully cozy in here, and I get fed up with myself; 
 I feel I want to talk to some one, you know. Of
 
 170 TEN HOURS 
 
 course there are the fellows at the office, but 
 well, they are fellows, and I think a man wants a 
 woman to talk to sometimes, don't you? " 
 
 Celia's greeny-blue eyes darted a rather per- 
 plexed glance at him. Involuntarily her shoulder 
 lifted and she made a funny reticent little mouth. 
 
 The three movements charmed him. He smiled 
 so broadly that his brow became corrugated and 
 small lines spread fan-wise from the corners of his 
 eyes. He crooked one arm over the chair back 
 and leant nearer. 
 
 "It sounds funny, doesn't it? But you know 
 what I mean. Some one sympathetic. There's 
 nothing like a woman for that." 
 
 In any one else Celia would have found these 
 views and the air of sagacity and experience with 
 which they were delivered, extremely amusing. 
 Coming from him they touched her, though her 
 humor could not resist a little dig. 
 
 " It sounds rather pathetic, I think." 
 
 Leonard laughed. " That's always the way. 
 A thing a fellow feels deeply always sounds terrible 
 when it's expressed. If I told you all I felt I 
 expect I should only make you laugh."
 
 LEONARD HYDE 171 
 
 His lips remained smiling, 'but his eyes as they 
 met hers were not quite candid. There was inter- 
 rogation in them, uneasiness, and some other emo- 
 tion which she could not name. The glance and 
 the way in which he drew one hand over the other 
 betrayed nervousness, and she was infected with 
 the same unreasonable agitation which she detected 
 in him. Her heart fluttered and she averted 
 her eyes. 
 
 " No, I shouldn't laugh. I don't mind any one 
 stammering. I don't like people to talk as if 
 they've rehearsed every word beforehand. It 
 isn't natural." 
 
 " No, that's so. And you can always tell when 
 a fellow's posing. I mean every word I say, and 
 I daresay I'm frightfully egotistical, but living in 
 one room by yourself, miles away from your 
 people well, how can you help getting self- 
 centered?" 
 
 " Of course you can't," Celia agreed. " You're 
 acquitted of that charge, Mr. Hyde !" 
 
 He placed his hand on his shirt-front and 
 bowed. They both laughed, exchanging intimate 
 and sympathetic glances. Both received sharp
 
 172 TEN HOURS 
 
 little impressions: Leonard noticed the softness 
 of Celia's cheeks and throat, and the dips and 
 curls of that enchanting mouth; Celia the texture 
 of his skin and hair, and the little woolly balls on 
 his overcoat. His foot was almost touching hers. 
 As he leant forward, rounding his shoulders, his 
 crumpled shirt-front, the black bow, and his white 
 restless hands, seemed to be smothering her, to 
 be blotting out the room, driving her to the wall. 
 
 She crocheted wildly. 
 
 " I value that awfully being acquitted by 
 you, I mean," he said. " I'd I'd rather have 
 your good opinion than that of any one I know." 
 He ended breathlessly, and there was a moment's 
 silence. 
 
 Then Celia, without looking at him, said casu- 
 ally, " Because I'm a woman, -I suppose, and can 
 give you that sympathy you need so badly." 
 
 " That's it." His laugh sounded forced. 
 
 " Oh well, if you don't confess any very terrible 
 sins to me, I won't judge you very hardly." 
 
 "Thanks; that's comforting." His voice was 
 strained, and he did not continue. 
 
 Celia's brain whirled, seeking for subjects for
 
 LEONARD HYDE 173 
 
 small-talk; whirled in a blankness, a black- 
 ness. . . . 
 
 The room was saturated in silence; the walls 
 strained away from that silence; the spurts and 
 thrills of the fire were strangled by it. A great 
 wash of sound flowed by the window but it be- 
 longed to another world. They sat in solitude; 
 they swung in a little pearl cage somewhere near 
 the immense races of the sky, in the very heart of 
 such established and irremovable things as sun, 
 space, light. Earth was leagues beneath them. 
 
 Then with a bump the cage struck the earth. 
 Leonard spoke, breaking the spell, dispersing 
 the hush. 
 
 " I could talk to you for hours only I suppose 
 you'd think me a most thundering bore, but if you 
 didn't there are all sorts of things I want advice 
 on; things that want a woman's common-sense, 
 you know, and intuition. Fellows are so thick- 
 witted. They don't understand that you want to 
 think sometimes, not always go fooling round, 
 larking. I think you want to think sometimes, 
 don't you, not go butting into a thing, but consider 
 it first, look at it all round, and try and see what
 
 174 TEN HOURS 
 
 you really ought to do what it's right to do, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 Celia's speculative eyes dwelt on his. Surprise 
 helped her to forget her own sensations. She was 
 engrossed. His expansiveness and his look of 
 worry and appeal went straight to her heart, and 
 roused impulses which were irresistibly strong. 
 She felt herself to be in touch not only with his 
 body but with his soul. Responsiveness rose in 
 her like a tide, drowning her heart, surging to her 
 lips and her eyes. 
 
 She spoke with a rush as if her words had in- 
 deed been borne out on a wave of feeling. "Cer- 
 tainly, I do. You get yourself into all kinds of 
 scrapes if you don't. What particular bother are 
 you thinking of? ... There! That sounds as 
 if I'm pumping you, doesn't it? I didn't mean to 
 put it that way. . . . Could you pass me that 
 work-box, please ? Thank you." 
 
 Her heart was hammering against her sides. 
 Her affrighted self was flying desperately into its 
 fastnesses, huddling and hiding there. Gracious ! 
 to ask him to confide in her! Most improper! 
 Absolutely preposterous.
 
 LEONARD HYDE 175 
 
 She sat very straight, her ankles touching, her 
 knees hard against each other, her mouth non- 
 chalantly composed. 
 
 " But I want to be pumped ! " Leonard ex- 
 claimed nai'vely. " That's my difficulty finding 
 some one who'll straighten things out for me, and 
 be serious and and. . . ." 
 
 " Helpful," Celia supplied in a firm practical 
 voice. " Well, I'm not a Methusaleh, you know. 
 My vision's limited! But if there's anything of 
 value to you in my vast experience . . . ! " 
 
 Leonard laughed, but only shortly. His 
 harassed weighty look settled down upon him 
 again almost at once. 
 
 " I'd be awfully glad if you would let me run 
 on," he said with solemn feeling. " Things are 
 so important and if you muddle them it's a mat- 
 ter of your whole life." 
 
 Celia's irrepressible flippancy broke out. 
 " Gracious ! That sounds rather alarming. I 
 don't think I want the responsibility of arranging 
 your future, Mr. Hyde." 
 
 Her pertness amused him again. They both 
 laughed, with a recurrence of that intimate and
 
 176 TEN HOURS 
 
 confiding glance. Both were at ease. The little 
 shining room with its shadows floating up from 
 the floor to the dipping light, seemed suddenly 
 full of comfort and security. Behind it the whole 
 solid silent weight of the house was set protectively. 
 
 " Well, fire away," Celia continued, " and you 
 shall have the benefit of a womanly adviser if 
 that's what you want." 
 
 She looked softly at him, and then through the 
 window at father, who was still working in the 
 garden. 
 
 II 
 
 After a moment Leonard began jerkily. 
 
 " I went down home this week. My brother 
 was married and I had to be best man." 
 
 "How interesting! You didn't tell me at the 
 time." Faint reproach was in her voice and her 
 glance. " I love weddings." 
 
 " Do you? I didn't think you'd be interested." 
 
 " Frightfully interested, of course. What did 
 the bride look like? I think a wedding's awful 
 fun." 
 
 She squeezed her elbows impulsively to her sides 
 and turned her animated face to him.
 
 LEONARD HYDE 177 
 
 He stared soberly at her. "Do you? They 
 never struck me as fun. I think they're rather 
 rather awful. So solemn, I mean, a matter of 
 your whole life." 
 
 " His life seems to weigh upon him," Celia 
 reflected. Aloud she answered. " Oh well, of 
 course, I know they are really, but not if you're 
 only a spectator. It's great fun then, looking at 
 the dresses and watching other people being tied 
 up. It's more fun to be a spectator than an actor," 
 she added, the words driven out of her by a little 
 swift ebullition of bitterness. Other people had 
 watched her and Robert being " tied up " ; had 
 known the glamor would fade, and the romance 
 wither. 
 
 " Yes, that's what I should think," Leonard 
 assented. " You'd be so awfully worried whether 
 you'd made the right choice." 
 
 Celia shot a sharp glance at him. Was there a 
 personal application in this? 
 
 He was gazing seriously through the window 
 and she felt assured. 
 
 " Still if you were in love, you wouldn't be 
 worried, I suppose? " she said, a little dryly. " It
 
 178 TEN HOURS 
 
 wouldn't be much of a compliment to the lady.'' 
 
 He did not smile. " I should think if you would 
 be in love the risk would be greater," he said, 
 " because then you'd be blind, and not see any 
 faults. You'd find 'em out when it was too late 
 and be tied for life to 'em." 
 
 Celia shrugged her shoulders. " That's a part 
 of the fun of the thing. It's no good expecting 
 any one to be perfect. They find faults in you 
 too, and they're tied to you for life. It's the same 
 both sides. . . . Gracious ! we are getting moral- 
 istic! Are you contemplating matrimony and is 
 that what you want advice on? " 
 
 She said the words lightly, but directly they 
 were uttered she was conscious of a sudden stab at 
 her heart. 
 
 "Oh no," Leonard disclaimed, ''I'm not; not 
 at all; I was thinking of my brother." 
 
 Celia smiled. 
 
 " I was only thinking what an awful risk it 
 was," Leonard continued, " not knowing whether 
 you'd be happy or not, and bound down in any 
 case ; not able to get away; your whole life ruined." 
 
 " Oh, but that's the blackest side! " Celia pro-
 
 LEONARD HYDE 179 
 
 tested. Ruin was such a strong term! She 
 couldn't pretend that marriage was a perpetual 
 ecstasy, a dream, an intoxication, as it might have 
 been, as perhaps it was, during those first few 
 hours when Robert was so loving and consider- 
 ate. But ruin! 
 
 " People's hearts don't break so easily, Mr. 
 Hyde. You rub along all right, even if you're 
 not in the seventh heaven any longer. It would 
 be silly to talk about the world being shattered 
 and all that kind of thing just because you find 
 your partner can say " She paused with a 
 gleam of roguery. "Ssh!" she breathed, and 
 shook her head. " It's a case for euphuism, isn't 
 it? Can shout a one-syllable objurgation at 
 you ! " 
 
 Leonard laughed. His eyes absorbed her face. 
 " I believe you'd be fine enough to stand anything 
 and face it like a brick!" he exclaimed rapidly, 
 his voice vibrating. 
 
 Celia started and flushed. A thrill caught her, 
 paralyzing her heart, making her hands and feet 
 feel cold and the rest of her body warm. 
 
 Again the inner and romantic Celia fled, and
 
 i8o TEN HOURS 
 
 the sensible Mrs. Jennings became apparent, de- 
 murely upright and stiff. 
 
 " Dear! dear! I'm afraid I don't deserve that 
 tribute. But you haven't told me yet what your 
 brother's wedding was like." 
 
 She forced herself to look composedly at him, 
 and slight waves of agitation moistened her skin, 
 and drew her breath in flutters through her lips, 
 as she saw his flush, his nervous movements, and 
 the warmth of his eyes. 
 
 She endured an extraordinary sense of being 
 alone in the center of a great space brushed rud- 
 dily with light which did not illuminate but ob- 
 scure, and she felt herself to be advancing through 
 that light towards something which lay beyond its 
 sheet. She looked at Leonard, yet she hardly saw 
 him. A mist stretched thinly between them. She 
 could not see him nor the quiet room because of 
 the light which blinded her, which drowned her. 
 
 She trembled. Desire to move her chair farther 
 from his became overpowering, but she was un- 
 able to stir. Her mind darted out towards 
 Robert, seeking support, seeking anchor and 
 safety. With swift strokes her imagination drew
 
 LEONARD HYDE 181 
 
 his face, good and placid. Then it shrank from 
 its own faithful presentation. Robert was noth- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 With wide blank eyes she pierced that mist and 
 looked at Leonard, concentrating herself on his 
 straight features, his clear eyes, the mobile sensi- 
 tiveness of his mouth. 
 
 Then she looked at her hand, shaking on her 
 knee. Stupidly a voice in her said, " What's the 
 matter with me? What on earth is the matter 
 with me?" 
 
 The question remained unanswered. 
 
 III 
 
 Leonard shifted his position. His growing 
 excitement dismayed him. He could neither order 
 nor control his thoughts; they danced like imps 
 along forbidden routes. His sensations mastered 
 him. They urged him to reckless terrifying ac- 
 tion, and though he did not lessen the distance 
 between himself and Celia, though he plunged 
 again into impersonal speech, he was nevertheless 
 following them, not directly but by devious and
 
 1 82 TEN HOURS 
 
 stealthy ways; he was deliberately deceiving him- 
 self; shutting his eyes to his progress. 
 
 " Oh, it was all right," he said, answering her 
 question about the wedding. " I've a photo of 
 the bride. Perhaps you'd like to see it." 
 
 He took out his pocketbook. 
 
 Some uncontrollable impulse made Celia bend 
 towards him. Her movements had become auto- 
 matic. She was no longer mistress of herself. All 
 familiar and accepted ideals, standpoints, conven- 
 tions, rules, seemed to have ebbed away. She 
 moved in a waste under the guidance of some new 
 force, never before felt, not now definable, but 
 recognized as strong and sure; a force which de- 
 manded and obtained her acquiescence; before 
 which these ideals, standpoints, conventions, rules, 
 went down like straws. Nothing in all her experi- 
 ence was competent to deal with it. She did not 
 even know as yet whether it should be dealt with 
 as an enemy or obeyed as a virtue. Her mind had 
 not as yet scrutinized it; only her body knew it, 
 and obeyed it unhesitatingly. 
 
 She looked at the pocketbook, but her gaze 
 saw also, still through that thin luminous mist, his
 
 LEONARD HYDE 183 
 
 hands, his well-kept nails, his wrist. Breathing 
 thickly, Leonard too leant nearer. His temple 
 touched her hair and the contact drove his strength 
 from him. He could smell its fragrance, he could 
 see the curve of eyelash, and cheek-bone. Mutely 
 he extended the photo; greedily he absorbed the 
 enervating influence of her nearness. 
 
 Celia stared at the photo; the warmth of his 
 cheek came in a gust to hers; she heard his irregu- 
 lar breathing, she sat in a dream, not moving, not 
 thinking, desiring only to perpetuate this moment 
 indefinitely. . . . 
 
 Then gradually exterior things communicated 
 with her. She was conscious again of impressions, 
 and of painful ones. The photo was of a group, 
 and her eyes wandered from the bride, classically 
 unsmiling, to the bridegroom, and the wedding- 
 guests. Subtly they expressed good-breeding. 
 She could name no particular thing as belonging 
 to a social scale above her own, she only knew 
 that the woman looked " high-school," the men 
 university. 
 
 She was " private school." 
 
 The unthinking ecstasy of the moment was
 
 1 84 TEN HOURS 
 
 destroyed. She was back again amid displeasing 
 facts, her heart heavier for that brief inexplicable 
 state of joy. 
 
 " It's very good," she said, her voice thin and 
 hard, " awfully good." 
 
 She did not lift her eyes from it. Jealously she 
 examined the youngest and prettiest of the women. 
 If she were dressed like that she would look as 
 nice. She was tall and slender, her feet and hands 
 were well shaped. Was there among those girls 
 one who had provoked Leonard to his interest 
 in marriage? 
 
 She shivered. 
 
 " I must make the fire up," she said. " It's 
 getting cold in here." 
 
 She went to the fire and knelt down on the rug. 
 Blindly she felt for the shovel. Her hands were 
 like ice, and shivers crept along her flesh. Again 
 her mind said, " What is the matter with me? " 
 
 She heard a movement and Leonard was bend- 
 ing over her, drawing the shovel from her hands. 
 She sat back on her heels and watched him. Then 
 she got up and stood by the table, her contracted
 
 LEONARD HYDE 185 
 
 attitude, her bent head, eloquent of apprehension 
 and alarmed modesty. 
 
 When he had finished he faced her. She did not 
 look up nor speak, and his gaze became passion- 
 ate. The beat of his heart and pulses quickened. 
 
 IV 
 
 Leonard loved Celia. 
 
 He was a cautious and rather selfish young man. 
 To him the preeminent thing on earth was the 
 happiness of his own life. He had observed people 
 and conditions, and he conceived the superficial 
 knowledge thus gained to be a vast wisdom and 
 experience. A man of the world, unemotional, 
 discerning, skeptical, and without illusions such 
 was his estimate of his own psychology. You 
 could not come through four years of the Army 
 without " knowing everything." Vices, pit-falls, 
 snares, defeats he had seen them all and, 
 alarmed at their devastating effects, he had de- 
 termined to step warily, probing with mistrustful 
 eyes everything that came to him. He was not 
 going to be thrown, to make a mess of his life for
 
 1 86 TEN HOURS 
 
 the sake of a momentary intoxication. Conse- 
 quences these obsessed him. You had to pay. 
 He did not mean to spend all his life paying for a 
 pleasure which had swiftly become stale. 
 
 He foresaw in what direction his own tempta- 
 tion lay. He was profoundly romantic, a mixture 
 of sensuality and sentiment, of freshness and 
 sophistication. Sex engrossed him, but he was re- 
 solved that it should not master him. A liaison 
 with a French girl had initiated him into the com- 
 plexities of passion. While admitting its power, 
 he was also dismayed at its transitoriness. Satiety 
 had come to the girl with equal swiftness, and he 
 was left at the termination of the affair with a 
 towering thankfulness that his mistress was so 
 variable, and an illuminating vision of what his 
 position would have been had she remained loving 
 and he, his ardor burnt out, been chafed with the 
 ugliness of an unwanted pursuit. Following this 
 apprehension came the still more discomforting 
 one had she been his wife and not a light love 
 whom he could after all desert, what a chain would 
 have been around him, what a perpetual cloud 
 upon his days! He was fresh enough to hold
 
 LEONARD HYDE 187 
 
 exalted ideas of marriage. He respected its 
 bonds, and its risks and responsibilities were all 
 the more intimidating because he knew that he 
 would not break them without severe self-judg- 
 ment, and even actual misery. Full of idealisms 
 and sentimentalities as he was, it was partly the 
 desire to preserve these which made him, after he 
 had broken with Eugenie, resist the same tempta- 
 tion again, and arm himself at all points against 
 its attack and the possible consequence of being 
 " taken in." 
 
