prompt:
Chapter: Charles need not have been anxious. Miss Schlegel had never heard of his
mother's strange request. She was to hear of it in after years, when she
had built up her life differently, and it was to fit into position as
the headstone of the corner. Her mind was bent on other questions
now, and by her also it would have been rejected as the fantasy of an
invalid.

She was parting from these Wilcoxes for the second time. Paul and his
mother, ripple and great wave, had flowed into her life and ebbed out of
it for ever. The ripple had left no traces behind; the wave had strewn
at her feet fragments torn from the unknown. A curious seeker, she stood
for a while at the verge of the sea that tells so little, but tells
a little, and watched the outgoing of this last tremendous tide. Her
friend had vanished in agony, but not, she believed, in degradation.
Her withdrawal had hinted at other things besides disease and pain. Some
leave our life with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox
had taken the middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She
had kept proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her
friends, but not too much; she had shut up her heart--almost, but
not entirely. It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to
die--neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet
with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he
must leave.

The last word--whatever it would be--had certainly not been said in
Hilton churchyard. She had not died there. A funeral is not death, any
more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy
devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would
register the quick motions of man. In Margaret's eyes Mrs. Wilcox had
escaped registration. She had gone out of life vividly, her own way, and
no dust was so truly dust as the contents of that heavy coffin, lowered
with ceremonial until it rested on the dust of the earth, no flowers so
utterly wasted as the chrysanthemums that the frost must have withered
before morning. Margaret had once said she "loved superstition." It was
not true. Few women had tried more earnestly to pierce the accretions in
which body and soul are enwrapped. The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped
her in her work. She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a
human being is, and to what he may aspire. Truer relationships gleamed.
Perhaps the last word would be hope--hope even on this side of the
grave.

Meanwhile, she could take an interest in the survivors. In spite of her
Christmas duties, in spite of her brother, the Wilcoxes continued to
play a considerable part in her thoughts. She had seen so much of them
in the final week. They were not "her sort," they were often suspicious
and stupid, and deficient where she excelled; but collision with them
stimulated her, and she felt an interest that verged into liking, even
for Charles. She desired to protect them, and often felt that they could
protect her, excelling where she was deficient. Once past the rocks of
emotion, they knew so well what to do, whom to send for; their hands
were on all the ropes, they had grit as well as grittiness and she
valued grit enormously. They led a life that she could not attain
to--the outer life of "telegrams and anger," which had detonated when
Helen and Paul had touched in June, and had detonated again the other
week. To Margaret this life was to remain a real force. She could not
despise it, as Helen and Tibby affected to do. It fostered such virtues
as neatness, decision, and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no
doubt, but they have formed our civilisation. They form character, too;
Margaret could not doubt it; they keep the soul from becoming sloppy.
How dare Schlegels despise Wilcoxes, when it takes all sorts to make a
world?

"Don't brood too much," she wrote to Helen, "on the superiority of
the unseen to the seen. It's true, but to brood on it is medieval. Our
business is not to contrast the two, but to reconcile them."

Helen replied that she had no intention of brooding on such a dull
subject. What did her sister take her for? The weather was magnificent.
She and the Mosebachs had gone tobogganing on the only hill that
Pomerania boasted. It was fun, but over-crowded, for the rest of
Pomerania had gone there too. Helen loved the country, and her letter
glowed with physical exercise and poetry. She spoke of the scenery,
quiet, yet august; of the snow-clad fields, with their scampering herds
of deer; of the river and its quaint entrance into the Baltic Sea; of
the Oderberge, only three hundred feet high, from which one slid all too
quickly back into the Pomeranian plains, and yet these Oderberge were
real mountains, with pine-forests, streams, and views complete. "It
isn't size that counts so much as the way things are arranged." In
another paragraph she referred to Mrs. Wilcox sympathetically, but the
news had not bitten into her. She had not realised the accessories
of death, which are in a sense more memorable than death itself. The
atmosphere of precautions and recriminations, and in the midst a human
body growing more vivid because it was in pain; the end of that body in
Hilton churchyard; the survival of something that suggested hope, vivid
in its turn against life's workaday cheerfulness;--all these were lost
to Helen, who only felt that a pleasant lady could now be pleasant no
longer. She returned to Wickham Place full of her own affairs--she had
had another proposal--and Margaret, after a moment's hesitation, was
content that this should be so.

The proposal had not been a serious matter. It was the work of Fraulein
Mosebach, who had conceived the large and patriotic notion of winning
back her cousins to the Fatherland by matrimony. England had played Paul
Wilcox, and lost; Germany played Herr Forstmeister some one--Helen could
not remember his name. Herr Forstmeister lived in a wood, and, standing
on the summit of the Oderberge, he had pointed out his house to Helen,
or rather, had pointed out the wedge of pines in which it lay. She had
exclaimed, "Oh, how lovely! That's the place for me!" and in the evening
Frieda appeared in her bedroom. "I have a message, dear Helen," etc.,
and so she had, but had been very nice when Helen laughed; quite
understood--a forest too solitary and damp--quite agreed, but Herr
Forstmeister believed he had assurance to the contrary. Germany had
lost, but with good-humour; holding the manhood of the world, she felt
bound to win. "And there will even be some one for Tibby," concluded
Helen. "There now, Tibby, think of that; Frieda is saving up a little
girl for you, in pig-tails and white worsted stockings but the feet
of the stockings are pink as if the little girl had trodden in
strawberries. I've talked too much. My head aches. Now you talk."

Tibby consented to talk. He too was full of his own affairs, for he had
just been up to try for a scholarship at Oxford. The men were down, and
the candidates had been housed in various colleges, and had dined in
hall. Tibby was sensitive to beauty, the experience was new, and he
gave a description of his visit that was almost glowing. The august and
mellow University, soaked with the richness of the western counties that
it has served for a thousand years, appealed at once to the boy's taste;
it was the kind of thing he could understand, and he understood it
all the better because it was empty. Oxford is--Oxford; not a mere
receptacle for youth, like Cambridge. Perhaps it wants its inmates to
love it rather than to love one another; such at all events was to
be its effect on Tibby. His sisters sent him there that he might make
friends, for they knew that his education had been cranky, and had
severed him from other boys and men. He made no friends. His Oxford
remained Oxford empty, and he took into life with him, not the memory of
a radiance, but the memory of a colour scheme.

It pleased Margaret to hear her brother and sister talking. They did
not get on overwell as a rule. For a few moments she listened to them,
feeling elderly and benign.

Then something occurred to her, and she interrupted.

"Helen, I told you about poor Mrs. Wilcox; that sad business?"

"Yes."

"I have had a correspondence with her son. He was winding up the estate,
and wrote to ask me whether his mother had wanted me to have anything.
I thought it good of him, considering I knew her so little. I said that
she had once spoken of giving me a Christmas present, but we both forgot
about it afterwards."

"I hope Charles took the hint."

"Yes--that is to say, her husband wrote later on, and thanked me for
being a little kind to her, and actually gave me her silver vinaigrette.
Don't you think that is extraordinarily generous? It has made me
like him very much. He hopes that this will not be the end of our
acquaintance, but that you and I will go and stop with Evie some time in
the future. I like Mr. Wilcox. He is taking up his work--rubber--it is
a big business. I gather he is launching out rather. Charles is in it,
too. Charles is married--a pretty little creature, but she doesn't seem
wise. They took on the flat, but now they have gone off to a house of
their own."

Helen, after a decent pause, continued her account of Stettin. How
quickly a situation changes! In June she had been in a crisis; even in
November she could blush and be unnatural; now it was January and
the whole affair lay forgotten. Looking back on the past six months,
Margaret realised the chaotic nature of our daily life, and its
difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by
historians. Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead
nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never
comes. The most successful career must show a waste of strength that
might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that
of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is
never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly
silent. It assumes that preparation against danger is in itself a good,
and that men, like nations, are the better for staggering through life
fully armed. The tragedy of preparedness has scarcely been handled, save
by the Greeks. Life is indeed dangerous, but not in the way morality
would have us believe. It is indeed unmanageable, but the essence of
it is not a battle. It is unmanageable because it is a romance, and its
essence is romantic beauty. Margaret hoped that for the future she would
be less cautious, not more cautious, than she had been in the past.