 He suspected every woman he met to be of 
 predatory instincts. He doubted the spontaneity 
 of every smile, glance, or flippancy. They were 
 deliberate artifices, destined for his undoing. Con- 
 temptuously he mocked the power of a tantalizing 
 curl, or a charming dress; more snares these; he 
 saw through them ; there was no fooling him. 
 
 All this watchfulness and dissection of motives 
 meant that he was continually pondering on love. 
 He became full of sententious opinions which 
 highly diverted the older men to whom he stated 
 them. He began to look out for a " good woman." 
 Sooner or later he must marry he admitted can-
 
 1 88 TEN HOURS 
 
 didly that celibacy did not appeal to him but he 
 must show the greatest discretion and wisdom in 
 selecting a wife. He must have some one good, 
 modest, sedate, unstained, unkissed, full of do- 
 mestic virtues, without wiles or coquetries, a per- 
 fect helpmeet. " After all I've seen I You can't 
 be too careful. You're landed in the divorce court 
 before you know where you are." Imbued with 
 these fears and distrusts, he came to the Jennings. 
 He fell in love with Celia. 
 
 At first it was merely a tremendous respect 
 which she aroused in him. She embodied all his 
 ideals. A fellow would feel safe with a girl like 
 this for wife. She wouldn't land him in the di- 
 vorce court. His respect glowed in his smile, he 
 conveyed it in his handshake. She was pretty too, 
 with a look of fresh innocence and immaturity 
 which could not but appeal to a jaded man of the 
 world. She made him feel very soiled and ex- 
 perienced. He found pleasure in treating her 
 with pronounced deference. Worldliness hum- 
 bling itself to purity it was not without satisfac- 
 tion that he saw himself in this light. 
 / Thus, dwelling on his dangers, his incapacity
 
 LEONARD HYDE 189 
 
 for lasting love, and Celia's virtues and physical 
 charms, he became vulnerable at all points. Con- 
 templation of her and the perpetual inspection of 
 passion kindled a flame. He told himself that he 
 loved her but that it was a fine sexless romantic 
 love which asked no return, which was ennobling, 
 not debasing. 
 
 For several months he rather enjoyed this pos- 
 session of a chivalrous passion; then some of the 
 fineness went out of it. It became earthy 
 and clamoring. He was wretched, frightened, 
 tempted. 
 
 He took steps which would cut it out of his life. 
 
 . V 
 
 Now, borne on an irresistible current of desire, 
 he stood looking hotly at her, his thoughts scorch- 
 ing him. So passive had his love primarily been 
 that it had not led him to penetrate the depths of 
 her life nor her emotions. He imagined, as did 
 Robert, that she was without subtleties. Having 
 at once established her as the ideal wife and house- 
 wife, he had never questioned the validity of this 
 conception, nor searched for other qualities in her.
 
 190 TEN HOURS 
 
 He assumed that she was happy. It was this very 
 idea of her absorption in home duties which en- 
 slaved him. Had he seen her nursing a child, his 
 picture would have been the finer for embracing 
 motherhood as well as wifehood. He never 
 thought of her as a woman who could be tempted, 
 drawn to an illicit love, broken. Until quite re- 
 cently he had desired not to possess her but to 
 have her as the object of a platonic and reverential 
 worship. 
 
 Now, his view of her altered. Throbbingly he 
 wondered at her embarrassment, her flush, her 
 averted eyes. 
 
 To silence those problems whose solution held 
 peril, he began to speak, stammering through lips 
 which seemed to have thickened. 
 
 " I That wasn't only what I wanted to say to 
 you. I mean. ... I came in here for a reason." 
 
 Celia looked up. Her brows were slightly knit; 
 her face spoke of repression. She waited, still 
 looking at him. 
 
 His eyes did not drop from hers, but they 
 seemed to be steadied by a will other than his 
 own. Their expression said that his own will was
 
 LEONARD HYDE 191 
 
 endeavoring, though vainly, to avert them. His 
 features had sharpened and he looked older. 
 
 " I came to say " Her appearance was as a 
 hand on his throat, choking him. Her pale hair, 
 her pale face, her fixed expressionless eyes, her 
 soft mouth, her soft throat, her immobile body, 
 set in brilliant colorless light they were possessed 
 of an irresistible and assailing power. His blood 
 burnt, his words were forced back; and he was 
 dominated by a cruel, hungry, unscrupulous, desire. 
 
 His dismay infected Celia. Shivers of fear 
 swept across her heart; she leant against the 
 table, and drew courage from its solidity. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " What did you want to say 
 to me?" 
 
 That fear of making a fool of himself warred 
 with his passion. All his instincts leapt up mili- 
 tantly. Selfishness, distrust, caution, skepticism of 
 the endurance of this raging force, they were all 
 springing to meet it, they were all fighting for 
 their existence. 
 
 They spurred on his rehearsed sentences so that 
 he uttered these stupidly. " I'm hoping to set up 
 an office of my own, and start as a chartered ac-
 
 192 TEN HOURS 
 
 countant, down at Felgate. I shan't want this 
 room any longer." 
 
 Celia repeated " Down at Felgate. You won't 
 want this room any longer." Then, " I see." 
 
 The sound of father's dragging footsteps rose 
 to the window, and ceased. The pants and moans 
 of the wind, the continuous lispings of the boughs, 
 worried the air. 
 
 VI 
 
 Celia said again " I see." Then understanding 
 of his words sank into her like a knife turning and 
 twisting till it reached her heart; then she quiv- 
 ered; the light rose and fell in bright hard waves, 
 her knees shook. 
 
 Deliberately, carefully she crossed the rocking 
 floor and sat down in an armchair. 
 
 " So that's what you came to tell me. ... I 
 think I've heard of Felgate." 
 
 She listened to her thin voice, and to that other 
 voice which shrieked at her, " What's the matter 
 with me? Why do I care whether he goes or 
 not? . . . When is he going? . . . Why is he so 
 stiff ? . . . Why do I mind ? . . .
 
 LEONARD HYDE 193 
 
 Under the veils of pride, goodness, common- 
 sense, and strength of will, the answer was stir- 
 ring, was agonizedly beginning to form, was 
 striving to become audible. 
 
 She fastened her eyes on him. " It's in Surrey, 
 isn't it? " The light was behind him, and she saw 
 him only as a black bar. 
 
 " Yes, on the Thames. I'm buying the business 
 there. I shall stay at a cottage near the woods. 
 . . . Awfully pretty. My people are traveling, 
 you see; I only waited for the wedding so I shall 
 be on my own. I've thought about it for some- 
 time, but didn't mention it I. . . ." 
 
 His voice trailed away. 
 
 " I see," Celia said quietly. 
 
 Her lips were dry, her eyes smarting; she 
 shivered so violently that her teeth chattered. 
 With a rigid intensity and calm her eyes observed 
 his hair, his shadowy face, his hands fingering the 
 edges of his coat. Like lightning the answer to 
 all her unrests and apprehensions and sickening 
 discontents, rayed through her, tearing her, blind- 
 ing her. She loved him. She, Celia Jennings, 
 Robert's wife, father's daughter she, sane, prac-
 
 194 TEN HOURS 
 
 tical, unsentimental, loved a man for the first time ; 
 not with the indulgent sensible affection she had 
 felt for Robert, but in a way which was shaming 
 and hideous. 
 
 Her eyelids dropped. For a moment she was 
 shut in darkness, enduring torments of shame and 
 misery. Then all those old established rules, con- 
 ventions, standpoints came to her support. She 
 was beset by trembling but powerful urgencies; 
 bidden to conceal everything, assisted to repres- 
 sion and composure. 
 
 Her limbs relaxed. She looked up again, her 
 eyes filmy but direct, two burning spots on her 
 white cheeks, but her voice controlled, her body 
 disciplined. 
 
 " It will be very nice for you. It sounds lovely. 
 When will you be going?" 
 
 " At once. I suppose I ought to have told you 
 sooner, but I'm going down there to-night." 
 
 Then he muttered something about a week's 
 rent and a cold anger filled and steeled her. She 
 was the landlady; some one who let a room to get 
 more money; his people were traveling. 
 
 Her mouth was stern and lifted in the old aloof
 
 LEONARD HYDE 195 
 
 way. At her heart a dull pain beat but it was 
 quiescent; she was mistress of it; her thoughts, 
 her movements, were all under control. She 
 spoke sharply. 
 
 " Not at all. You can tell me when you choose. 
 It makes no difference to me. I shouldthink you 
 must be glad to get away from London. A cot- 
 tage near a wood, did you say? That sounds 
 lovely." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Leonard was too occupied with rending convic- 
 tions to be able to speak. He had observed all her 
 movements and shades of expression. At every 
 quiver of eyelid or mouth, he had guessed the 
 emotion which provoked it. Having once grasped 
 the fact that there existed another Celia than that 
 capable and friendly one, he read correctly the 
 subtle language in which that other Celia be- 
 trayed herself. He was convinced that she loved 
 him. 
 
 His thoughts flew from point to point, seeking 
 further knowledge, seeking wisdom, pointing out 
 abysses, and escapes, mad joys, and bitter penal- 
 ties. He thought of Robert, stodgy and ugly; of
 
 196 TEN HOURS 
 
 course she could not love him. He thought of 
 himself, and those distrusts flocked round him. 
 He looked suspiciously at her, only to be touched 
 again with flame. He adored her and she loved 
 him. Beautiful, good, reserved, and at heart pas- 
 sionate what a woman! He wanted her; he 
 must have her. 
 
 He made a step nearer her, and was arrested 
 by that cold caution and dread. It wouldn't last. 
 It was fine now preeminent but it wouldn't 
 last. He had been like this with Eugenie, and 
 possession. ... It wouldn't last. Was he to 
 throw everything overboard; be the co-respondent 
 in a divorce suit; ruin his career, and then find that 
 the fire had burnt out, that he must offer marriage 
 to a woman whom he had ceased to love? 
 " Don't for heaven's sake, make a fool of 
 yourself!" , 
 
 A minute's silence was long enough for him to 
 toss between these extremities. During it Celia, 
 too, had been racked with fresh sensations and 
 convictions. That dull pain was spreading over 
 her limbs and numbing them. Now that she had 
 broken through the uream, and the mist, and come
 
 LEONARD HYDE 197 
 
 out into her everyday surroundings, the change in 
 her was more poignantly understood. She was in 
 her own room, seeing every material object clearly, 
 smelling the fire, hearing the wind, and father's 
 movements, and the whispering trees, but placed 
 among them all as a different person; conscious of 
 a knowledge which altered everything she looked 
 on, making its familiarity unbearable. The room, 
 the house, the earth, were all the same but she 
 had changed, and things which had been endurable 
 to the first Celia were as so many weapons turned 
 against this new woman. 
 
 When she had absorbed the poison of this 
 knowledge, she glanced at Leonard and saw his 
 agitation. Her mind swerved from herself to 
 him, and as she watched him, painfully endeavor- 
 ing to explain his aspect, he made that step to- 
 wards her. Her heart leapt, her head swam. 
 
 Then he stopped, and she was precipitated from 
 a height of fear back into the quiet room. She 
 had thought he was about to touch her and she 
 did not know whether it was desire or dread which 
 had brought that faintness upon her. Now, with- 
 out attempting to analyze her emotions, she
 
 198 TEN HOURS 
 
 gripped the problem of those impulses which had 
 driven him towards her and then stopped him. 
 Why? Why? 
 
 From sheer exhaustion her brain became 
 stationary. 
 
 Dully she spoke. " Riverside too? You'll be 
 able to have plenty of boating. I should think you 
 must be looking forward to a good time." 
 
 Leonard answered as lifelessly. " Yes, of 
 course. It's a ripping little place; still I shall be 
 sorry to leave here for some reasons. . . . I've 
 been very. . . ." Caution prodded him warn- 
 ingly. " Comfortable," he concluded. 
 
 " That's good," Celia said in a dry little voice, 
 and with the palest of smiles. " But you'll be 
 more than comfortable now. That's a very tame 
 condition after all, isn't it?" 
 
 She scarcely heeded his assent. Her mind 
 might be motionless through fatigue, but her body 
 was alert, and piteously it craved for explanation 
 of his constraint. Her flesh yearned towards him 
 though she maintained her repressed attitude 
 and endured with horror those uncontrollable 
 demands.
 
 LEONARD HYDE 199 
 
 " Yes, tame. I suppose so. But tame things 
 are the safest. I don't know whether I want any- 
 thing wild. It's shattering. You'd have to be 
 so certain it was worth it." 
 
 Then he looked at her and his selfishness crum- 
 bled. She was like a white flame, sitting there in 
 the light. Worth it! His miserable little 
 safeguards! 
 
 His face kindled; his eyes folded her in 
 passion. 
 
 " But if you knew it was worth it you wouldn't 
 care; you'd let everything go," he exclaimed. 
 " You don't think of safety and comfort when 
 you're in. . . ." 
 
 Her expression stopped him. He crimsoned, 
 and turned to the fire. His hand rose to his full 
 upper lip and smoothed it shakily. He was with- 
 out thought. 
 
 Celia looked straight before her. She under- 
 stood that he loved her and she was stupefied. 
 She saw the black window-frame, and beyond it 
 the ridged glows of the west. Roofs were sun- 
 gilt, slates struck with shadow; smokes, blue, and 
 white, and gray, strove lightly over them. Her
 
 200 TEN HOURS 
 
 eyes dilated. Her brain hammered out mo- 
 notonously, " He loves you." 
 
 Robert, his long heavy face, his kind blue eyes, 
 his stout body: she wanted Robert. She wanted 
 him because he symbolized safety, protection, and 
 sanity. . . . Then she knew that if he came into 
 the room she would scream, she would shrink 
 from his touch, detesting him. 
 
 Gwennie was upstairs. In the garden father 
 was contentedly piling up dead leaves. All the 
 other rooms were empty and silent. And she sat 
 here, in the morning-room knowing that a man 
 loved her and she loved him. 
 
 She trembled again. Her terrified gaze stole 
 round the room, seeking for that old security, that 
 proved repose, that absorption in trivialities. If 
 only she could get back to the Celia of twenty 
 minutes ago! If only this were a dream, and she 
 could awake, concentrated tranquilly on her cro- 
 chet and on father, bearing no worse pain than 
 that of a decayed tooth ! 
 
 A sob rose in her heart. She stared at the table 
 with its faded blue cloth, at the blue walls, at the 
 prints of MacWhirter and Kate Greenaway, and
 
 LEONARD HYDE 201 
 
 Watts, at Robert's books, at her workbox, and 
 tried to associate herself with them, to draw them 
 about her as so many atmospheres which would 
 pervade her with the sense of home and wifehood. 
 But they failed her. They were not allies, but 
 enemies, critics. No, they were not even that; 
 they were virtually non-existent; not one of them 
 meant anything to her. She could conjure up no 
 sanity, no normal calmness with them, nor with the 
 names of father and Gwennie. Insubstantial and 
 irrelevant as shadows they lay about her. Only 
 one thing counted, was solid, real, mastering, and 
 that was Leonard. He loved her. 
 
 Keen shoots of realization went through her. 
 He loved her. She savored the implication of the 
 words: he wanted to kiss and caress her. 
 
 She was shaken with a savage desire for his 
 lips and his arms. She was sick with horror and 
 eagerness. He wanted to kiss her he whom she 
 had thought of with such timidity and awe. He 
 loved her. That she was married made no differ- 
 ence to him. He thought her perfect and he so 
 perfect himself ! He did not want to go to Fel- 
 gate. . . . He was going because he was noble.
 
 202 TEN HOURS 
 
 . . . All romance, all wonder, all miracles, were 
 
 hers. She was glorified beyond measure. 
 
 Her thoughts raced on. Waves of heat rose 
 and fell over her body. Waves of torturing 
 shame succeeded them. 
 
 She moved her damp hands outward. She tried 
 to stand up but languor seized her. She tried to 
 speak but her dry lips only twitched. She sat mo* 
 tionless, rocking from great breadths of light to 
 waters of darkness; swept by happiness seared 
 with shame. 
 
 Leonard looked at her. For a moment he re- 
 sisted, dealing with conflicting emotions. Then he 
 dropped down on his knees beside the chair, and 
 put passionate and timid arms about her. 
 
 " Celia. . . . Celia. . . ." 
 
 He kissed her lips and her cheeks, softly but 
 with burning ardor. 
 
 Her heart seemed to stop beating, and then 
 thundered on. She tried to grasp supports which 
 she could neither see nor name, which her sub- 
 conscious self said existed, but which were less 
 than bubbles to her. Her instinct groped wildly 
 for them.
 
 LEONARD HYDE 203 
 
 Then all calls to resistance ceased, one sur- 
 rendered herself to this sweetness. Her arms 
 lifted and clasped him; she moved her head so that 
 her cheek pressed his ; she was fainting with a pro- 
 found happiness.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 LOVE 
 
 LEONARD held her closely, kissing her, and mur- 
 muring unmeaning words in her ear. He was 
 without doubts, and without regrets. Love com- 
 manded him and his happiness was flawless. He 
 felt her breast against him, her cheek moving on 
 his, caressing it, and her hair fluffing into his eyes. 
 Exultation made him dizzy; desire turned his em- 
 brace rough. 
 
 His tightening clasp roused Celia from her half 
 swoon. That moment of abandon with its free- 
 dom from thought and its supreme simplicity was 
 gone. Now only its significance remained. All 
 its stern meanings and issues were before her. 
 The old Celia, though she could not be detached 
 from the new Celia, but must bear all the torments 
 and joys of the latter, could nevertheless govern 
 the latter, read lier clearly, and trace the strength 
 and perils of her impulses. Her mind too could 
 be neutral, swerving from the old to the new with 
 204
 
 LOVE 205 
 
 stunning swiftness, seeing things from cither's 
 standpoint and all the time sustaining a fierce 
 argument. 
 