Over two years passed, and the Schlegel household continued to lead its
life of cultured, but not ignoble, ease, still swimming gracefully on
the grey tides of London. Concerts and plays swept past them, money had
been spent and renewed, reputations won and lost, and the city herself,
emblematic of their lives, rose and fell in a continual flux, while her
shallows washed more widely against the hills of Surrey and over the
fields of Hertfordshire. This famous building had arisen, that was
doomed. To-day Whitehall had been transformed; it would be the turn
of Regent Street to-morrow. And month by month the roads smelt more
strongly of petrol, and were more difficult to cross, and human beings
heard each other speak with greater difficulty, breathed less of the
air, and saw less of the sky. Nature withdrew; the leaves were falling
by midsummer; the sun shone through dirt with an admired obscurity.

To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an
artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future
will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town. One
can understand the reaction. Of Pan and the elemental forces, the public
has heard a 'little too much--they seem Victorian, while London is
Georgian--and those who care for the earth with sincerity may wait long
ere the pendulum swings back to her again. Certainly London fascinates.
One visualises it as a tract of quivering grey, intelligent without
purpose, and excitable without love; as a spirit that has altered before
it can be chronicled; as a heart that certainly beats, but with no
pulsation of humanity. It lies beyond everything; Nature, with all
her cruelty, comes nearer to us than do these crowds of men. A friend
explains himself; the earth is explicable--from her we came, and we must
return to her. But who can explain Westminster Bridge Road or Liverpool
Street in the morning--the city inhaling--or the same thoroughfares
in the evening--the city exhaling her exhausted air? We reach in
desperation beyond the fog, beyond the very stars, the voids of the
universe are ransacked to justify the monster, and stamped with a human
face. London is religion's opportunity--not the decorous religion of
theologians, but anthropomorphic, crude. Yes, the continuous flow
would be tolerable if a man of our own sort--not any one pompous or
tearful--were caring for us up in the sky.

The Londoner seldom understands his city until it sweeps him, too, away
from his moorings, and Margaret's eyes were not opened until the lease
of Wickham Place expired. She had always known that it must expire, but
the knowledge only became vivid about nine months before the event.
Then the house was suddenly ringed with pathos. It had seen so much
happiness. Why had it to be swept away? In the streets of the city
she noted for the first time the architecture of hurry and heard the
language of hurry on the mouths of its inhabitants--clipped words,
formless sentences, potted expressions of approval or disgust. Month by
month things were stepping livelier, but to what goal? The population
still rose, but what was the quality of the men born? The particular
millionaire who owned the freehold of Wickham Place, and desired to
erect Babylonian flats upon it--what right had he to stir so large a
portion of the quivering jelly? He was not a fool--she had heard him
expose Socialism--but true insight began just where his intelligence
ended, and one gathered that this was the case with most millionaires.
What right had such men--But Margaret checked herself. That way lies
madness. Thank goodness, she, too, had some money, and could purchase a
new home.

Tibby, now in his second year at Oxford, was down for the Easter
vacation, and Margaret took the opportunity of having a serious talk
with him. Did he at all know where he wanted to live? Tibby didn't
know that he did know. Did he at all know what he wanted to do? He was
equally uncertain, but when pressed remarked that he should prefer to
be quite free of any profession. Margaret was not shocked, but went on
sewing for a few minutes before she replied:

"I was thinking of Mr. Vyse. He never strikes me as particularly happy.

"Ye--es." said Tibby, and then held his mouth open in a curious quiver,
as if he, too, had thought of Mr. Vyse, had seen round, through, over,
and beyond Mr. Vyse, had weighed Mr. Vyse, grouped him, and finally
dismissed him as having no possible bearing on the Subject under
discussion. That bleat of Tibby's infuriated Helen. But Helen was now
down in the dining room preparing a speech about political economy. At
times her voice could be heard declaiming through the floor.

"But Mr. Vyse is rather a wretched, weedy man, don't you think? Then
there's Guy. That was a pitiful business. Besides"--shifting to the
general--"every one is the better for some regular work."

Groans.

"I shall stick to it," she continued, smiling. "I am not saying it
to educate you; it is what I really think. I believe that in the last
century men have developed the desire for work, and they must not starve
it. It's a new desire. It goes with a great deal that's bad, but in
itself it's good, and I hope that for women, too, 'not to work' will
soon become as shocking as 'not to be married' was a hundred years ago."