 Now the old Celia rose to the surface. She 
 twisted in Leonard's arms, thrust him away, and 
 lifted her hands to her hair. Horror and anger 
 gave her a superficial composure. All her in- 
 stincts, flaming into activity, advised dissimulation. 
 She was not angry with him, but she must seem to 
 be so. She had betrayed her love; now she must 
 strenuously deny it. She had been drawn to a 
 height of unprecedented happiness, and this was 
 criminal; contemplation of her weakness filled her 
 with repulsion for herself. How could she have 
 been so mad, so wicked? 
 
 Then her brain froze. It was no longer ca- 
 pable of analyzing the situation, but her physical 
 strength was returning, and she was thankful for 
 the cessation of thought. Action now, not feeling, 
 had become necessary and she knew how she 
 must act. 
 
 She forced her eyes to his, hardening them, and 
 setting her mouth. She tried to speak but that for 
 the moment was impossible.
 
 206 TEN HOURS 
 
 Leonard understood her, but as he had expected 
 pride and rebuke, he was not troubled by them. 
 Resistance, spirit she would show them both. 
 Every new phase of the position found her splen- 
 did. He was made all the more ardent by her 
 coldness. 
 
 He pressed near her. " Celia, I love you. Do 
 you know? And you love me. . . . Celia. . . ." 
 
 " Don't touch me." Her voice was sharp, it 
 was almost a cry. Her brows, her mouth, con- 
 tracted with dread. " Don't you ought not. 
 . . . You are behaving shamefully." 
 
 Knowledge of the right actions was easily at- 
 tained, but here her power to execute the demands 
 of the crisis ended. She saw every part of the 
 situation, and every separate danger, and the 
 weapon which would destroy that danger, but she 
 could not composedly use the advantages given by 
 her insight. As she recognized this, her sense of 
 her peril and of her inadequacy to meet it flooded 
 her with fear. She sprang up, obeying her instinct 
 since its demands seemed simpler than those of 
 her intelligence. 
 
 " You mustn't come near me. I don't know
 
 LOVE 207 
 
 what made me I'm hysterical to-day. I've had 
 toothache, and I've been silly and you frightened 
 me. . . . You're to forget everything." 
 
 She panted out the sentences, standing, looking, 
 not like a woman but like a schoolgirl. Her mind 
 shrieked its scorn at her; it stabbed her with those 
 suitable speeches and attitudes: dignity, impas- 
 sivity, quiet rebuke. Her depths were full of 
 activity; they rushed to examine and subdue this 
 horror, which was also a glory, but her surfaces 
 were paralyzed, no, worse still, they were full of 
 weak and pitiable movements straws put up to 
 oppose a torrent. 
 
 " I know you didn't mean to to say any- 
 thing like that," she went on. " We've both been 
 very silly. ... I wish please if you'd go." 
 
 Then she stopped, quietly abandoning the at- 
 tempt to face the affair. His steady passionate 
 gaze made her flinch; she drooped under it as 
 under a burning sun. That horrible joy struggled 
 in her, beating down her hitherto untried resources 
 of strength, which, now that they were called into 
 service, betrayed their slightness. She stood, pas- 
 sively enduring her sensations, without thought,
 
 208 TEN HOURS 
 
 but quivering with every flick of her feelings. 
 
 Leonard's emotions were all exultant He 
 respected her for her abasement and loved her the 
 more, but it did not deter him in his pursuit. Now 
 that he had broken through his restraints, nothing 
 was powerful enough to stop him. He had one 
 object only that of winning her. The obstacles 
 she threw up were not deterrents but spurs; they 
 goaded him to a hotter desire. Still egotistical as 
 he was, his egotism had taken the form now not 
 of self-preservation but of self-indulgence. He 
 wanted her, and he must have her. Almost he 
 said that he could have her. Of her powers of 
 resistance he was not yet certain; he suspected 
 their strength to be less than that of her natural 
 desires, but he had not proved this. He set him- 
 self to do so. 
 
 " I haven't been very silly, Celia. I'm in deadly 
 earnest. I've loved you for a long time, only I 
 didn't think there was any chance. Darling, if 
 you love me-, there's nothing silly in it. It's all- 
 great. I can't believe it." 
 
 She looked at him with eyes suffering made 
 vacant and peculiarly unseeing. " You mustn't
 
 LOVE 209 
 
 talk like this. I didn't think you would be so so 
 wrong, and cruel. I've asked you to go." 
 
 He was momentarily restrained by her subdued 
 voice and manner. That spirituality he had ad- 
 mired in her was very manifest now. In her slen- 
 derness and pallor she looked virginal. He forgot 
 that she was a wife; aware of the acts of passion, 
 and experienced in them. He saw her as a girl 
 confronted for the first time with the problems of 
 sex, and scared into frozen reserve. This he 
 would soon destroy. He put out his hands and 
 laid them on her arms, but her convulsive start, 
 her glance of terror and reproach, checked him, 
 and he let them fall again to his sides. He was 
 baffled and mystified; unable to harmonize her 
 abandon of a few minutes ago with this repulsion. 
 He began to feel less sure of his perceptions. 
 Was she really angry, really pained, and outraged? 
 
 Trouble clouded his eyes; he spoke uncertainly. 
 
 " Are you really angry? I don't see why you 
 should mind my loving you. Don't be angry with 
 me, Celia. I can't help loving you. I don't under- 
 stand you. I thought at first that you . . . that 
 you cared and now. . . ."
 
 210 TEN HOURS 
 
 He stopped. He clasped and unclasped his 
 hands, an almost childishly distressed expression 
 lining his face. 
 
 Celia drank in the sweetness of his expressions 
 of love. Her body expanded, and seemed again 
 to crave out towards him. Hurriedly her eyes 
 went to his face and she was pierced again with 
 the. knowledge of his dearness. 
 
 Her youthful judgment, which, dazzled by a 
 few features, had constructed others, and out of 
 the real and the fancied, built up a godlike char- 
 acter, found him irresistibly appealing. His good 
 looks were to her the outward manifestation of an 
 ideal nature. His refinement, his naivete, his can- 
 did eyes, his obvious poses and subterfuges she 
 loved them all. There was a grace and youthful- 
 ness about him which Robert would never possess. 
 He harmonized admirably*with the ardent atmo- 
 sphere he had created; Robert would have ap- 
 peared ridiculous in it. All her longing for 
 protection; and love, and caresses; all her only 
 half-recognized desires for the glamor and rush of 
 an unreasoning worship, found their answer in 
 him. Those dreams which had stirred in the deep
 
 LOVE 211 
 
 silences and dusks of the countryside, which had 
 breathed of a world where service and ecstasy 
 were synonymous, where love was never staled, 
 but everyday things were transmuted by its per- 
 renial freshness; those romantic imaginings, were 
 all justified when she looked at him. Such things 
 could be; such love could be. She had known she 
 could not find them with Robert; only placid and 
 humdrum partnership was possible there. Just as 
 confidently had she met Leonard first she would 
 have known that she could find them in him. But 
 she had married Robert. Stings and jars had 
 prodded up through the placidity, and now the real 
 love was at hand, was offered, and she returned it, 
 and by so doing, she sinned. 
 
 Trembling she moved away from him. The 
 room seemed to tilt towards her, reproaching her, 
 reminding her of her wifehood. She saw Rob- 
 ert's face with numbing vividness, but it was with- 
 out reality; it was a phantasm which she ques- 
 tioned stupidly, "What was it to her?" What 
 was anything beside the dearness of Leonard's 
 face, beside his trouble, and his unhappiness? 
 
 Over her limbs spread a dreadful heaviness;
 
 212 TEN HOURS 
 
 her head throbbed. Through the half-open door 
 which she was nearing stole the dry chill air of 
 the house. Beyond the door were walls of silence 
 and brown shadow, and she longed for them; 
 every part of her sick body and mind urged her to 
 escape from this merciless light into a darkness 
 and coldness away from Leonard. If she could 
 escape from him, touch bannisters and door-knobs, 
 see the white counterpane of her bed and Robert's, 
 hear Gwennie moving overhead, lie down under 
 the familiar white ceiling and amid the familiar 
 furniture then the old Celia might root out these 
 unspeakable emotions, and, like a pendulum, 
 swing back to that blessed state of common-sense 
 from which this emotion would seem degrading 
 and absurd. 
 
 Steadily she moved backward, the pallid flame 
 of the daylight before her, and behind her the 
 thin wall, dimness, and silence. 
 
 Then Leonard moved too. If she once passed 
 that door she was lost to him. The house would 
 seize her. With a thousand tentacles it would 
 fasten itself into her. Memories, habits, duties, 
 familiarities, all these, crowding her heart, would
 
 LOVE 213 
 
 be stronger than passion because they were known, 
 whereas passion was new and as much terrifying 
 as sweet. 
 
 With a stride he cleared the space between 
 them. His sensitive face was marked by alarm, it 
 was made shapeless and twitching by it. " Celia, 
 darling . . . don't go. It's not right to let me 
 think you love me, and then turn me down. You 
 do love me. . . . It's you who are treating me 
 badly. I love you. ... I shall go mad if you 
 look at me like that. You must hear me out." 
 
 Her heart bounded at each sentence, unques- 
 tioningly accepting its truth. Love tore her. Too 
 large for her body, it swelled tormentingly through 
 her. She looked at his entreating face, and at his 
 hands stretched towards her but refraining from 
 contact. Currents of attraction linked her to him. 
 
 They conquered. All those impulses of re- 
 sistance dropped from her, and her mind was 
 silenced like a machine stopped by a hand. He 
 found confederates in her blood, in her pulses, in 
 her breath. Her mouth arched in hopeless protest 
 but her eyes were kindling; above them her brows 
 smoothed out almost joyously.
 
 2i 4 TEN HOURS 
 
 He put his arms round her and pressed her 
 against him, kissing her gently. 
 
 II 
 
 She was now governed entirely by the dictates 
 of her body. The call of the house was to her 
 mind, and this made no response. She allowed 
 him to draw her back to her chair, and force her 
 into it. Then he knelt by her, still holding her, 
 and she sat passive, her eyes dwelling on him. 
 
 He began his attack, his whole attitude one of 
 humility, adoration, and solicitude. 
 
 u I didn't come down meaning to tell you, 
 darling. I've loved you ever since I saw you, 1 
 think. . . . But I haven't thought about trying to 
 make you love me. I haven't tried, have I ? You 
 must have done it on your own. I never thought 
 you would; it didn't occur to me. At first it was 
 enough to see you, and know you were alive any 
 one so beautiful and good; just what I think a 
 woman ought to be. I've met a good many; there's 
 not much I don't know about 'em. I have hun- 
 dreds of girls making eyes at me and doing all 
 their silly little things as if I couldn't see through
 
 LOVE 215 
 
 them ! I wasn't to be caught that way. And when 
 I saw you, I knew you were different; so natural, 
 and sweet, and sensible. I don't like a woman 
 who thinks every fellow who looks at her is in love 
 with her. They do think that, you know; some 
 of them, most of them, but you don't. You 
 look as if you think a fellow can be platonically 
 interested in a woman. I don't say he can. I've 
 proved he can't, in fact, because I thought I 
 loved you platonically at first, and I don't. I 
 adore you, and I'm not going to stop there. 
 I must have something more, Celia. And I felt 
 that the last few weeks, and I didn't know you 
 thought anything about me, so I determined 
 to clear out. But everything's different now; 
 you love me, and it alters my course. All 
 my plans come to nothing, because you weren't in 
 them. Now I we must make others, with you 
 in the center. I'm not going to let you go, dear. 
 We must make other plans make them now." 
 
 He paused breathlessly, beaming on her with 
 eyes which saw no obstacles, no moral laws, noth- 
 ing but the consummation of desire. 
 
 She had missed his first sentences. Stunned by
 
 216 TEN HOURS 
 
 the impact of events, she could only look at him 
 without thought, without movement. Gradually, 
 however, her brain threw off its lethargy, and re- 
 ceived his words, considering them, and making 
 pictures out of them. His embrace, and her 
 absorption in him and in his words were helping 
 her to dissociate hersfelf from her surroundings, 
 were obliterating knowledge of bonds and respon- 
 sibilities. She felt herself to be independent, the 
 mistress of her own actions, and in this state all 
 instincts urged her to link herself to him. She was 
 almost coming to feel that her duty now lay in 
 pondering these new circumstances, and discover- 
 ing their legitimate demands. 
 
 Encouraged by her intent look and her repose 
 in his arms, Leonard plunged on again. 
 
 " We must make plans. Good Lord, when I 
 think I came down to-day to say good-by and 
 clear out for ever! If I hadn't spoken, and had 
 gone away not knowing you cared ! What a bit 
 of good luck it's all been ! You've always seemed 
 so wonderful to me -the kind of woman I've 
 always been looking for."
 
 LOVE 217 
 
 Her brain seized on that and cast it into a 
 picture. 
 
 She had a vision of his life as her lodger. She 
 saw the staircase and, looking on her own face and 
 figure through his eyes, saw how she must have 
 appeared to him as she stood in the silvery shadow 
 of the landing. The woman he had always been 
 looking for! Warmth flushed her. 
 
 " And now I've got you. I know you love me 
 though you haven't said so. Celia, say you do. 
 Do say you love me, Celia. I'm mad to hear you 
 say that." 
 
 The mere thought of formulating her illicit 
 desires in words jerked her back towards realiza- 
 tion of the horror of her position. He saw her 
 returning misery and rushed in, sweeping her back 
 into forgetfulness of all but love. 
 
 " Darling, we must make plans. I'm going 
 down to Felgate, and as I told you I want to 
 open a business there. I've taken a room in a cot- 
 tage near the woods. It's the most glorious place. 
 You'll love it, Celia. It'll drive you wild. It's 
 all pines and then there's the river."
 
 218 TEN HOURS 
 
 He poured out descriptions, but her mind 
 busied itself with the cottage before it attended 
 to these. 
 
 She built the white walls, the slanting roof, the 
 little windows lost amid creepers, and behind it 
 she piled the dark rustling masses of the wood, 
 shaped the long boles and cast the mist of gray- 
 green crests under the stars. . . . He was going 
 there. 
 
 What was he saying now? He was describing 
 the environment of the cottage, speaking of 
 the Thames. 
 
 "You like the river, don't you, dearest? It's 
 awfully pretty round there meadows, you know 
 and then there are the shops, and fields and 
 copses before you come to the cottages, and then 
 the pines on St. Mary's Hill. After this little 
 hole ! Celia, shan't we be happy there ? " 
 
 He pressed her furiously against him but he did 
 not, as he had hoped, intoxicate her. That " we " 
 had stabbed through her dreaming and rent it. 
 Her physical side no longer governed her. She 
 was awake again to all perils and laws and in- 
 exorable sequels. " We." He took her consent
 
 LOVE 219 
 
 for granted. He imagined that she would go with 
 him, that she would leave Robert, father, Gwen- 
 nie that she would break her marriage vows. 
 
 Half of her moaned with abhorrence, half of 
 her was shaken by a storm of excitement as the 
 alternatives towered up before her. She had as 
 yet scarcely realized her freedom. She could go. 
 She was bound, not by material chains but by 
 spiritual. She could break these, and go. 
 
 Sub-consciously she said these things; her con- 
 scious self revolted from his words. 
 
 She seized his hands and threw them off her. 
 She stood up. 
 
 " Mr. Hyde, you must go at once. You've no 
 right to say such things to me, and 1 mustn't listen. 
 It's wicked and it's mad and ridiculous. You 
 only fancy you're in love with me." 
 
 " You know that isn't true, Celia. And why do 
 you say Mr. Hyde ? You know you love me. Say 
 Leonard. You know it's not ridiculous." 
 
 He came towards her, his bright eyes subduing 
 her. 
 
 " It is ridiculous," she repeated tartly, whipping 
 herself into anger with him. u If I hadn't been
 
 220 TEN HOURS 
 
 silly all day I should never have listened to you 
 like this. I'm hysterical." 
 
 " No, you're not You're deceiving yourself 
 and trying to deceive me, but you can't. We both 
 know the truth. We love each other, and there's 
 nothing ridiculous about it. It's no good taking 
 that line, you can't keep it up." 
 
 Her eyes wavered before his honest earnest 
 gaze. That look of youth and helplessness settled 
 down upon her again. 
 
 " Celia, darling, admit that you love me, and 
 then go on with what you want to say, but be 
 honest." 
 
 He clasped her wrists and bent over her. 
 
 Her knees trembled. Once more she stood in 
 momentary brightness as she tasted the sweetness 
 of his proximity and his passion, but advancing on 
 her with all those dark shapes shame, moral 
 laws, pride, purity. 
 
 " Oh, don't don't. . . . Yes, I do love 
 you. . . . Leonard. . . . Let me go. . . . 
 Please." 
 
 He stepped away from her. " I must hear 
 what you have to say first. I won't touch you
 
 LOVE 221 
 
 I'll try not to, anyway. You say you love me, 
 and yet you're sending me away. Why?" Her 
 face flamed. She became lovably embarrassed 
 and petulant. 
 
 "How can you ask anything so silly?" The 
 ghost of the sensible Celia appeared and clinched 
 the matter with that involuntary tilt of the head, 
 that compression of the mouth. " Because I'm 
 married, of course. That's why." 
 
 She tried to look matronly and dignified, but 
 the significance of her answer crushed her with 
 shame. Her head drooped till he could see only 
 her white parting and the glinting waves of her 
 hair springing away from it. 
 
 " Oh Celia, you are an angel, but. . . . You 
 don't love your husband, and you do love me. 
 Celia. . . ." 
 
 He approached her and again caressed her. 
 
 " Celia, you'll make us all miserable for the 
 sake of prejudice, for silly forms which aren't 
 recognized now like they used to be. Marriage 
 wants reforming. You owe more to me than to 
 him. Dearest. . . ." 
 