"I have no experience of this profound desire to which you allude,"
enunciated Tibby.

"Then we'll leave the subject till you do. I'm not going to rattle you
round. Take your time. Only do think over the lives of the men you like
most, and see how they've arranged them."

"I like Guy and Mr. Vyse most," said Tibby faintly, and leant so far
back in his chair that he extended in a horizontal line from knees to
throat.

"And don't think I'm not serious because I don't use the traditional
arguments--making money, a sphere awaiting you, and so on--all of which
are, for various reasons, cant." She sewed on. "I'm only your sister.
I haven't any authority over you, and I don't want to have any. Just
to put before you what I think the Truth. You see"--she shook off the
pince-nez to which she had recently taken--"in a few years we shall be
the same age practically, and I shall want you to help me. Men are so
much nicer than women."

"Labouring under such a delusion, why do you not marry?"

"I sometimes jolly well think I would if I got the chance."

"Has nobody arst you?"

"Only ninnies."

"Do people ask Helen?"

"Plentifully."

"Tell me about them."

"No."

"Tell me about your ninnies, then."

"They were men who had nothing better to do," said his sister, feeling
that she was entitled to score this point. "So take warning; you must
work, or else you must pretend to work, which is what I do. Work, work,
work if you'd save your soul and your body. It is honestly a necessity,
dear boy. Look at the Wilcoxes, look at Mr. Pembroke. With all their
defects of temper and understanding, such men give me more pleasure than
many who are better equipped, and I think it is because they have worked
regularly and honestly."

"Spare me the Wilcoxes," he moaned.

"I shall not. They are the right sort."

"Oh, goodness me, Meg--!" he protested, suddenly sitting up, alert and
angry. Tibby, for all his defects, had a genuine personality.

"Well, they're as near the right sort as you can imagine."

"No, no--oh, no!"

"I was thinking of the younger son, whom I once classed as a ninny,
but who came back so ill from Nigeria. He's gone out there again, Evie
Wilcox tells me--out to his duty."

"Duty" always elicited a groan.

"He doesn't want the money, it is work he wants, though it is beastly
work--dull country, dishonest natives, an eternal fidget over fresh
water and food... A nation that can produce men of that sort may well be
proud. No wonder England has become an Empire.

"EMPIRE!"

"I can't bother over results," said Margaret, a little sadly. "They are
too difficult for me. I can only look at the men. An Empire bores me,
so far, but I can appreciate the heroism that builds it up. London
bores me, but what thousands of splendid people are labouring to make
London--"

"What it is," he sneered.

"What it is, worse luck. I want activity without civilisation. How
paradoxical! Yet I expect that is what we shall find in heaven."

"And I," said Tibby, "want civilisation without activity, which, I
expect, is what we shall find in the other place."

"You needn't go as far as the other place, Tibbikins, if you want that.
You can find it at Oxford."

"Stupid--"

"If I'm stupid, get me back to the house-hunting. I'll even live in
Oxford if you like--North Oxford. I'll live anywhere except Bournemouth,
Torquay, and Cheltenham. Oh yes, or Ilfracombe and Swanage and Tunbridge
Wells and Surbiton and Bedford. There on no account."

"London, then."

"I agree, but Helen rather wants to get away from London. However,
there's no reason we shouldn't have a house in the country and also a
flat in town, provided we all stick together and contribute. Though of
course--Oh, how one does maunder on and to think, to think of the people
who are really poor. How do they live? Not to move about the world would
kill me."

As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a state of
extreme excitement.

"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess. A woman's been
here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?" (Helen was fond of supplying
her own surprise.) "Yes, for her husband, and it really is so."

"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who had lately
taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives and boots.

"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up,
Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good woman; have a good
look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the
antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh, and she so magnificently dressed
and tinkling like a chandelier."

"Now, Helen, what did really happen?"

"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door
like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open.
Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my husband, what I have reason to
believe is here.' No--how unjust one is. She said 'whom,' not 'what.'
She got it perfectly. So I said, 'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan,
Miss,' and there we were.

"Lan?"

"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline."

"But what an extraordinary--"

"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding
here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my
beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.'"

"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.

"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful experience.
Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a husband as if he were
an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and for a long time
suffered no inconvenience. But all night, and all this morning her
apprehensions grew. Breakfast didn't seem the same--no, no more did
lunch, and so she strolled up to 2 Wickham Place as being the most
likely place for the missing article."

"But how on earth--"

"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she kept repeating,
not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked her what she did
know. Some knew what others knew, and others didn't, and then others
again had better be careful. Oh dear, she was incompetent! She had
a face like a silkworm, and the dining-room reeks of orris-root. We
chatted pleasantly a little about husbands, and I wondered where hers
was too, and advised her to go to the police. She thanked me. We agreed
that Mr. Lanoline's a notty, notty man, and hasn't no business to go
on the lardy-da. But I think she suspected me up to the last. Bags I
writing to Aunt Juley about this. Now, Meg, remember--bags I."

"Bag it by all means," murmured Margaret, putting down her work. "I'm
not sure that this is so funny, Helen. It means some horrible volcano
smoking somewhere, doesn't it?"

"I don't think so--she doesn't really mind. The admirable creature isn't
capable of tragedy."

"Her husband may be, though," said Margaret, moving to the window.

"Oh no, not likely. No one capable of tragedy could have married Mrs.
Lanoline."

"Was she pretty?"

"Her figure may have been good once."

The flats, their only outlook, hung like an ornate curtain between
Margaret and the welter of London. Her thoughts turned sadly
to house-hunting. Wickham Place had been so safe. She feared,
fantastically, that her own little flock might be moving into turmoil
and squalor, into nearer contact with such episodes as these.

"Tibby and I have again been wondering where we'll live next September,"
she said at last.

"Tibby had better first wonder what he'll do," retorted Helen; and that
topic was resumed, but with acrimony. Then tea came, and after tea Helen
went on preparing her speech, and Margaret prepared one, too, for they
were going out to a discussion society on the morrow. But her thoughts
were poisoned. Mrs. Lanoline had risen out of the abyss, like a faint
smell, a goblin football, telling of a life where love and hatred had
both decayed.

The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day, just as
they were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called. He was a clerk
in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company. Thus much
from his card. He had come "about the lady yesterday." Thus much from
Annie, who had shown him into the dining-room.

"Cheers, children!" cried Helen. "It's Mrs. Lanoline."

Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not the
gay dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless, who had
already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that are so
common in London, and that haunt some streets of the city like accusing
presences. One guessed him as the third generation, grandson to the
shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had sucked into the town; as one
of the thousands who have lost the life of the body and failed to reach
the life of the spirit. Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a
hint of primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might
have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened, wondered
whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coat and a
couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own case, but during the last
few weeks she had doubted whether it humanised the majority, so wide
and so widening is the gulf that stretches between the natural and the
philosophic man, so many the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to
cross it. She knew this type very well--the vague aspirations, the
mental dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew
the very tones in which he would address her. She was only unprepared
for an example of her own visiting-card.

"You wouldn't remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?" said he, uneasily
familiar.

"No; I can't say I do."

"Well, that was how it happened, you see."

"Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don't remember."

"It was a concert at the Queen's Hall. I think you will recollect," he
added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it included a performance of
the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven."

"We hear the Fifth practically every time it's done, so I'm not sure--do
you remember, Helen?"

"Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?"

He thought not.

"Then I don't remember. That's the only Beethoven I ever remember
specially."

"And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently of
course."

"Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even oftener than
I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?"

"Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel."

"The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret.

"Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake."

"The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling too,
and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for,
though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to give one.

"That's so, calling too--a mistake."

"Then why--?" began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.

"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs. Bast, 'I
have to pay a call on some friends,' and Mrs. Bast said to me, 'Do go.'
While I was gone, however, she wanted me on important business, and
thought I had come here, owing to the card, and so came after me, and I
beg to tender my apologies, and hers as well, for any inconvenience we
may have inadvertently caused you."

"No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don't understand."

An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but was
obviously lying, and Helen didn't see why he should get off. She had the
cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister's pressure, she said, "I still
don't understand. When did you say you paid this call?"

"Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a
foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream.

"This afternoon call."

"In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to see
how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said, "Saturday
afternoon or Sunday afternoon?"

"S--Saturday."

"Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on Sunday, when your
wife came here. A long visit."