 He felt that words were not trustworthy allies ;
 
 222 TEN HOURS 
 
 he felt, despite the affair with Eugenie, terribly 
 inexperienced. His cheeks burnt at the thought of 
 the crudities he might utter. He was on fire with 
 desire to corrupt her, but he shrank from the bald 
 coarse statement of his aims. He was, also, 
 anxious to be all that was chivalrous and respect- 
 ful, and it was not easy to harmonize the two 
 things. He was convinced of the deep roots of his 
 love, convinced that his ideal of married life was 
 to be fulfilled despite the miry paths he must tra- 
 verse before he secured it. He had found the one 
 woman, and he would be to her noble and pro- 
 tective and loving, but he would be so first as her 
 lover and then as her husband. If it crossed his 
 mind that the noblest proof of his love lay in 
 crucifying it, he speedily dismissed the thought. 
 He was bent not upon renunciation but posses- 
 sion. 
 
 Distrusting his tongue, then, he adopted those 
 easier and equally insidious weapons of caresses 
 and endearments; feeling, dimly, that he would 
 find an advocate in her own loving emotions, that 
 these would supply her with all the tempting soph- 
 istries of speech which he could not utter.
 
 LOVE 223 
 
 Occasionally he murmured fragmentary sen- 
 tences : 
 
 " It would be a crime to live with him, loving 
 me. . . . We can be married afterwards. . . . 
 Dear, think of it; right away from this smoky 
 hole . . . begin life. . . . Celia, I love you so 
 much. If you send me away, I shall go mad. . . . 
 There's only one right thing to do. It's making a 
 mockery of marriage to stop with him. You be- 
 long to me now." 
 
 Then he became silent, holding her closely. 
 
 She rested against him, unresponsive, and 
 unrepelling. 
 
 She heard his words, and heard, too, the more 
 eloquent language of his heart beating against her, 
 of his hands pressing her. Weariedly her brain 
 worked, delving amid a chaos of thoughts and 
 laying certain of them bare for her heavy 
 inspection. 
 
 She loved him most passionately, and that was 
 shame. He loved her and was urging her to go 
 with him, to secure a new life away from this acrid 
 and noisy place; a life full of romance and love 
 and happiness Yes, but wrong, utterly wrong, 
 and to be gained only by the loss of everything
 
 224 TEN HOURS 
 
 that was right. . . . He ought not to urge her. 
 
 That thought was stifled at once. 
 
 She lifted cloudy eyes to his. Her face was 
 haggard. She wondered simply why she could not 
 say to him all she felt; why she could not caress 
 him, and explain her desire to give him what he 
 wanted, and the instincts which deterred her, the 
 invisible and hated but clinging chains which 
 linked her to the house and all that it represented. 
 She was fettered by her temperament. Her habit- 
 ual impulse to conceal deep feeling was still strong 
 in her. She was sickened when she thought how 
 much she had already shown. She longed to 
 extricate herself from these surging emotions, and 
 be able to attack the position with the keen weapon 
 of ridicule, but simultaneously she longed for free 
 expression, for complete surrender. 
 
 Assailed by the two desires, she gazed at him 
 tragically, her mouth vivid and soft amid the pale 
 flatness of her face, her eyes brooding and singu- 
 larly old and wise as they pierced the future and 
 found only darkness there. 
 
 Leonard turned cold with fear as he looked 
 at her.
 
 LOVE 225 
 
 " Celia, for Heaven's sake you're not going to 
 ruin our lives for the sake of convention, for what 
 seems right in other people's eyes but isn't right 
 at all? You're not going to be hypocritical? It's 
 the right thing to leave him and come to me. 
 Love's the only thing that matters. . . . Celia, 
 don't look like that. We shall be so happy; we're 
 so young; do you think we can stand giving each 
 other up? Think of it: the country and the 
 whole place to ourselves. It's all so easy to get. 
 Come with me now this afternoon. I'm going 
 down there to-night. Don't make me the most 
 miserable fellow in the world; make me the 
 happiest." 
 
 She looked beyond him, beyond the light-bathed 
 suburb into a world evoked by his words, a world 
 soft and hushed and small, nested in woods near 
 the green goodness of meadows and the repose of 
 fields and lanes; warm, remote from bustle, 
 illumined by the steady flame of love. 
 
 She panted feverishly. The common swung up 
 before her mental gaze, menacing her with its 
 gorse clumps, and its rimming houses. She saw 
 the stark garden trees, the lawn striped with sun-
 
 226 TEN HOURS 
 
 beams, and father cutting away dead strands of 
 jenny creeper. . . . 
 
 She was cold, exhausted, trembling. 
 
 She moved out of his arms. " This is enough. 
 We've got to stop now. We've got to be firm 
 and sensible. I'm not going to say anything 
 more about it. I'm ashamed of myself. No 
 don't say anything, Leonard. It's all done 
 with. It's got to be. There's no other way 
 none. . . ." 
 
 " There is, there's only one way and it's not 
 yours, not staying, but coming." 
 
 " No, I couldn't do that, and neither could you. 
 You ought to be able to see that. We're not that 
 kind of people. We shouldn't be happy; if we 
 were for the time it wouldn't last, I know." 
 
 In this moment of illumination she repeated 
 more strongly, " I know it wouldn't last, and we 
 should both be done for. . . . You're to go now. 
 I won't have anything more said about it." 
 
 "I won't have it settled like this; it can't be 
 settled. Do you mean to tell me that when two 
 people love . . . ? " 
 
 " Leonard, you're not to say any more. I've
 
 LOVE 227 
 
 listened to you too long. I'm not going to be 
 weak any longer. ... If you really love me you 
 won't hurt me, you'll do what I ask you and go. 
 You'll see I'm right. It's the only way." 
 
 He looked at her steady body, her inflexible 
 mouth, her suffering eyes. 
 
 " Celia, don't, Celia, I can't stand it. I want 
 to do everything you want me to do, but I can't 
 this, not this, I'm sure you're wrong. . . . 
 
 " No, I'm right, and whether I'm right or 
 wrong, it's what I'm going to do. After all, we 
 know we love each other, that's something. . . . 
 That's everything. . . ." 
 
 " Not for me. I don't call it love when you 
 won't give up anything. Love's giving up every- 
 thing, caring for nothing." 
 
 " I'm asking you to give up, give up love itself; 
 that's just what we are doing. . . ." 
 
 " That's not what I mean." 
 
 u I can't help it, and I'm not going to say any- 
 thing more. You've been talking about ruining 
 your life, and this would do it." 
 
 " Yes, but I said if it was worth it I shouldn't 
 care a hang, and this is worth it. Do you think I
 
 228 TEN HOURS 
 
 should let any paltry conventions oh! It's un- 
 bearable. You're afraid of other people, you'll 
 sacrifice me and yourself for. . . ." 
 
 Her expression stemmed him. He became si- 
 lent, shifting his feet, darting impotent glances 
 round the room, and twitching his fingers. 
 
 Then new resolves formed in his mind. He 
 approached her, and spoke quietly. 
 
 " Very well then, I'll go. I want to be every- 
 thing that you wish me to be. I'm yours. I'll 
 give myself over to you to do what you like with. 
 If you say go, I'll go; even though I know you're 
 wrong. But I do ask one thing: I'm going up to 
 town now to make a few last arrangements, and 
 to-night I'm going down to Felgate. I shan't 
 come back. I've packed my things and I shall 
 send for them. You won't see me again unless 
 you want to. Celia, will you promise me if I go 
 now to think it over this afternoon, to remember 
 that it's a matter of our whole lives, to think 
 which is most important us or a few ceremonies. 
 Will you think it over and if you find I'm right 
 come up to town and meet me and go with me? 
 If you don't come I shall know you've turned me
 
 LOVE 229 
 
 down, and we shall never see each other again. 
 But if you do oh Celia, for heaven's sake look 
 honestly at the matter and don't be blinded! If 
 you do find I'm right I'll be at Waterloo at let's 
 see there's a train leaves here at 6.5 catch 
 that and come to me. Celia, promise me this, and 
 I'll go at once." 
 
 Her heart beat wildly as all the possibilities, 
 agonies, and dangers of those intervening hours 
 became apparent to her. 
 
 " Oh Leonard, if I think any more about it 
 I. ... We'd much better settle it now. I say no 
 now while I'm strong, but don't ask me to begin 
 it all over again. I can't. I want it closed." 
 
 Confidence warmed him, as he saw the ally 
 those hours, with their solitude and their silence, 
 would prove. 
 
 " Darling, you refuse me everything. I don't 
 know how you can be so cruel. Don't refuse me 
 this. You know you'll have to think about it. 
 You won't be able to help it, so I'm not really ask- 
 ing you to do anything for me, only to promise 
 me that you won't be blinded by social conven- 
 tions; that you'll be just. Celia, think it over and
 
 230 TEN HOURS 
 
 come to me if you can. Will you ? Say you will. 
 Because it's not a thing that can be settled at once; 
 it's so big; there's so much to consider. Remem- 
 ber what it means to us both. I'm going now, 
 and you won't see me again unless you want to." 
 
 He was touching her, bending his appealing and 
 harassed face to hers, drowning her in the ardor 
 of his expression. 
 
 " Very well, only go now, please go now. I'll 
 think it over, but I'm certain my answer will be 
 the same it must be the same." 
 
 He kissed her mouth, her cheeks, her throat. 
 Then he said: 
 
 " To-night soon after six, or not at all. Good- 
 by, Celia." 
 
 She felt the stuff of his coat and the warmth of 
 his lips; then she was in contact with nothing. 
 The floor shifted like dark water; in her ears was 
 a humming, dreadful and monotonous. She saw 
 him open the door, turn, and smile troublously at 
 her. Then she was staring at the four white 
 panels of the wood. 
 
 She sat down.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE LURE 
 
 THERE succeeded an age of blankness, of torpor 
 for mind and body. Occasionally a shudder 
 passed over her, but for the most part she sat 
 without movement, her brow on her hand, and her 
 eyes closed. Very far away, meaningless, and 
 unreal, sounded the noises of the external world. 
 Then, gradually and with pain, her body regained 
 its sensitiveness, her mind, grown perceptive once 
 more, flinched as thought struck it. 
 
 She began to live over again the scene with 
 Leonard. At first dully but soon with nervous 
 swiftness, her brain reconstructed its moments 
 from the time when he entered the room to the 
 time when he left it. How had it all happened? 
 How did it all appear now that it was composed 
 and in focus? 
 
 She recalled his features, movements, and 
 glances. She was again subjected to his caresses, 
 231
 
 232 TEN HOURS 
 
 but her retrospects did not inflame her. She 
 shifted her position, pressing her cold palms be- 
 tween her knees, opening her eyes and staring 
 vacantly before her, but as if through satiety of 
 sensation her body responded to her thoughts 
 only by painful starts which were not compli- 
 cated by underlying pleasure. At the time she 
 had found his kisses perfect, but now in memory 
 the sweetness had gone from them; as she felt 
 their ghostliness on her cheeks and lips she was 
 conscious only of a corroding shame. 
 
 Moving on through the scene she reached his 
 plans for their life at Felgate. Every one of his 
 descriptive sentences flamed across her vision, 
 and now she thrilled. Her pulses began to sing; 
 now longing broke over her and carried her out 
 beyond the room, the town, into the desired loveli- 
 ness of the woods. 
 
 Her unconscious self which had spoken in all 
 those nightly dreams with their recurrent scenery 
 of down and open spaces, found its possible grati- 
 fication in the life now offered her. Feverishly it 
 drove its messages through to her imagination 
 which, hearing and responding, built rapid pictures
 
 THE LURE 233 
 
 out of the few sentences with which Leonard had 
 described Felgate. 
 
 II 
 
 She saw the cottage, low, white-walled, with its 
 deep garden whispering round it and gloomed with 
 the night's black. She saw the broad rutted road, 
 its ridges crisp in frosty weather, and after rain 
 muddy above brown water. The road went down 
 past a copse, past a hedgerow, tangled and wet, 
 and past a grassy space rimmed with bushes and 
 hazels where field mice slipped stealthily amid the 
 roots; it forked off to left and right and went 
 straight on between meadows searching away into 
 the gray distances, until it caught the hovering 
 cloud of pinewoods, and was swept by the breath 
 of their hanging and fallen cones, their murmuring 
 needles, their beds of broken boughs. 
 
 A voice in her said over and over again, " You'll 
 have all this you'll have all this." 
 
 Swiftly in fancy she retraced her steps along 
 the road, seeing its surface flowing on either side 
 of her smoothly as a stream; receiving the wind 
 as it plunged down from the hill and rolled on
 
 234 TEN HOURS 
 
 across bowing grasses and communing trees. She 
 reached the cottage. 
 
 Her mind halted, selecting the most magical 
 of hours and seasons. Dusk Spring It whirled 
 again, its energies heating her cheeks and catching 
 her breath. 
 
 She and Leonard would go up past the cottage 
 into the wood when all the fields were gray except 
 those stretching under the pink and coppery flats 
 of the west. They would see the dark road wind- 
 ing up beside banks heaped with leaves and 
 branches and trails of unbudded weeds; they 
 would see the deep hollows filled wit*h dusk, and 
 the stems speeding up through the unbroken bush, 
 through an atmosphere hazed over into smoky 
 blueness by innumerable boles and crests. Rotting 
 pads of growth would breathe out towards them; 
 slight noises would rise and cease: sinuous shak- 
 ings and cracklings by which one could trace the 
 retreat of stealthy creatures. Through gaps they 
 would see the light flickering out and the west 
 smoldering into gray. Leonard's arm would be 
 round her. For miles and miles there would be 
 neither sound nor movement. She would walk
 
 THE LURE 235 
 
 with him, suiting her step to his, watching the 
 distant trees fade into vapors, the darkness brush- 
 ing the empty ways beyond, the west cooling, and 
 one star blazing over the huddled woodlands in 
 the east. 
 
 She lifted her head and stared unseeingly round 
 the room. 
 
 " You can have all this. It will be like this." 
 
 Ill 
 
 She pressed her cheeks against her palms and 
 thought once more. 
 
 There would be the warmth and comfort of the 
 cottage. No tall blank moody house like this, but 
 a squat and friendly place, visited by fugitive 
 scents, sudden hurries of wind, sudden trepidations 
 of bough. From its window would be visible the 
 frosts of winter crusting grass and twig and cut- 
 ting distances out against a leaden sky; fogs belt- 
 ing the fields; rains lisping into the lush grasses 
 and the bushes, blowing and rippling over flat- 
 nesses, splashing down slopes into pools and chan- 
 nels. There would be the blackthorn now flower- 
 ing in this premature spring, gorse carrying its
 
 236 TEN HOURS 
 
 little flames, sap steaming, leaves unfolding, every- 
 where the rush of quickening life. There would 
 be the blue dusks, and the stars swinging down, 
 and distantly beyond the untilled land, beyond the 
 glimmering skeins of roads, the lights of the town, 
 large and yellow beneath those other lights stand- 
 ing as fires, as jets all across the sky. And most 
 of all no sound; no movement except the slow 
 rocking of the pines. 
 
 A train whistle hurt her nerves. She looked 
 through the window at the stiff gorse crawling 
 over the stones, at the staring walls, the aching 
 vacancy of windows, the unending lines of wire 
 and pole and railing. 
 
 She shivered. Her mind chattered. 
 
 " You can get away from all this ; get away to 
 the country. You're ill, tired; you want rest. 
 You can have it. He loves you. He'll look 
 after you. Think of the spring coming, and the 
 summer." 
 
 IV 
 
 There would be primroses pushing up through 
 the mold, and lighting low fires amid the browns 
 of the trees; there would be bluebells. . . .
 
 THE LURE 237 
 
 She could go down the road and give to the eye 
 reasts of plowed land where the great lumps of 
 earth were rough and dark and good, where the 
 jingling of harness came on the wind, where birds 
 dipped and mounted steeply. She would see thin 
 blue plumes of smoke rising up the skyline from 
 suggested villages, levels of light along the van- 
 ishing rims of fields, the pines notched blackly 
 under ridged cloud, the road racing on, bending 
 into valleys, striving up hills, falling again to the 
 hamlets. She could have all this so easily; one 
 step gained it. O God ! what was she to do ? 
 
 V 
 
 She did not perceive how it was the back- 
 ground, and not the figure, which dragged at her 
 heart. She was blind to the nature of her love. 
 This had no root in the most real and unshakable 
 parts of her character. It was a passion born of 
 disillusion, discontents, and bodily fatigue. Slight 
 but stinging things had called it into being; slight 
 things, despite its seeming strength, would be suffi- 
 cient to destroy it. Pain at Robert's supposed 
 solidity, dislike of the suburb, the ceaseless de-
 
 2 3 8 TEN HOURS 
 
 mands of that underlying love of Barnham work- 
 ing in her and producing nostalgia, nerves frayed 
 by toothache, the seduction of Leonard's admir- 
 ing deference contrasted with Robert's matter-of- 
 fact calm, Leonard's physical attractions all 
 these had shaped a passion, huge, possessive and 
 overwhelming, but nevertheless, without real 
 body. She imagined herself to be torn by a last- 
 ing love, but actually she was merely expanded 
 by a balloon-like mass of feelings which, once 
 pricked, would dissipate harmlessly, leaving her 
 foundations unbroken. 
 
 But she did not know this, and her torment, 
 her conflict, were intense ; for the time her tempta- 
 tion racked her. 
 
 VI 
 
 If she liked she could leave home to-night. She 
 had only to go to the station, and the train would 
 take her to London, to Leonard. 
 
 What had he said? What was it he offered? 
 If she went what would follow? 
 
 They would leave London behind the dark- 
 ness, the smoke, the sonorous throb of its spaces,
 
 THE LURE 239 
 
 and pass into the repose and perfume of the coun- 
 tryside. She would be wrapped in love, bowed to, 
 protected, ardently considered. They would be 
 well off a little house a few rooms a maid 
 no dusty streets with their traffic, and their files 
 of haggard and malodorous people; no coarse 
 smell of meat and fish; no tearing noises, no hard 
 pavements, nor strangling unescapable network 
 of houses. There would be the river brimming 
 up to its banks, the cows stationary in the boun- 
 dary fields, church spires and roofs, and strag- 
 gling farms with their quiet sounds and the com- 
 ing and going of carts. 
 