"I don't call that fair," said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and handsome.
There was fight in his eyes. "I know what you mean, and it isn't so."

"Oh, don't let us mind," said Margaret, distressed again by odours from
the abyss.

"It was something else," he asserted, his elaborate manner breaking
down. "I was somewhere else to what you think, so there!"

"It was good of you to come and explain," she said. "The rest is
naturally no concern of ours."

"Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel?"

Margaret nodded.

"It's a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don't you
see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson's
Prince Otto?"

Helen and Tibby groaned gently.

"That's another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in that. I
wanted--" He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his culture
came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. "I walked all the Saturday night,"
said Leonard. "I walked." A thrill of approval ran through the sisters.
But culture closed in again. He asked whether they had ever read E. V.
Lucas's Open Road.

Said Helen, "No doubt it's another beautiful book, but I'd rather hear
about your road."

"Oh, I walked."

"How far?"

"I don't know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my watch."

"Were you walking alone, may I ask?"

"Yes," he said, straightening himself; "but we'd been talking it over at
the office. There's been a lot of talk at the office lately about these
things. The fellows there said one steers by the Pole Star, and I looked
it up in the celestial atlas, but once out of doors everything gets so
mixed."

"Don't talk to me about the Pole Star," interrupted Helen, who was
becoming interested. "I know its little ways. It goes round and round,
and you go round after it."

"Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then the
trees, and towards morning it got cloudy."

Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room. He
knew that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did not want to
hear him trying.

Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more than
they knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm more easily.

"Where did you start from?" cried Margaret. "Do tell us more."

"I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the office I said
to myself, 'I must have a walk once in a way. If I don't take this walk
now, I shall never take it.' I had a bit of dinner at Wimbledon, and
then--"

"But not good country there, is it?"

"It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and being out
was the great thing. I did get into woods, too, presently."

"Yes, go on," said Helen.

"You've no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it's dark."

"Did you actually go off the roads?"

"Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it is that
it's more difficult to find one's way.

"Mr. Bast, you're a born adventurer," laughed Margaret. "No professional
athlete would have attempted what you've done. It's a wonder your walk
didn't end in a broken neck. Whatever did your wife say?"

"Professional athletes never move without lanterns and compasses," said
Helen. "Besides, they can't walk. It tires them. Go on."

"I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus."

"Yes, but the wood. This 'ere wood. How did you get out of it?"

"I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a good
bit uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the road went
off into grass, and I got into another wood. That was awful, with gorse
bushes. I did wish I'd never come, but suddenly it got light--just while
I seemed going under one tree. Then I found a road down to a station,
and took the first train I could back to London."

"But was the dawn wonderful?" asked Helen.

With unforgettable sincerity he replied, "No." The word flew again like
a pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had seemed ignoble or
literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R. L. S. and the "love of
the earth" and his silk top-hat. In the presence of these women Leonard
had arrived, and he spoke with a flow, an exultation, that he had seldom
known.

"The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention."

"Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know."

"--and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so cold
too. I'm glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more than I can
say. And besides--you can believe me or not as you choose--I was very
hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon--I meant it to last me all night
like other dinners. I never thought that walking would make such a
difference. Why, when you're walking you want, as it were, a breakfast
and luncheon and tea during the night as well, and I'd nothing but a
packet of Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn't what
you may call enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did
stick. I--I was determined. Oh, hang it all! what's the good--I mean,
the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day,
same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any
other game. You ought to see once in a way what's going on outside, if
it's only nothing particular after all."

"I should just think you ought," said Helen, sitting--on the edge of the
table.

The sound of a lady's voice recalled him from sincerity, and he said:
"Curious it should all come about from reading something of Richard
Jefferies."

"Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you're wrong there. It didn't. It came from
something far greater."

But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies--Borrow,
Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and the outburst
ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these great names. The fault
is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use them for sign-posts we
mistake the sign-post for the destination. And Leonard had reached the
destination. He had visited the county of Surrey when darkness covered
its amenities, and its cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every
twelve hours this miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for
himself. Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater
than Jefferies' books--the spirit that led Jefferies to write them;
and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was part of the
eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.

"Then you don't think I was foolish?" he asked becoming again the naive
and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.

"Heavens, no!" replied Margaret.

"Heaven help us if we do!" replied Helen.

"I'm very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand--not if
I explained for days."