 VII 
 
 Again she lifted her head and looked round the 
 room. Her feverish excitement drove her into 
 movement. She got up and began to walk back- 
 wards and forwards, thoughts cutting like swords 
 through her sick brain. 
 
 "What madness you're thinking of! ... It 
 hasn't happened; it's a dream. . . . What have 
 you done? What are you doing? For heaven's 
 sake, get back to your old self. . . . Oh, I can't
 
 240 TEN HOURS 
 
 stand it! Oh God, why do you let these things 
 happen? ... I love him. . . . Do I? How 
 can I? I'm married. How did I ever get like 
 this? Why didn't I see it coming and stop it? 
 That's why I felt so rotten. I loved him and 
 didn't know it." 
 
 She paused, visualizing his room and her agi- 
 tation in it. All recent tremors and excitements 
 were remembered, were explained. 
 
 She clenched her hands. 
 
 " What a fool I am ! I must stop this. He 
 ought not to have told me. He was cruel. . . . 
 No, he loved me. He had to tell me. Why 
 should I expect him to be strong when I'm not? 
 . . . What are we to do? I can't go. It's im- 
 possible. I'm not made for it. . . . How do I 
 know whether I'm made for it, or not? I've 
 never felt before. I've vegetated. I'm young. 
 It's my whole life. What am I *o do? I've got 
 to make up my mind before six. I shall never 
 see him again. It will all end at six. I shall 
 stop here for always; things will go on the same 
 oh, what am I to do ? If I go ... I can't go. 
 If I go what shall I have? . . . Everything I
 
 THE LURE 241 
 
 want everything I want. . . . O what a fool I 
 am! How did I ever come to get like this? If 
 only it hadn't happened! If only I could wake 
 up!" 
 
 She sat down again by the window, and relapsed 
 into heavy lethargy. 
 
 Another age of dark and featureless languor 
 passed over her. She seemed to be drifting on a 
 river sluggish and black, drifting through long 
 nights of emptiness and dread. Then the sur- 
 face was ruffled; things pushed up; scenes formed, 
 and were studied, and understood. 
 
 The house was beginning to move. Silencing 
 the countryside, it stretched its pervasive influ- 
 ence over her; it compelled her attention; inexora- 
 bly it controlled her. 
 
 VIII 
 
 She did not think; she saw. 
 
 Picture after picture sped before her. Felgate 
 was beaten back into fantastic unreality. She was 
 in the house, looking on its every "orner "and in- 
 cident. 
 
 She saw all the day's routine the cooking, the
 
 242 TEN HOURS 
 
 dusting, the shopping. The staircase was round 
 her, with its glazed paper, the white beams slant- 
 ing through the frosted landing window, and the 
 glint of the stair-rods. She saw the grandfather's 
 clock in the hall, and heard its ticking. She saw 
 her bedroom, and Robert putting on his collar; 
 she felt the pillow bulging about her face as she 
 watched him sleepily. 
 
 She revisualized the engagement the walks 
 down the Brighton road to the railway, his fond- 
 ness, and her contentment She heard the thun- 
 der in the beech tops and saw the wagons rum- 
 bling slowly down from the harvest fields, the 
 sheaves standing in rows, and birds hopping amid 
 the stubble. He had held her and kissed her. 
 His face was clear in her memory, and she looked 
 at it, but whether with horror or pity or affection 
 she did not know. 
 
 She remembered an evening when they had 
 walked through a copse and come out into fields 
 where the haymaking was started. The sun had 
 gone from the sky, but hot crimsons fired the trees 
 and burnt upon the fields. They had walked for 
 a long time, smelling the prone grass, seeing the
 
 THE LURE 243 
 
 stars shoot through, and the moon rise above 
 screens of mist. Robert had been passionate 
 then, pressing her against his side, saying little, 
 but staring at her with sober and devoted eyes. 
 
 She saw her wedding night. 
 
 Unbearable heat rushed over her. She was 
 bound to him, body and soul. She was a wife. 
 She knew what Leonard wanted. If she went, 
 she went knowing the sequel. 
 
 Her dull eyes lifted and gazed at the walls, the 
 books, the typewriter. 
 
 Robert was by her; he was holding her, and 
 detaining her. She remembered his shirt that 
 wanted a button sewn on it, and his socks that 
 wanted darning. She felt him sleeping beside her. 
 She felt his tranquil kiss, sustained his gaze, saw 
 his overcoat and hat on the hall stand. She saw 
 him riding through the country, riding home to 
 her. She saw six o'clock come and go; herself 
 still here; to-night with its sleeplessness, its ago- 
 nizing regrets, his regular breathing, the vision 
 of Leonard's pale reproachful jealous face.
 
 244 TEN HOURS, 
 
 IX 
 
 < 
 
 She sprang up,' and going to the fire, put on 
 coal, poked it, and set the shovel and poker down 
 with a clatter. . . . 
 
 She could not go. She could not stay. She 
 could not face Robert. She dared not leave him. 
 If only she could wake! If only it had never 
 happened ! 
 
 She pressed distracted hands to her temples. 
 Whimperings broke from her. She saw the great 
 red sun staring in at the window; she heard the 
 life of the allotments. Now the hand of the 
 house was on her heart suffocating it. Its silence 
 trammeled her. The old Celia and the new 
 rocked together in a death struggle. The country 
 met the house and the two flashed about her, striv- 
 ing to possess her. She saw Leonard and Rob- 
 ert with equal clearness and feared them both. 
 She was pulled both ways and in turn she hated 
 each alternative. At one moment she strove vio- 
 lently towards the happiness promised by Leon- 
 ard; at the next she shrank from it as from an
 
 THE LURE 245 
 
 unspeakable mire. At one moment the house was 
 a prison; at the next a refuge. 
 
 " I want to go. I want to go. I want to be 
 happy to be loved. ... I shouldn't be happy 
 I could never be happy having acted so. ... I 
 shall never be able to settle down here. I shall 
 hate it after all this knowing he is miserable 
 wanting me thinking me cowardly. Am I a 
 coward? Which is right? Can there be any 
 doubt? Do I owe more to him than to Robert? 
 Am I thinking of forms instead of the real thing? 
 Is it worse to stay than to go hypocritical cruel 
 to Robert? Am I prejudiced? Is nature right 
 or social law? Which shall I break, a moral or 
 a social law? Which is right? Apart from my 
 own happiness which is right?" 
 
 At the top of the house there was the sound 
 of a door opening and closing; footsteps were on 
 the staircase. 
 
 Steeled and cold, Celia turned round. 
 
 The door opened and Gwennie came in.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 EFFECTS 
 
 SHE closed the door with her usual deliberation 
 and stepped away from it, moving her legs slowly, 
 and placing her feet gently. All over her face 
 was a soft scarlet flush; her lips were moist, her 
 nose slightly shiny, her eyes almost shut but bright 
 and intelligent. Her hair was disordered, and 
 her jumper rucked up. She brought into the room 
 an atmosphere, hot, colorful, and despite her slow- 
 ness, singularly vital. She looked very strong and 
 very baffling, a child, a girl, a woman. 
 
 Celia gazed at her. 
 
 With that boundless capacity for bearing an 
 unsympathetic scrutiny without speech or self- 
 consciousness she drew nearer, smiling. 
 
 To Celia her appearance was like a douche of 
 cold water. It was the victory of the house. It 
 meant the temporary banishment of all problems, 
 246
 
 EFFECTS 247 
 
 the complete readjustment of the room about her. 
 She felt as if she had been thrown from a height 
 of tragedy down to commonplace and calming 
 levels. As she stood watching Gwennie, the wild- 
 ness faded from her face. She was very tired, 
 very shaken, and very numb, but she had recovered 
 equilibrium. Much as she dreaded inspection, it 
 was almost with relief that she knew herself to 
 be back amid everyday things, with hysterics kept 
 at bay by the urgent need of dissimulation. 
 
 She sat down in the armchair. " Well, Gwen ? " 
 she said. " What have you been doing? " 
 
 " Nothing much." Gwennie too sat down, and 
 tucking her hands under her armpits gave herself 
 a little sudden squeeze. Her color grew deeper, 
 and she sat more uprightly than usual. 
 
 Celia stared at the fire. " Aren't you going 
 out? It's getting late; it'll soon be tea-time." 
 
 Involuntarily her eyes rose to the clock four 
 at six. . . . 
 
 " Mmm. I don't want to go out though." 
 
 There was a short pause. Gwennie watched 
 Celia with eyes which were burning with life. 
 
 Then with a little breathless rush she said:
 
 248 TEN HOURS 
 
 " Auntie think I ought to tell you 1 heard Mr. 
 
 Hyde and you heard what he said that he loves 
 
 you." 
 
 She broke into an excited giggle. 
 
 Celia jerked round. The shock went through 
 her with a jarring force. She looked sightlessly 
 at Gwennie. 
 
 The latter was thrilling with zestfulness. " I 
 came downstairs thought I'd sit in here and I 
 heard him talking. The door was open and I 
 couldn't help hearing." 
 
 Her mouth closed firmly. She did not add 
 that, startled, fascinated, and enthralled into for- 
 getfulness of all honorable retreat, she had 
 crouched against the wall, drinking in Leonard's 
 words, blissfully picturing his amatory stress, and 
 feeling herself to be against the pulsing heart of 
 a real love-affair. 
 
 " You heard," Celia spoke in a dry harsh voice. 
 " You listened. Gwennie! " 
 
 The rebuke, the supreme pain of that cry, 
 pierced Gwennie's innocent enjoyment of the sit- 
 uation and impressed her heart. She was star- 
 tled out of her callousness. Celia's suffering and
 
 EFFECTS 249 
 
 her own reprehensible conduct were*both apparent 
 to her. 
 
 " Awfully sorry, auntie, but I couldn't help hear- 
 ing and it doesn't matter, as it's only me. I 
 shan't say anything." 
 
 Anger forced Celia into composure. Gwennie 
 to know ! Gwennie, silly shallow little schoolgirl, 
 to treat the matter as a confidence safely reposed 
 in her and which should not be passed on to the 
 girls in the office! Gwennie reveling in confed- 
 eracy, seizing on the situation as on a blessed 
 break in the day's monotony ! 
 
 She was thoroughly in command of herself now. 
 " I'm ashamed of you, Gwennie. You're a very 
 naughty girl." 
 
 Gwennie's expression stopped her by its merci- 
 less illumination of the absurdity of her words. 
 Unabashed and easy, Gwennie looked at her, her 
 mouth smiling, her eyes knowing. The droop of 
 her lids, the faint lift of her brows, the indolent 
 swing of one foot, all pointed out the precarious^ 
 ness of Celia's position, and her dependence on 
 Gwennie's honor, her unfitness for the part of 
 mentor.
 
 250 TEN HOURS 
 
 Celia went cold. All the subtleties of Gwen- 
 nie's character were revealed; all her selfishness, 
 womanliness, girlish perversities, ruthless inspec- 
 tions, and narrow judgments. She saw them all 
 and knew herself to be in their power. She was 
 aware at last of Gwennie's personality, was pit- 
 ted against it when she was least capable of se- 
 lecting weapons and raising defenses. 
 
 Color flooded her face, and ebbed away. She 
 sat with her shoulders bowed, her mouth help- 
 lessly pouted, and her eyes, younger than Gwen- 
 nie's own, fixed on the girl. Crushed by this last 
 shock, she could, for the moment, neither speak 
 nor move. 
 
 Gwennie enjoyed her triumph. She was im- 
 mersed in the situation. Every moment she 
 learnt more of it, and saw fresh aspects, and 
 tingled as her own relation to them became clear. 
 Auntie was in love frightfully in love, and not 
 with her husband. Mr. Hyde was frightfully in 
 love with auntie. He wanted her to run away 
 with him at six o'clock. 
 
 Gwennie's gaze sought the clock.
 
 EFFECTS 251 
 
 " Past four," she said allusively. 
 
 Celia started. The tension at her heart in- 
 creased. She was still unable to deal with 
 Gwennie. 
 
 Gwennie continued, her thoughts too fascinat- 
 ing to be hidden. 
 
 " He said six, auntie are you going?" 
 
 Celia's brain whirled. She could have groveled 
 for shame; she could have beaten herself because 
 by her own actions she had subjected herself to 
 this unpardonable inquisition, from Gwennie, a 
 child, her niece. 
 
 Her brain cleared. At last in the emergency 
 of the moment, her supports rallied round her; 
 pride, clear-sightedness, composure. 
 
 She spoke slowly, looking at Gwennie with 
 hard expressionless eyes. " You forget yourself, 
 Gwennie." 
 
 Once more she was stabbed by Gwennie' s as- 
 pect. The flickering eyelid, the inscrutable smile, 
 the growing laxity of her position in the chair, 
 they were not childish, they were womanly. Their 
 impertinence did not lessen their force. When
 
 252 TEN HOURS 
 
 Gwennie spoke, her girlish phraseology was in be- 
 wildering contrast to them, but they, not it, seemed 
 the true manifestation of her character. 
 
 u I don't mean to be oh, you know don't 
 mean to hurt you. But it's so frightfully in- 
 t' resting. He's awfully nice, isn't he? " 
 
 Temper spurted in Celia. She could have taken 
 Gwennie by her plump shoulders and shaken 
 her. 
 
 " I don't wish to discuss it with you," she ex- 
 claimed sharply. " It was shameful of you to 
 listen, and you forget your age and mine when you 
 question me. As you have heard I can't pre- 
 tend to you that nothing's happened, but nothing 
 more's to be said about it." 
 
 Her shame tortured her, but she kept her eyes 
 on Gwennie, her face remained set and deter- 
 mined. "Has father come in yet?" she con- 
 tinued. 
 
 Gwennie slid into a still more sprawling posi- 
 tion. " Ner," she muttered. Her eyes filmed 
 over; she smiled at the fire. 
 
 Celia ignored her rudeness. " It's time he did. 
 It's getting cold and damp."
 
 EFFECTS 253 
 
 She walked to the window. 
 
 Gwennie sent a dark look after her. She was 
 angry, and when she was angry her intuitions 
 were sharpened, and she knew where to plant her 
 stings. Auntie to talk like this ! Gwennie's age 
 indeed! Gwennie was no child. She understood 
 the significance of the scene with Leonard, and 
 since she had been in the room she had discov- 
 ered auntie's suffering. When she came in she 
 had been on fire with curiosity she had been sym- 
 pathetic too. Had she not her boy? Did she 
 not know the intoxicating appeal of these rela- 
 tions? But now auntie auntie, who let a man 
 make love to her to take this tone! Why, if 
 she, Gwennie liked, she could tell uncle, and then 
 there'd be a scene ! She would show auntie that 
 she was neither young nor harmless. She wanted 
 to be an ally, but she could be an enemy. Auntie 
 should be made to tell her what turn events were 
 going to take I 
 
 Shaken out of her habitual caution and reserve 
 by the power of the scene, she spoke drawlingly 
 but distinctly. "You needn't fly out, auntie. I 
 didn't mean anything. Of course I want to know
 
 254 TEN HOURS 
 
 if you're going. It's such a difficult question, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 Celia looked at the garden full of soft rosy 
 light but no longer sunny, and at father tipping the 
 leaves into the dustbin; then she turned round 
 and laughed harshly. 
 
 "You are ridiculous, Gwennie! If you knew 
 how absurd you are making yourself, besides be- 
 ing impertinent ! When I asked you to remember 
 that it is not your place to question me, I meant 
 what I said. I think you don't understand that. 
 . . . Why don't you get your jumper down, and 
 do some before tea? There's time for a row if 
 you start at once." 
 
 Gwennie looked at her from under swollen lids. 
 Her mouth grew obstinate; she had become wil- 
 ful, lowering, and secretive. She did not answer, 
 but resting her cheek on her hand, gazed at the 
 fire. Her silence, her pose, were insulting. 
 
 Celia turned back to the window. She opened 
 it and put out her head. 
 
 " Coming in, father?" 
 
 His long mournful face was uplifted. " Eh? " 
 
 " Are you coming in? "
 
 EFFECTS 255 
 
 " Not just yet. I've a little more tidying." 
 
 " Mind you don't get cold." 
 
 " It's quite safe. I should like to finish this." 
 
 " All right." 
 
 She closed the window, so great a loneliness 
 and misery surging over her that tears stung her 
 throat. She would not look at Gwennie but she 
 was conscious of every curve of the opulent fig- 
 ure, of the exposed outstretched legs, the warm 
 face, and the black untidy hair. The room, the 
 house, were leaden weights which crushed her into 
 torpor. 
 
 Gwennie, after laborious thought, spoke with- 
 out temper. 
 
 " I don't see why you should mind my know- 
 ing. As I heard, it can't be helped, and I'm not 
 so young as you think. And I shan't tell any- 
 body." 
 
 She heard but disregarded Celia's quiet 
 " Gwennie." 
 
 " I know a lot more than you think," she went 
 on, " and sometimes it's better if you talk it over 
 with some one seems to clear it up. . . ." 
 
 " Gwennie," Celia said again.
 
 256 TEN HOURS 
 
 Impressed momentarily, Gwennie looked at 
 her. 
 
 "Will you go down and put the kettle on?" 
 Celia continued. " The gas not too much up." 
 
 " In a minute," Gwennie replied. 
 
 Celia's lips tightened. While she considered 
 the wisdom of a more pointed rebuke, Gwennie 
 reviewed the advantages of the situation. 
 
 Her distrust was dwindling rapidly now that 
 she saw auntie in a new light, no longer matronly, 
 sedate, without understanding of the joys which 
 swayed Gwennie, and possessed of legitimate au- 
 thority to thwart these, but possessed of the same 
 impulses; filled with the same conception of love 
 as the essential good; in Gwennie's power, too, 
 since her secret was known. She stood now on 
 the same level as Gwennie. She was no longer 
 to be suspected or deceived. Those confidences 
 which Gwennie poured fluently into the ears of the 
 girls at the office would be understood here ; they 
 could be made safely since Gwennie was, in her 
 own phraseology, " top dog." 
 
 This reasoning led her into rapid earnest 
 speech.
 
 EFFECTS 257 
 
 " Fancy him falling in love with you fright- 
 fully exciting! Did you guess, or did it come as 
 a surprise? I thought you'd seemed quiet lately 
 but I knew it might be the tooth. Of course 
 if you go, uncle will divorce you, I s'pose? It's 
 very hard, isn't it to know what to do, I mean. 
 You must be worried. . . . Auntie which will 
 you do? You've got to make up your mind so 
 quickly." 
 
 She glanced at the clock, and then eagerly, sym- 
 pathetically, even affectionately, at Celia. 
 
 Celia did not stop her now. A change had 
 taken place in her mind. Lacerating as this un- 
 pardonable commentary was, she did not now de- 
 sire to silence it. She saw that it disclosed Gwen- 
 nie's character. She felt as if she were standing 
 on the edge of a pit hitherto veiled, but now 
 stripped and exposed by every sentence. She felt 
 that she must know what lay at the bottom; how 
 deep, how shallow, how light, how dark, Gwen- 
 nie's innermost being might be. She had a dread- 
 ful choking fear of finding horrors in the sedi- 
 ment at the bottom. 
 
 Sitting immobile, her back to the window, her
 
 258 TEN HOURS 
 
 face in shadow, she listened, watching Gwennie. 
 
 The latter, encouraged by silence and thrilled 
 by a feeling of competence, flowed on in her thin 
 effortless little voice. 
 
 " I can understand something of what you feel. 
 I've got my own friends, you know. I've never 
 said anything because I didn't think you'd under- 
 stand, but it's different now. . . . His name's 
 Harry. I've known him for a month. That's 
 his photo on my dressing-table. 'Spect you've 
 seen it. He's awfully nice." 
 
 She paused. Caution stirred in her, driving 
 her to measure Celia again with eyes which had 
 lost their girlish candor and grown lusterless, but 
 she read neither warning nor menace in Celia's 
 shadowed face and drooping body. The charm 
 of her confidences lulled her. She was enjoying 
 herself too much to mask herself again. Her 
 vanity was gratified by this display of her own 
 powers of attracting admirers. Auntie was not 
 the only one who was loved ! 
 
 She resumed. " He's awf'ly smitten. He's 
 quite a bother sometimes wanting me to go out 
 with him. I have been once or twice in the
 
 EFFECTS 259 
 
 evenings. Doris came too, but . . . sometimes 
 we've lost her." 
 
 She laughed, shaking her shoulders. " He 
 doesn't want Doris. He's awf 'ly generous treats 
 me well buys me chocolates and takes me to the 
 pictures. . . . It's lovely. ... I can't under- 
 stand how a girl can want only girl friends, can 
 you?" 
 
 The naivete of this demand drew a faint smile 
 to Celia's lips, yet she did not feel mirthful. She 
 was fascinated. Advancing on her was a black 
 sea of unhappiness, but she had power to prevent 
 it engulfing her too prematurely. She must hear 
 Gwennie out first. 
 
 Again the latter resumed. " He's awf'ly fond 
 of me. I daresay we shall be engaged some day 
 if I don't see some one I like better first. He 
 wants me to go out with him to-night. I wouldn't 
 promise, but I expect I shall." 
 
 She was silenced by the prospect evoked by her 
 words the twilight, the streets, Harry. Her 
 imagination, fired by Leonard's ardent avowals, 
 progressed farther than usual. " Once . . ." 
 Her eyes came from the fire to Celia; suspicion
 
 26o TEN HOURS 
 
 peeped out of them, and died. She looked self- 
 conscious, shy, and elated. " Once he tried to 
 kiss me. I didn't let him. I like to tease him. 
 . . . 'Spect he'll try again . . . soon." 
 
 After a silence which was only of moments, 
 though it seemed timeless, Celia said, " I see." 
 
 Above her sunken cheeks her eyes were round 
 and staring. . 
 
 Gwennie waited, expecting reciprocity of con- 
 fidence. When Celia still remained mute she got 
 up. " 'Spect I'd better put the kettle on." 
 
 She stretched herself, hollowing her back and 
 advancing her bosom. Her languorous eyes 
 smiled at Celia ; the tips of her moist teeth showed 
 between her lips. " Should think it must be nice 
 to be kissed. I know how to make him do it," 
 she said with a silly excited laugh. 
 
 After that speech she could no longer remain 
 in the room. She slid sinuously round the door. 
 The enormity of her statement made her gasp. 
 She forgot the kettle ; she forgot auntie's alterna- 
 tives. Laughing she sped upstairs to her room.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 FORESIGHT 
 
 CELIA sat quite still. She looked at the fire ; she 
 heard the dustbin lid being moved; she heard 
 Gwennie's door shut; and then silence a silence 
 which was not a negation of sound but a real and 
 sentient thing gripped the house and sucked away 
 everything preventive of thought. She sat with 
 her hands folded in her lap, her heart-beat scarcely 
 quickened, but with thoughts and pictures flashing 
 through her head so quickly and yet in such com- 
 pleteness that she felt herself to be moving rac- 
 ing from one point to another, and always pro- 
 gressing. 
 
 Gwennie; Gwennie, revealed and known; 
 Gwennie now and in the future. For the first 
 time Celia realized the greatness of her responsi- 
 bility, and she was shaken, she was almost broken, 
 by it. In her hands lay Gwennie's perverse, diffi- 
 cult, and complex nature. Gwennie's maturity 
 would be the resultant of Celia's training. 
 261
 
 262 TEN HOURS 
 
 Supposing she, Celia, went to Leonard, what 
 would happen? Gwennie, free, and unchecked by 
 discipline, would become what would she be- 
 come? Gwennie Ally's daughter. 
 
 II 
 
 All the romance, growing rankly in the girl's 
 heart, was plain to Celia. All those sensuous 
 impulses, harmless enough now perhaps, but tend- 
 ing to grow destructive; all the vanity, wilfulness, 
 and secretiveness, the egotism and selfishness, were 
 scored in flaming boldness before her. Gwennie 
 needed more than she had ever yet suspected a 
 strong, wise, and controlling hand. She was not 
 straight. Confessedly she had deceived Celia; 
 she had lived a silly sentimental life. While ap- 
 pearing unthinking and inert, she was managing 
 an innocent but malforming flirtation; one which 
 would make her thirsty for further ventures, for 
 further conquests. She was lowering herself and 
 her sexual knowledge was increasing. " Should 
 think it must be nice to be kissed." " I know how 
 to make him do it." 
 
 Celia shivered. Why had she not watched
 
 FORESIGHT 263 
 
 Gwennie more closely, suspected the trend of 
 thought and desire, carefully, delicately, set her- 
 self to gain the girl's confidence and respect and 
 obedience ? 
 
 Why? Because she was young herself 
 younger far than Gwennie in some ways unsus- 
 pecting no, she had suspected but she had been 
 baffled. Baffled by a girl of sixteen? She had 
 failed Ally, but it was not too late; there was yet 
 time to train the child. 
 
 Yes, if she stayed, but if she went. . . . Oh, 
 Leonard, if only you hadn't told me! If only I 
 could undo it all ! If only I didn't love you ! 
 
 If she went, what would Gwennie become? 
 
 Ill 
 
 She saw again the luxurious expansion of 
 Gwennie's full body as she stood up the rich 
 curves of cheek and chin and the womanliness 
 of all her contours. She saw the significant 
 roguish glance of the eyes looking sideways from 
 under the thick lids. Gwennie would not long 
 remain young. If she were left unguarded and 
 free to enjoy those evening walks with boys, she
 
 264 TEN HOURS 
 
 would soon grow skilled in the art of rousing 
 adolescent passion. The giggling, the inept jokes, 
 the shy silences, the awkward knocking of hand 
 against hand would not last, they would not long 
 satisfy her. Already she glimpsed the delights 
 of a kiss, and knew crudely the way to obtain 
 them. Soon her glance would be expert, and her 
 bearing full of subtle incitement. The innocuous 
 dallyings would be succeeded by coarser familiari- 
 ties; her waist, her hands, her lips would be cheap- 
 ened by repeated attacks, and the pastime would 
 fire her blood, and intoxicate her so that her head 
 would whirl with gratified vanity. She would be- 
 come a familiar figure among the callow lovers on 
 the common, the matrons would condemn her as 
 a little minx; from no one would she win respect. 
 There were hundreds of girls like her no doubt, 
 but she was Gwennie, Ally's daughter, Celia's 
 charge. 
 
 Never before had Celia trodden this path of 
 thought with such sureness, nor probed the psy- 
 chology of a flirt with such understanding. Con- 
 tempt, pity, and dismay filled her successively. Or
 
 FORESIGHT 265 
 
 there was another and even more perilous phase 
 possible for Gwennie. Suppose she became not 
 a systematic flirt but a sincere seeker after iove. 
 Her obsession might take that form. Excited by 
 Celia's choice of all things flung aside for love, 
 she might find in the incident a noble and roman- 
 tic example. Placing love as the preeminent thing 
 before which nothing could nor should stand, she 
 might fall in love with love ; she might be whirled 
 into headlong unconsidered action; caught in some 
 vortex of passion when complete surrender would 
 seem right, fine, and flaming; the glory of life; 
 all lost for love. Undirected, untaught, and ig- 
 norant, Gwennie might well see Celia fallen as 
 Celia exalted; blinded by romance she might fol- 
 low the same path. 
 
 Icy coldness, burning heat, subdued Celia's body. 
 She moistened her dry lips. 
 
 Stunned by the speed of her insights, she looked 
 unthinkingly about her and heard the sound of a 
 rake on the garden path : father was finishing the 
 rockery. 
 
 Her thoughts veered from Gwennie to him.
 
 266 TEN HOURS 
 
 She had seen the probable effect of her fligh 4 : on 
 Gwennie; and now she passed to a consideration 
 of its influence over him. 
 
 She grew tender as her mind rayed into the fu- 
 ture father's future. 
 
 If Gwennie needed control, what of him? He 
 had been watched ever since she could remem- 
 ber. Mother, Ally, the boys, she herself, had all 
 accepted him as a responsibility. He was happy 
 now, occupied, temperate, in every way satisfac- 
 tory. But father broken by trouble, seared with 
 shame, and stupefied by the loss of Celia and the 
 circumstances of that loss what then? 
 
 She could hardly breathe. Go, leave father, 
 leave Gwennie, how could she contemplate such 
 action ? 
 
 " He'd be done at once," she murmured aloud. 
 " He'd crumple up." 
 
 Guardianship removed, freedom thrust on 
 him, before him long dark days populous with 
 broodings and agonies and weak accusations, in 
 these circumstances that old temptation could not 
 remain dormant. It would, with its promise of 
 forgetfulness, renew its power over him. Celia
 
 FORESIGHT 267 
 
 had degraded him; further degradation through 
 his own acts must inevitably follow. Celia had 
 broken his pride; what matter then if he tramped 
 further into the mire? His name was already 
 stained. To calm herself she smoothed her hair, 
 shook the curtain into a straighter fold, and 
 breathed deeply. Thought was half dementing 
 her. 
 
 Of course she could not go. The affair must 
 no longer be allowed to torture her thus. Leon- 
 ard would have to resign himself to defeat; she 
 would have to forget him. For a few hours mad- 
 ness had possessed her. Another Celia altogether 
 had lived and acted in this room, but now that 
 was passed. She derided her weakness; she chas- 
 tised herself for her wickedness. 
 
 " Nearly tea-time," she said aloud in a strange 
 metallic voice, and straightened her shoulders, and 
 shook her head. 
 
 Then a mist darkened across her eyes, and her 
 heart strove against sobs. Great crushing unhap- 
 piness was on her like a storm.
 
 268 TEN HOURS 
 
 IV 
 
 Again Leonard was by her side, kissing her. 
 She loved him. 
 
 The impossibility-of yielding to him made sur- 
 render all the more desired. Now that happiness 
 seemed to be speeding beyond her reach, she 
 painted it in more glowing colors. It gained 
 beauty and splendor through its recession. 
 
 Young and beautiful, Leonard stood calling her 
 to ecstasy, to gracious surroundings, to perpetual 
 deification. He loved her and he would give up 
 anything for her ; she would give up nothing. She 
 placed Gwennie and father first; she considered 
 their future but not his. Did she owe nothing 
 to him ? Was she always to sacrifice herself and 
 sacrifice him too? Forms, laws, feverish and 
 probably baseless imaginings must they keep her 
 from love and happiness? Was she to deny her- 
 self everything because of the utterance of her 
 too morbid conscience? Right or wrong what 
 did it matter? Were other people so good, so 
 austere? 
 
 After all this flame, and this glory which one
 
 FORESIGHT 269 
 
 step would secure her, she must settle down to 
 the gray monotony of the house and the suburb ! 
 She would not be able to endure it. The house 
 would suffocate her; the little snarling common, 
 the harsh smells, the roads biting through those 
 low banks of houses she would hate them all. 
 Daily they would grind her spirit into nothingness; 
 at night in her dreams she would see Leonard and 
 the fertile country side. Her nerves would be on 
 edge, Robert's contact would be pain, and his 
 prosaic manner maddening after Leonard's 
 ardor. 
 
 It was all Robert's fault. Had he remained 
 loving she would not have been sapped by these 
 discontents. Why had he so soon grown prac- 
 tical? When did the charm and freshness of 
 marriage first fade? Would Leonard too cool 
 and grow careless? . . . She thrust that dis- 
 quietude aside. Leonard was different; he was 
 capable of deeper emotion than Robert. 
 
 She paused. Robert's face as it had been on 
 his wedding day came before her, white and 
 strained. Robert was not shallow. 
 
 Her honesty stung her. With quivering dread
 
 270 TEN HOURS 
 
 she examined again that mental picture of Leon- 
 ard. He was perfect, was he not? 
 
 The tension at her heart became agony. She 
 rushed into thought, evading critical judgment. 
 
 How could she stay here with Gwennie know- 
 ing her secret, holding it over, defying her si- 
 lently? What power would she now have over 
 Gwennie? This last scene had shown the effects 
 of knowledge on that youthful and untender mind. 
 Gwennie had perceived and grasped her advan- 
 tages; deliberately she had reconstructed the re- 
 lationship between herself and Celia. They were 
 equals now; there must be no further mention of 
 authority. Celia was weak, peccable, drifting. 
 Gwennie could ignore the commands of such a one. 
 How could she, Celia, think of training and gov- 
 erning Gwennie now? 
 
 Granted then the misery of staying. But if 
 she went if she went? 
 
 She turned her gaze to the clock. It was 
 nearly half-past four. Six o'clock. If she went. 
 . . . She trembled violently 
 
 The train left at six; she would go up to town 
 and there meet Leonard.
 
 FORESIGHT 271 
 
 She saw the platform, and the glinting railway 
 lines, heard the throbbing of the engines, felt 
 Leonard's hand on her arm as he led her out of 
 the station. London was about her, stretching 
 into horizons of fading light. Together they 
 crossed the road, threaded through traffic, saw the 
 lamps swinging in mid-air, and the gentle swell of 
 the sky faintly green around the first stars. They 
 entered the train for Felgate. 
 
 She had never before known such uncon- 
 trollable excitement. The quiet country town 
 spread about her; the Thames flowed on, a dark 
 glimmer amid the darker meadows; there were 
 the lights of the town behind her, and before 
 her the blue night sweeping away to the stars 
 lit above the earth's end. She reached the cot- 
 tage. , 
 
 Her mind stopped. She did not know whether 
 it was shameful desire, or sickening repulsion 
 which governed her now. She only knew that 
 emotion had succeeded those swift accurate etch- 
 ings of the future. 
 
 But only for a second. Then again they burnt 
 before her vision.
 
 272 TEN HOURS 
 
 Leaping the night with its horror or its bliss, 
 her brain drew Sunday morning the calmness of 
 the air vexed by no sirens, fouled by no factory 
 smokes, the sounds from the allotments mingling 
 with distant church bells; the house dim and 
 calm, the breakfast table and Gwennie and fa- 
 ther and Robert there and no Celia. 
 
 She watched them prepare the meal, and stirred 
 fretfully over their incompetence. The bacon 
 would be curled up; the eggs hard-boiled; they 
 would muddle everything. Her plans for din- 
 ner absorbed her. Gwennie would never do the 
 meat properly; she would be certain to burn the 
 potatoes. The whole house would be disor- 
 ganized, it would be shattered by shame and 
 misery. 
 
 The influence of the house was strong upon her. 
 For one tender and beautiful moment that as- 
 pect of it as a burden, a cage, was ripped away, 
 and she saw it as home, as her territory, as her 
 possession. She kept it so beautifully; ran it so 
 smoothly; mastered it, guided it. She was the 
 head and the other three were all happily domi- 
 nated by her.
 
 FORESIGHT 273 
 
 She saw Robert going off to town after a good 
 breakfast; coming home to dinner; peacefully set- 
 tling himself for the evening. If he had not 
 taken everything so much for granted; if he had 
 remained the lover as well as the husband, how 
 happy she would be ! 
 
 Those strong and at root unassailable convic- 
 tions were conquering her; they were attacking 
 the swollen bubbles of discontent; they were bear- 
 ing her into sanity, and, at once, glimpsing their 
 power, their inevitable victory, she rebelled. It 
 was not so much that she found satisfaction in 
 whipping herself to increased wretchedness as that 
 for the present there was more pain in not lov- 
 ing than in loving? To recognize this tragedy 
 as evanescent, a mere emotional interlude which 
 like storm upon the land would pass and be suc- 
 ceeded by tranquillity, was tormenting. To be- 
 lieve herself elastic, to doubt her love for Leon- 
 ard, to doubt him these were poisons. 
 
 Although, or rather because, she saw in them 
 the first signs of convalescence, she buried them 
 away and concentrated herself once more upon 
 the future as it would be if she went to Leonard.
 
 274 TEN HOURS 
 
 She tried to see the cottage as home with her- 
 self in it, serving Leonard, ruling his life. Was 
 she not necessary to him? 
 