"No, it wasn't foolish!" cried Helen, her eyes aflame. "You've pushed
back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you."

"You've not been content to dream as we have--"

"Though we have walked, too--"

"I must show you a picture upstairs--"

Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their
evening party.

"Oh, bother, not to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out; but
do, do, come round again and have a talk." "Yes, you must--do," echoed
Margaret.

Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: "No, I shall not. It's better
like this."

"Why better?" asked Margaret.

"No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look
back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life.
Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and
there we had better leave it."

"That's rather a sad view of life, surely."

"Things so often get spoiled."

"I know," flashed Helen, "but people don't."

He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true
imagination and false. What he said wasn't wrong, but it wasn't right,
and a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument
might be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever. He
thanked the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a
moment's awkwardness, and then Helen said: "Go, then; perhaps you know
best; but never forget you're better than Jefferies." And he went. Their
hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and
vanished with its accomplished load into the evening.

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric
lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the
side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson
battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated
the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately
painted ceiling, which adorned while it did not distract. She had never
known the clear-cut armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her
tinted wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life,
and to brighten it he had ruled off few corners for romance. The Miss
Schlegels--or, to speak more accurately, his interview with them--were
to fill such a corner, nor was it by any means the first time that
he had talked intimately to strangers. The habit was analogous to a
debauch, an outlet, though the worst of outlets, for instincts that
would not be denied. Terrifying him, it would beat down his suspicions
and prudence until he was confiding secrets to people whom he had
scarcely seen. It brought him many fears and some pleasant memories.
Perhaps the keenest happiness he had ever known was during a railway
journey to Cambridge, where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken
to him. They had got into conversation, and gradually Leonard flung
reticence aside, told some of his domestic troubles and hinted at the
rest. The undergraduate, supposing they could start a friendship, asked
him to "coffee after hall," which he accepted, but afterwards grew shy,
and took care not to stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged.
He did not want Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with
Jacky, and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand
this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an interesting
creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they to him were denizens
of Romance, who must keep to the corner he had assigned them, pictures
that must not walk out of their frames.

His behaviour over Margaret's visiting-card had been typical. His
had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money and no
inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He could not leave
his wife, and he did not want to hit her. Petulance and squalor were
enough. Here "that card" had come in. Leonard, though furtive, was
untidy, and left it lying about. Jacky found it, and then began, "What's
that card, eh?" "Yes, don't you wish you knew what that card was?" "Len,
who's Miss Schlegel?" etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke,
now as a grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It
followed them when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It was
submitted to third parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it became the
battlefield on which the souls of Leonard and his wife contended. Why
did he not say, "A lady took my umbrella, another gave me this that I
might call for my umbrella"? Because Jacky would have disbelieved him?
Partly, but chiefly because he was sentimental. No affection gathered
round the card, but it symbolised the life of culture, that Jacky should
never spoil. At night he would say to himself, "Well, at all events, she
doesn't know about that card. Yah! done her there!"

Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear.
She drew her own conclusion--she was only capable of drawing one
conclusion--and in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the Friday
Leonard had refused to speak to her, and had spent the evening observing
the stars. On the Saturday he went up, as usual, to town, but he came
not back Saturday night, nor Sunday morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The
inconvenience grew intolerable, and though she was now of a retiring
habit, and shy of women, she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned
in her absence. The card, the fatal card, was gone from the pages of
Ruskin, and he guessed what had happened.

"Well?" he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter. "I know
where you've been, but you don't know where I've been."

Jacky sighed, said, "Len, I do think you might explain," and resumed
domesticity.

Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too silly--or
it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt them. His reticence
was not entirely the shoddy article that a business life promotes, the
reticence that pretends that nothing is something, and hides behind
the Daily Telegraph. The adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an
adventure for a clerk to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh
at him, you who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle
beside you and all the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may
laugh who think adventures silly. But do not be surprised if Leonard is
shy whenever he meets you, and if the Schlegels rather than Jacky hear
about the dawn.

That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent
joy. He was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as he
journeyed home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of wealth
had fallen, and there had been--he could not phrase it--a general
assertion of the wonder of the world. "My conviction," says the mystic,
"gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it," and they
had agreed that there was something beyond life's daily grey. He took
off his top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed
the unknown to be books, literature, clever conversation, culture. One
raised oneself by study, and got upsides with the world. But in that
quick interchange a new light dawned. Was that "something" walking in
the dark among the suburban hills?