 Remembrance of his people entered her mind. 
 Again she imaged the wedding group and imme- 
 diately those old prejudices stirred. Leonard's 
 people would despise her; they would think she 
 had inveigled him ; they would refuse to recognize 
 her, ostensibly because of her broken reputation, 
 but actually because she was bourgeois, because 
 she lived in Suburbia, and let a room. She knew 
 how they would be, how they would look, and 
 how she would hate them! 
 
 She stiffened, and her mouth grew defiant. She 
 would not care for them; their scorn would not 
 trouble her; Leonard thought her the perfect 
 woman; what else mattered? He had not fallen 
 in love with any of those girls at the wedding any- 
 how ! He had fallen in love with her. 
 
 The flash of spirit flickered out. Heavily she 
 forecast the two futures, seeing them now as al- 
 most equally dark; doubting the advantages of- 
 fered by goodness, and by sin; doubting herself, 
 doubting Leonard; shrinking from the continued
 
 FORESIGHT 275 
 
 shelter of the house, and yet desiring some lonely 
 featureless place empty of everything but the wind 
 and the birds rather than the cottage with its pen- 
 alties and its memories. 
 
 V 
 
 She thought again of Gwennie. That she 
 should be like this so silly, so romantic, so sensu- 
 ous ! Ally was quite different. 
 
 Now memories were all about her like a flock 
 of birds. The bedroom she had shared with Ally 
 was very distinctly recalled, and Ally brushing her 
 long brown hair, and seriously discussing father. 
 Dear Ally, sedate, good, tranquil. 
 
 She saw her mother: the little lines and browii 
 places on her skin, the kind eyes, the way of 
 standing with her stomach slightly advanced so 
 that her skirt was shorter in front than at the 
 back. 
 
 She stood beside the boys. What good times 
 they had had together! Bird-nesting, picking 
 sloes and blackberries and hazel-nuts burying 
 each other in hay or in bracken the strong smell 
 of the latter eddied about the room now swing-
 
 276 TEN HOURS 
 
 ing down through the twilight fields, laughing and 
 tussling, and with Ally always peacemaker if any 
 acrimony arose. If she went the boys would say, 
 " Celia do this? Celia ! She was never like this. 
 Not Celia." 
 
 If she went she would betray her double trust 
 to mother and to Ally. They had given her fa- 
 ther and Gwennie. She was indissolubly tied to 
 both. The last pages of father's life, and all of 
 Gwennie's life, were in Celia's hands; they were 
 her responsibilities. 
 
 And finally there was Robert, her husband. 
 
 Poor Robert. A warm maternal rush of feel- 
 ing subdued her. He couldn't look after him- 
 self; he couldn't manage the house and his com- 
 panions. 
 
 She viewed his appearance, placing him beside 
 Leonard and dispassionately contrasting them. 
 Her face began to respond to the emotion mov- 
 ing in her. Most bewilderingly she felt herself 
 to be necessary to both men. Then with sud- 
 den freezing intuition she knew herself to be most 
 necessary to Robert. She penetrated Leonard's 
 character: his combating caution and impulsive-
 
 FORESIGHT 277 
 
 ness, his sentiment, his fluency. He had said too 
 much. He should have been more reticent under 
 the stress of the situation. Would he cool off? 
 Would he, too, grow accustomed to her? If he 
 did it would be worse, far worse, in him since for 
 his sake she had given up everything. 
 
 She drew a long quivering sigh. Her eyes 
 sought the garden. Father was coming up the 
 path trailing the rake behind him. She looked at 
 the common and again she was overpowered by a 
 feeling of suffocation. The houses drew in round 
 her, hiding all the sinking distances of sky and 
 cloud; the common mocked her with its meager 
 portion of the liberal beauties of earth. A train 
 raced by and she mused on its power. It could 
 take her away from all this and place her on 
 heights where only the clouds would roof and 
 wall her; where there was space for eye and soul. 
 
 Tempted, throbbing, she swung back to the 
 standpoint of blind belief in Leonard and the 
 stability of the happiness he offered. Love was 
 all; morals, duties, responsibilities were but names; 
 bloodless and lifeless things. Love was the one 
 vital need. She was so young; why should she
 
 278 TEN HOURS 
 
 not have romance and rapture and the joys of 
 self-indulgence? In either case self-immolation 
 was necessary; the sacrifice of the loving and pas- 
 sionate or of the honorable and pure Celia. Why 
 should she not offer up the last at the altar of 
 love and snatch the happiness the other offered? 
 
 VI 
 
 She looked at the clock. Then she got up and 
 went downstairs to see to the tea. 
 
 She entered the scullery and filled the kettle. 
 Her eyes wandered over the brass taps, the white 
 tiles and the green, the bowl filled with watercress, 
 the gas-cooker, and the little window looking out 
 on the garden. She started as she surveyed every 
 fresh object almost as if silently they communi- 
 cated with her. Each, indeed, did send a mes- 
 sage to her brain. They spoke eloquently of this 
 morning and of those other mornings stretching 
 back into the past, so uniform and calm, so bless- 
 edly uneventful. 
 
 How far away they seemed! How remote 
 were the affairs of this morning? The cooking, 
 the toothache, the broodings, dinnertime, Robert's
 
 FORESIGHT 279 
 
 poems. Each had played its part in preparing her 
 for Leonard's visit, in making her malleable to 
 his touch. . . . How far was her love for him 
 composed of irritation and discontent? 
 
 Her lambent views of herself were maddening. 
 She did love him, really, truly. ... It was real 
 love. 
 
 The vehemence of her protests filled her with 
 shame. There was nothing to be proud of in 
 that! . 
 
 She put the kettle on the gas-cooker, and then 
 went into the kitchen and began to lay the tray. 
 The familiarity of every movement, and of every- 
 thing she touched had an effect at once soothing 
 and painful. She felt herself to be in an atmos- 
 phere hostile to romance and yet full of repose. 
 She was netted by a thousand little delicate fibers 
 which bound her down to the house and which 
 were fastened so securely into her that breaking 
 them would mean acute moral pain. Yet, the 
 next moment, she chafed at their strength, she 
 despaired when she imagined herself wearing them 
 forever. 
 
 As she moved about she tested herself by re-
 
 280 TEN HOURS 
 
 calling memories attached to almost everything 
 she placed on the tray that she might find what 
 influence those memories had on her. The 
 straight tea-cups white with a blue line the sil- 
 ver apostle spoons, the little squat tea-pot, the 
 d'oyleys edged with lace which she had crocheted 
 herself she remembered buying every one of 
 them. Robert had been with her. How they had 
 enjoyed it all! 
 
 Swiftly she desisted in her examinations. There 
 were tears in her throat. She wondered stupidly 
 why she had not once cried during this after- 
 noon. She looked blindly round the room and- 
 beyond the window at the low sun, its bottom rim 
 lost in cloud. 
 
 As she gazed father came in from the garden. 
 
 " Finished at last," he said. " A healthy aft- 
 ernoon's work. The scent of the earth is really 
 beautiful, and the plants are beginning to bud 
 most beautifully too. If we don't get any late 
 frosts ... ! " 
 
 " If ! " Celia echoed. " But I daresay we shall. 
 Still you never know. Tea will be ready, in a
 
 FORESIGHT 281 
 
 jiffy. You've been out there a long time. I sup- 
 pose it was safe? " 
 
 " I think so. I felt quite warm and I was 
 moving all the time. Now to polish myself up a 
 little for a period of social intercourse ! " 
 
 He laughed. Celia laughed too, averting her 
 face. 
 
 " My boots have suffered," he pursued. " I 
 am afraid I have been like the little boys not care- 
 ful to avoid puddles." 
 
 " Dreadful ! you'll have to be punished." 
 
 Father laughed again and rambled out of the 
 room. 
 
 Celia stared at the tray, her eyes blurring with 
 tears. Father's voice, his high laugh, his wan- 
 dering movements, had caught at her heart and 
 she had become a mere bundle of soft susceptibili- 
 ties. Desire to caress and be caressed overpow- 
 ered her. A cry of " Leonard ! " and then " I 
 do love him, I do," rose from her heart. Very 
 young, very lonely, very helpless, she longed to 
 be able to slip down to the floor and hide herself 
 in a woman's arms her mother's Ally's.
 
 282 TEN HOURS 
 
 VII 
 
 Presently she picked up the tray and went into 
 the dining-room. 
 
 She put the tray on the table and opening the 
 doors at the bottom of the sidepiece, took out the 
 silver cake-basket, the butter-dish, and the Worces- 
 ter marmalade pot. She remembered the pleas- 
 ure with which she had bought the last; the other 
 two were wedding presents. 
 
 She put them on the tray and then an impulse 
 led her to the mirror over the mantelpiece. She 
 looked carefully at herself, at her pale haggard 
 cheeks, her trembling mouth, lovely in its shape, 
 its color, and its childishness ; her eyes very round 
 and intent, her brows full of pain. 
 
 Behind that face the wall and the top of fa- 
 ther's screen were reflected. 
 
 Unprovoked by thought or feeling a change 
 took place in her. Her face hardened and grew 
 obstinate; her eyes became somber. 
 
 She would go.
 
 PART IV 
 SUNSET 
 
 " The object, or the experience, as it will be in memory is 
 really the chief thing to care for from first to last." 
 
 WALTER PATER.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 TEA-TIME 
 
 WHEN she entered the morning-room, Gwennie 
 was standing by the fire, engaged also in the pur- 
 suit of inspecting herself in the overmantel. She 
 turned when she heard Celia and smiled. 
 
 "Anything I can do?" she said. 
 
 " Plenty. If you look you'll see what I've left." 
 
 Celia spoke without emotion; she was now en- 
 tirely cold and impassive. 
 
 Gwennie's glance discovered this; and auntie's 
 insensibility increased her own pleasant excite- 
 ment. It was quite impossbile to tell what auntie 
 intended doing; frightfully exciting! Gwennie's 
 blood thrilled in her veins. Her own plans were 
 clear-cut; she felt competent and alert; ready to 
 transfix every piece of self-revelation. 
 
 " All right, I know what to get." 
 
 She moved from the fire, considering the things 
 on the table. As she reached Celia, she directed 
 285
 
 286 TEN HOURS 
 
 her glance to the latter's face, an oblique, veiled 
 glance, because she did not turn her head. With 
 a low laugh, she put her arm round Celia's tall 
 still body and hugged it. 
 
 "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, alluding breath- 
 lessly to the tension of the moment. Her eyes, 
 open, eloquent, without respect, without reticence, 
 met Celia's. 
 
 The latter disengaged herself. " You can lay 
 the table while I make the tea." She left the 
 room composedly. 
 
 Gwennie smiled. " Doesn't like my knowing. 
 Wonder if she's going or not. I'm sure to find 
 out. Fancy anything like that happening." 
 
 She arranged the table. " If she goes, I shall 
 have to tell uncle. Hoo ! " 
 
 She shook herself convulsively. " Shan't know 
 what to say; 'spect he'll be fearfully upset. . . ." 
 
 Her smile faded and she looked soberly at the 
 cloth. Her mind up to the present had been ab- 
 sorbed in the romance of the affair, to the exclu- 
 sion of all other aspects. The greatness of 
 Celia's love and Leonard's; the tingling suspense 
 preceding action; the effect of their movements on
 
 TEA-TIME 287 
 
 her own life; the recollection of similar cases in 
 novels and newspapers; these had occupied Gwen- 
 nie's mind since half-past three. Now, however, 
 she peeped apprehensively at the darker side of 
 this passion. She glimpsed a few of the things 
 which would follow auntie's flight; she was 
 brought into contact with the knowledge that how- 
 ever much she might exonerate, nay justify auntie, 
 uncle, and father and the world would see her 
 thrust outside the social pale. 
 
 Gwennie's ideas of morality were vague. She 
 said her prayers every night, but like John Donne, 
 with a mind distracted by " an anything, a 
 nothing, a fancy, a chimera." . . . She knew it 
 was wrong to lie, but she always adjusted her de- 
 ceptions so that to her own mind they were excused 
 by their necessity. She knew that it was sin for 
 a married woman to take a lover, but she thought 
 it wrong that it should be a sin. Marriage be- 
 came terrifying if it was to be regarded as indis- 
 soluble. To Gwennie the one good, the one con- 
 dition which should be attainable to all, and broken 
 by nothing, was happiness. Everything which 
 prevented happiness, was in its essence wrong and
 
 288 TEN HOURS 
 
 therefore legitimately, abhorrent. This, so far, 
 was her creed; but it was not an unshakable one. 
 She was governed by impressions, and she was 
 quite ready to discard past ones in favor of new, 
 always, however, viewing her own comfort as a 
 thing to be most sedulously preserved. 
 
 Contemplation of uncle's arrival, and the in- 
 evitable explanation proving troublesome, she put 
 it aside and moved about the table voluptuously 
 memorizing Leonard's most ardent speeches, and 
 applying them to herself. She wondered if 
 Harry would ever talk to her like that. Certainly 
 she would go to meet him to-night. . . . 
 
 II 
 
 Celia and father returned together, father rub- 
 bing his palms against each other, and looking 
 washed and slightly mauve under the fur-edged 
 cap. 
 
 " Ah, Gwennie," he observed, " we meet again. 
 Our intercourse seems limited to the table ! Ha I 
 Ha!" 
 
 Gwennie giggled. 
 
 " Why did you not come into the garden and
 
 TEA-TIME 289 
 
 help me? It was beautiful there, beautiful. I 
 cannot say that the * scent of the rose is blown ' 
 but the smell of the earth is delightful. The good 
 red earth, to which we must all return, to which 
 I shall soon return. . . . ' Into the breast that 
 gives the rose shall I with shuddering fall.' " 
 
 "Gracious, you are getting dismal, father!" 
 Celia exclaimed. " You want a stimulant, I can 
 see. Get his chair, Gwen, and your own." 
 
 " The cup that cheers," father remarked. 
 " Thank you, my dear." 
 
 Tremblingly he seated himself beside Gwennie. 
 The latter propped her elbows on the table and 
 her chin in her hands. 
 
 Celia glanced at her. "Elbows off, Gwen!" 
 she commanded. 
 
 For a second Gwennie hesitated, then she 
 smiled, and buried her fists deeper in her full 
 cheeks. Her eyes without temper, but rude in 
 their directness, challenged Celia. 
 
 Level, staring, Celia's gaze met the girl's. 
 
 " Gwennie, I spoke to you; elbows off." 
 
 Gwennie did not move. Her smile grew fixed. 
 " It's more comfy."
 
 290 TEN HOURS 
 
 Father turned a rebuking face to her, but her 
 gaze did not waver from Celia. 
 
 The latter sat, battling with anger, shame, and 
 sickening fear. Before she could choose out of a 
 chaos of words father interposed. 
 
 " Gwennie, auntie spoke to you. That isn't 
 the way a lady sits." 
 
 Gwennie laughed. Leisurely, she removed her 
 arms. 
 
 " Do it for you," she said. " Not too much 
 milk; like to taste the tea." 
 
 Unruffled by the silence of her elders, she re- 
 ceived her cup and saucer, and then went on, 
 drawlingly, " Saw in the paper this morning, about 
 a young girl who'd been murdered, quite a young 
 girl, eighteen I think she was, soldier shot her, 
 her lover." 
 
 " We aren't interested in these edifying events," 
 Celia said. " You can find plenty in the paper 
 more worth reading about than that if you look." 
 
 " It was most interesting," Gwennie said, her 
 lids flickering. " She was an office girl, like my- 
 self, lived at Kingston, they found her body . . ." 
 
 " Exactly. . . . Did I give you enough sugar,
 
 TEA-TIME 291 
 
 father? He's such a useful boy making the home 
 beautiful, only it's the garden in this case, but 
 the principle's the same that he deserves a little 
 reward." 
 
 " I should like a trifle more, please." 
 
 "Jam, Gwennie?" 
 
 " No, thanks. They found the body in a third- 
 class railway carriage. . . ." 
 
 " For goodness' sake, Gwen, don't be so 
 grewsome. You're not healthy-minded. These 
 sort of things aren't worth discussing." 
 
 She looked firmly at Gwennie. Her heart was 
 not fluttering now; she was insensate again, proof 
 against the significance of Gwennie's demeanor, 
 impenetrable to the appeal of the teatable, and 
 the room, and father's unsteady hands. Her 
 mind had made its resolution. She was going. 
 She did not know what had determined her, the 
 resolve had simply voiced itself, and at once all 
 thought and emotion had been cleared away. She 
 felt as empty and cold as a shell. She was able 
 to read motives and expressions and see their se- 
 quels without finding them personally related to 
 herself. Gwennie defied her. If she were stay-
 
 292 TEN HOURS 
 
 ing that meant much; as she was going. . . . 
 Gwennie was assuming independence; that had 
 grave bearing on Gwennie's future, but on Celia's? 
 None. She would be remote from it all, with 
 Leonard, her lover. 
 
 Absolutely passionlessly she looked at father. 
 He represented no duty, he awoke no memories. 
 " Pass the marmalade, Gwennie, please. Thank 
 you." 
 
 She could eat, though the food was tasteless. 
 She could say the little natural things. She could 
 look round the room, knowing this to be her last 
 tea here. Funny that she wasn't more excited! 
 She felt as hard as a rock, positively she did not 
 care at all whether she hurt them. Everything 
 seemed simple and unessential. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Gwennie watched her, not openly and confi- 
 dentially now, but covertly and with a return of 
 distrust. She was baffled. Auntie's calm was im- 
 penetrable. It was impossible to tell whether it 
 portended surrender or renunciation, but whatever 
 its meaning, one thing was clear; Gwennie was
 
 TEA-TIME 293 
 
 not to receive confidence. Till the last moment 
 auntie would maintain her reserve and her dignity, 
 would attempt strenuously to maintain authority. 
 In this final attitude, Gwennie was determined she 
 should not succeed. Auntie might decline to rec- 
 ognize that she had forfeited her right to com- 
 mand, but Gwennie could, and would, show her 
 intention of being no longer obedient. If auntie 
 turned nasty, well, then, Gwennie had a weapon 
 to use : knowledge. . . . 
 
 Complacently, she drank tea. Then uncom- 
 fortable doubt attacked her. That was all very 
 well if auntie went, but if auntie stayed? She 
 would make Gwennie pay for this brief season of 
 independence. Certainly the weapon would still 
 be at hand, but, its usage at tea now was dif- 
 ferent from its usage through weeks and months. 
 That last meant discussions, questions from uncle; 
 scenes, tears, endless trouble and discomfort. 
 Frightfully tiring! Rows made one awfully 
 fagged. Gwennie hated having to explain. If 
 she threatened to use the weapon but did not, per- 
 haps that would keep auntie in subjection. . . . 
 But it would be awfully uncomfortable, living at
 
 294 TEN HOURS 
 
 daggers drawn with any one ! It would mean per- 
 petual warfare, not less wearing because it was 
 concealed. Besides ; sudden generosity warmed 
 Gwennie; it would be mean, beastly mean. Gwen- 
 nie had her own code of honor in these matters. 
 If auntie stayed, it would be sporting of her, aw- 
 fully fine and good; to give up love, give up every- 
 thing for duty, that would be splendid. Why, she, 
 Gwennie, wouldn't mind obeying any one who did 
 that! Auntie would be a heroine. Gwennie, 
 threatening her, would be a mean beast. 
 
 Dear, this was tiring! . . . 
 
 Gwennie's head cleared. " May I have some 
 water-cress, auntie, please." 
 
 " Certainly." Celia passed it. She had missed 
 the significance of Gwennie's sentence. Percep- 
 tions dulled, eyes unobservant, she did not notice 
 that Gwennie no longer demanded; she asked. 
 
 IV 
 
 " Will you have some water-cress, father? " 
 " Thank you. . . . Robert has had a nice aft- 
 ernoon, only that one shower. The sunset looks 
 rainy though."
 
 TEA-TIME 295 
 
 All three glanced through the window at the 
 ruddy flames, and at the dark gray below them, 
 rifted and parted with the aspect of sand printed 
 with the sea's flux. 
 
 Their faces were touched with this lemon glow, 
 but up the walls, dusk stole. Soon the twilight 
 would possess the house, it would gather upon the 
 town, stealthily subduing the last fires burnishing 
 the streets. Stars would come . . . and the half- 
 moon. 
 
 Involuntarily Gwennie looked at the clock: past 
 five ; her glance went to Celia. 
 
 It penetrated the latter's frozen heart. Celia 
 started, crimsoned, and then grew deadly pale. 
 Her eyes fell. She had been about to lift her cup 
 but she was forced to wait till her hand trembled 
 less. 
 
 " She's going," thought Gwennie.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 SIX O'CLOCK 
 
 THEY finished tea, but did not at once move from 
 the table. Silently they watched the shadows rip- 
 pling up the walls and misting the ceiling, and the 
 wild bright radiance narrow about them. Gwen- 
 nie mused over the probabilities of the evening, 
 quickened at the thought that Harry might attempt 
 to kiss her, and decided to let him. . . . Celia 
 listened to the trains'; she saw under the sunset, 
 the pines breaking in soft pointed lengths, mur- 
 muring amid silences, burying their roots in fra- 
 grant mold, shaking their crests to the skies. . . . 
 Father sat, looking old and puffy in the yellow- 
 ing glow, his head full of formless dreaming. 
 
 Presently, he spoke, his words coming out in 
 a sigh. 
 
 " A beautiful evening, I shall enjoy my walk 
 to-night. ..." 
 
 Celia was jerked back from her visions. She 
 296
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 297 
 
 turned upon him eyes dilating with dismay. Fa- 
 ther's walk; she had forgotten all about that. 
 
 With the lengthening days, father had a short 
 walk after tea. Celia took him round the com- 
 mon for half an hour. The air made him sleep 
 well, and the sights encountered on the way oc- 
 cupied his mind. They started at a quarter to 
 six, and returned at a quarter-past, when twilight 
 was becoming dark. She had forgotten all about 
 it; a quarter-to-six; she was to start for Leon- 
 ard at six. 
 
 In her ears was a drumming, the atmosphere 
 shifted before her eyes like a thin screen, and 
 father's face seemed to recede and advance gro- 
 tesquely. 
 
 " We will go down Charwood Lane," he pur- 
 sued. " There will be no dust and everything will 
 smell beautiful after the rain." 
 
 He smiled at her. 
 
 She pressed her palms on the cold tablecloth. 
 She heard herself say jerkily, " I'm going out to- 
 night, father, by myself. I've got to go, can't 
 put it off, didn't I tell you? . . . you must " 
 Out of black, whirling terror, a merciful solution
 
 298 TEN HOURS 
 
 rose. " You must go with Gwennie to-night. 
 You don't mind, do you? . . . Gwennie will go 
 with you." She forced herself to look at Gwen- 
 nie. 
 
 The latter did not at once look back. She had 
 scarcely heeded the last sentences, so deeply had 
 the first bitten into her mind. Auntie was going 
 then! 
 
 Gwennie breathed in funny little puffs. She 
 looked at Celia, and in her eyes wonder, admira- 
 tion, even respect, rioted together. Auntie was 
 going, was throwing aside everything for love. 
 How wonderful, how dreadful; how fearfully, 
 painfully exciting ! 
 
 The hard table was the only thing that assured 
 Celia of the reality of this nightmare. Gwennie's 
 eyes made her want to shriek, they were burning 
 darts which thrust down into her. 
 
 She spoke through withered lips. " You'll go 
 with father, Gwennie; just round the common, 
 wherever he wants to go, for about half-an-hour." 
 
 Father turned and smiled at his grand-daughter. 
 She ignored him. In the short silence she con- 
 sidered Celia's words; take father out; Harry
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 299 
 
 would be waiting for her at six; potter round the 
 common with this old man! that she would not. 
 ... It was not her concern, performing auntie's 
 duties. She was going to meet Harry, that was 
 what she was going to do. 
 
 "Sorry, auntie, I'm going out myself. I've ar- 
 ranged to meet some one, at six. ... I must 
 go " 
 
 Celia flung her a fierce look and met one bold, 
 heavy-lidded, defiant. Like woLcs, those fore- 
 sights rushed howling upon her. This was the 
 beginning, Gwennie's first recognition and use of 
 freedom. 
 
 " Nonsense, Gwen, yours can't be important. 
 You must take father round the common. I wish 
 you to." 
 
 " Sorry, can't. ... I really must keep my ap- 
 pointment. . . ." 
 
 Serene, calm, Gwennie looked at her. She slid 
 down in her chair till its back pushed her hair up 
 and out, she became a mere soft curving bundle, 
 with eyes glinting narrowly. 
 
 " Oh come, my dear, you mustn't talk to auntie 
 like that, I'm sure you don't mean to be rude. Our
 
 300 TEN HOURS 
 
 walk is only a short one ; you can go and meet your 
 friend afterwards, can't she, Celia? " 
 
 " She is to take you round the common," Celia 
 said, her voice controlled and keen. " Do you 
 understand, Gwennie, for half-an-hour? . . ." 
 
 Gwennie's chin sank on her chest. " I'm not 
 going, I can't, I told you why, sorry." 
 
 The roads were turning cold; over the com- 
 mon bronze reflections shone, and puddles and 
 veins of water burnt redly. Brilliant visions 
 seared Celia's eyes: a countryside soaked in crim- 
 son, trees like fiery swords; woods where damp 
 odors rose more strongly as the dark passed over 
 the flats and flowed upward to the heights; the 
 station, Leonard, and then that awful featureless 
 gloom of irrevocable action, of consequences not 
 to be escaped, of lives swept beyond her control. 
 
 "Gwennie, how can you? Just for half-an- 
 hour, you know you ought to, you know you ought 
 not refuse." Her eyes begged Gwennie, they 
 humbled themselves. Guilty, dark with pain, they 
 asked Gwennie's merciful obedience. 
 
 Gwennie stared back unmoved, almost scorn- 
 ful. Celia, broken, shivering, tasted all the poison
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 301 
 
 of degradation; she cowed beneath judgment, and 
 felt herself already stained and discarded. . . . 
 Oh, Leonard. 
 
 " Take him yourself, if you want him to go. 
 I shan't." 
 
 It was Gwennie's rudest speech. Her own 
 heart sank with apprehension after she had made 
 it. 
 
 With dignity, father spoke. " You are a very 
 insolent little girl. If I were Celia I should pun- 
 ish you severely. . . ." He turned to his daugh- 
 ter, " My dear, Gwennie need not be forced to do 
 anything she resents so strongly, and neither are 
 you to be put out. I will go by myself." 
 
 II 
 
 " By yourself." Celia echoed the words with 
 a dim numb sense that they meant tragedy more 
 near, more poignant than any yet conceived. 
 
 " Yes, certainly. It is not necessary for any 
 one to come with me, not necessary at all, I can 
 go by myself very well. I am not, ha! ha! so 
 decrepit as all that." 
 
 His hands shook on the cloth, his eyes icily in-
 
 302 TEN HOURS 
 
 spected Gwennie, and then softened as they left 
 her for Celia. The unprecedented situation dis- 
 ordered him. He rambled on, " Quite well go by 
 myself, no need at all for any one to come with 
 me, of course not. . . ." 
 
 Dully Celia thought; " go by himself! " How 
 many years was it since he had gone out by him- 
 self? Mother, Ally, the boys, Celia not since 
 those old wounding days when his weakness so 
 constantly betrayed itself, had he been left alone, 
 unaccompanied by none of them. Now he was to 
 have freedom. . . . 
 
 " Of course, yes, you could go by yourself, but 
 nicer to have Gwennie with you, -company 
 Gwennie, you will?" 
 
 Already regrets were harassing Gwennie but she 
 refused to yield to them. 
 
 " Don't see why I should," she muttered. " I'm 
 not going to, I've got to keep my appointment, 
 you keep yours." 
 
 Celia quivered. It was nearly six. Leonard 
 would be wondering, longing. 
 
 " Perhaps, you needn't go to-night, father. It 
 .is rather windy. . . ."
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 303 
 
 " Nonsense." His voice cracked sharply. 
 " Why should I not go by myself ! One would 
 think you expected something to happen to me." 
 
 Her eyes fell from his. " No, no, of course 
 not, father, but it's not so nice by yourself." 
 
 " It will be just as nice," he corrected peevishly. 
 " I am not so afflicted that I cannot take a short 
 walk without support. . . ." He straightened 
 his thin body. " Of course I can go by myself." 
 He assumed a capable and impressive air which 
 contrasted piteously with his shaking hands and 
 the cap with its ragged fringe. " What is the 
 time? Getting on for six; nearly time to start. 
 I shall be back about a quarter past; don't hurry, 
 Celia, I have my key." 
 
 He looked at his wrinkled hands resting on the 
 shiny cloth of his trousers; but he did not see them; 
 broodingly he constructed the walk. 
 
 Celia looked from him to Gwennie; fits of shiv- 
 ering attacked her body, but her face and hands 
 were burning. She saw Gwennie's lips thickened 
 and glazed, her somber eyes, the creamy fleshi- 
 ness of her chin and throat. She saw the long 
 mauve ridges of father's cheeks, his working
 
 304 TEN HOURS 
 
 mouth, the expression growing in his pale eyes. 
 She saw the darkening room and beyond it color- 
 swept widths of land, and Leonard, Leonard 
 who was counting the moments, who was racked 
 with anxiety as six approached. 
 
 " Gwennie." The name was scarcely audible. 
 
 Gwennie drew a deep breath but made no other 
 response. 
 
 Feeling Celia turn towards him, father looked 
 up, and gave her a furtive ugly glance. It made 
 her flesh creep. Instantly withdrawn as it was 
 the impression of it remained so that she watched 
 him with horror and saw his face coarsened, and 
 full of twitching unrest. He spoke at random. 
 
 " Of course I'll go by myself. It will be a 
 change a pleasant change. No one need put 
 themselves out for me. I have my key." 
 
 The room became silent; the fire was burning 
 without noise; only the wind wrapped the house 
 in long throbbing harmonies. 
 
 Ill 
 
 He would go by himself. 
 
 Celia's mind drew the scene with sure rapid
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 305 
 
 strokes. He would go by himself. He would 
 see the empty common stretching round him, the 
 gray streets raying away from it, the town set- 
 tling its lights down the dusk and hazed over 
 with light as the sky darkened and the stars ap- 
 peared. He would be thrilled with the sense 
 of freedom. The whistling common would repel 
 him, the town invite. 
 
 For sheer terror her brain stopped. Her gaze 
 went to Gwennie. Gwennie, rebellious, independ- 
 ent, governed by uncontrollable only half-compre- 
 hended excitement, would go out too; she would 
 go to meet that boy. 
 
 Celia's hot palms came stiffly together. She 
 pierced Gwennie's preoccupation and detected all 
 the crude but throbbing sensualties engrossing the 
 girl's mind: the wanton determination, the re- 
 sponse to lures, the unbridled desire for con- 
 quest. 
 
 Her throat was so dry that she felt choked; her 
 knees knocked together. Father Gwennie. 
 
 The room was now nearly dark. The brands 
 in the west were burning down, but daylight still 
 lay blue and luminous over the suburb.
 
 306 TEN HOURS 
 
 In the soft shadow beyond the table she saw 
 figures moving her mother Ally. 
 
 She saw them both, not as they had been in 
 life but as they had appeared to her young fearful 
 eyes when she saw them dead. Mother with the 
 pillow white and smooth on either side of her 
 little gray face; very composed, very still; the 
 gray hair misting her brow; her body a small 
 mound under the counterpane. Ally she shud- 
 dered. Ally had looked dreadful. Her face had 
 grown like an animal's, so thin, so sharp, had dis- 
 ease made it. The luxuriance of her dark hair 
 seemed a mockery. 
 
 From each from mother, from Ally, she had 
 received a charge father, Gwennie. Now these 
 two were going their own way. Father was 
 moistening his lips and passing his tongue over 
 them. She knew the movement and it filled her 
 with all the profound pity and alarm she had en- 
 dured as a child. If father went out to-night 
 by himself the good of these years of guardian- 
 ship would be broken. He was foreseeing the 
 chances of freedom; he would not have strength
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 307 
 
 to resist those chances when they were actually 
 about him. 
 
 Gwennie, Ally's daughter, was inquisitively 
 peering into sexual mysteries; she was intent on 
 fanning flames whose consuming peril she only 
 half realized. 
 
 These were the aspects of the room. Outside, 
 in the murmurous evening, Robert was coming 
 home past meadows with hedgerows trailing like 
 ropes across them, about him horizons embrowned 
 by dusk. Robert . . . 
 
 It was five to six. Leonard was walking to the 
 station. . . . 
 
 She heard him entreating and urging her. For 
 one moment she looked on his face, and her heart 
 leapt and strained towards him. Then the room 
 cleared. She saw father and Gwennie. She knew 
 that if she went she would forever after look 
 back upon this day with an agony of remorse and 
 self-loathing. In the calendar of her life it would 
 stand out as the forerunner of black and terrible 
 duplicates, all populous with regrets, all stretch- 
 ing grimly to her life's end. Happiness ! Hap-
 
 308 TEN HOURS 
 
 piness would lie in the days which preceded it. 
 No joys could subdue the memory of its decision. 
 Branded in her heart, this memory would forever 
 drain the life out of all pleasures. . . . 
 
 Something in her seemed to click. That new 
 and tortured Celia born to-day, belonging to to- 
 day, was pressed back and buried in to-day. She 
 had no part in any to-morrows. 
 
 The old Celia, pale, weak, and immobile, was 
 now full in possession of her heart and body. 
 High above her, retreating into some dim region 
 of not-to-be-secured flame, and romance, and won- 
 derment went all the joys and torments of these 
 hours, and she was glad to see them go. She 
 remained safe and unharmed, in the house; she 
 was anchored there ; she was indissolubly part of 
 it. 
 
 Almost happy in the end of her conflict, she 
 looked at father. 
 
 " I'm not going to have your walk spoilt, father. 
 My business isn't important. I can easily put it 
 off. Gwennie and I will both go with you and 
 we'd better make haste or it will be dark." 
 
 She smiled at them both.
 
 SIX O'CLOCK 309 
 
 Gwennie straightened; father stared and strove 
 bitterly for speech. 
 
 " My business was nothing," Celia repeated. 
 " Get your hat and coat, Gwennie." 
 
 " My dear, there is no need to put anything off 
 on my account. I can quite well go by myself." 
 
 Neither Celia nor Gwennie heeded him. With 
 a common impulse they stood up and faced each 
 other across the table. Celia was in the short- 
 ening strip of light, Gwennie stood in shadow. 
 
 " Get your hat and coat, Gwen, and we'll all go 
 together." 
 
 " You're not going then? " Gwennie shot out. 
 
 " No." 
 
 Proudly, even smilingly, Celia confronted her. 
 Her body was stiffening; she threw all her strength 
 into her glance and commanded Gwennie's respect 
 and obedience. 
 
 The disconcerted father watched them inno- 
 cently. 
 
 For an instant Gwennie clung to her desires. 
 Her mind rushed to and fro seeking words, eva- 
 sions, flat defiances; then these became unessential. 
 Celia, white, inflexible, victorious, was all-impor-
 
 310 TEN HOURS 
 
 tant. She had resisted the charm of Leonard's 
 fervent speeches. She was staying here, deliber- 
 ately fastening on herself the cold shackles of duty. 
 Her appearance, her action, cast over the impres- 
 sionable Gwennie a spell which for the time at 
 least was stronger than all other appeals. 
 
 She spoke explosively. " All right, I'll come." 
 
 Celia's knees shook suddenly. She sank down 
 into the chair. 
 
 " Good," she said. 
 
 Ashamed at the revival of those old vicious in- 
 clinations, father lowered his flushed face. 
 
 She divined his penitence and spoke with a 
 tremulous briskness. 
 
 " Nothing must do father out of his walk, bless 
 him!" 
 
 Leaning forward, she kissed him, the fur of 
 the cap tickling her cheek. 
 
 The daylight splashed whitely round the win- 
 dow. Across the town blocked darkly in the pal- 
 ing lights, six o'clock boomed resonantly. . . . 
 
 THE END

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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