He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street. London
came back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but all whom he
passed looked at him with a hostility that was the more impressive
because it was unconscious. He put his hat on. It was too big; his head
disappeared like a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at
the touch of the curly brim. He wore it a little backwards, and its
effect was greatly to elongate the face and to bring out the distance
between the eyes and the moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism.
No one felt uneasy as he titupped along the pavements, the heart of a
man ticking fast in his chest.

The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they
were both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that
could stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies,
had more kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at
one part of the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast
and of no one else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues
collided, fell ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all.
The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a
paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,
but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general
interest. After the paper came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast
also figured, appearing now as a bright spot in civilisation, now as a
dark spot, according to the temperament of the speaker. The subject of
the paper had been, "How ought I to dispose of my money?" the reader
professing to be a millionaire on the point of death, inclined to
bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but open
to conviction from other sources. The various parts had been assigned
beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing. The hostess assumed
the ungrateful role of "the millionaire's eldest son," and implored her
expiring parent not to dislocate Society by allowing such vast sums
to pass out of the family. Money was the fruit of self-denial, and the
second generation had a right to profit by the self-denial of the first.
What right had "Mr. Bast" to profit? The National Gallery was good
enough for the likes of him. After property had had its say--a saying
that is necessarily ungracious--the various philanthropists stepped
forward. Something must be done for "Mr. Bast"; his conditions must
be improved without impairing his independence; he must have a free
library, or free tennis-courts; his rent must be paid in such a way that
he did not know it was being paid; it must be made worth his while to
join the Territorials; he must be forcibly parted from his uninspiring
wife, the money going to her as compensation; he must be assigned a
Twin Star, some member of the leisured classes who would watch over him
ceaselessly (groans from Helen); he must be given food but no clothes,
clothes but no food, a third-return ticket to Venice, without either
food or clothes when he arrived there. In short, he might be given
anything and everything so long as it was not the money itself.

And here Margaret interrupted.

"Order, order, Miss Schlegel!" said the reader of the paper. "You are
here, I understand, to advise me in the interests of the Society for the
Preservation of Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. I cannot
have you speaking out of your role. It makes my poor head go round, and
I think you forget that I am very ill."

"Your head won't go round if only you'll listen to my argument," said
Margaret. "Why not give him the money itself? You're supposed to have
about thirty thousand a year."

"Have I? I thought I had a million."

"Wasn't a million your capital? Dear me! we ought to have settled that.
Still, it doesn't matter. Whatever you've got, I order you to give as
many poor men as you can three hundred a year each."

"But that would be pauperising them," said an earnest girl, who liked
the Schlegels, but thought them a little unspiritual at times.

"Not if you gave them so much. A big windfall would not pauperise a man.
It is these little driblets, distributed among too many, that do the
harm. Money's educational. It's far more educational than the things
it buys." There was a protest. "In a sense," added Margaret, but the
protest continued. "Well, isn't the most civilized thing going, the man
who has learnt to wear his income properly?"

"Exactly what your Mr. Basts won't do."

"Give them a chance. Give them money. Don't dole them out poetry-books
and railway-tickets like babies. Give them the wherewithal to buy these
things. When your Socialism comes it may be different, and we may think
in terms of commodities instead of cash. Till it comes give people
cash, for it is the warp of civilisation, whatever the woof may be. The
imagination ought to play upon money and realise it vividly, for it's
the--the second most important thing in the world. It is so slurred over
and hushed up, there is so little clear thinking--oh, political economy,
of course, but so few of us think clearly about our own private incomes,
and admit that independent thoughts are in nine cases out of ten the
result of independent means. Money: give Mr. Bast money, and don't
bother about his ideals. He'll pick up those for himself."

She leant back while the more earnest members of the club began to
misconstrue her. The female mind, though cruelly practical in daily
life, cannot bear to hear ideals belittled in conversation, and Miss
Schlegel was asked however she could say such dreadful things, and what
it would profit Mr. Bast if he gained the whole world and lost his own
soul. She answered, "Nothing, but he would not gain his soul until
he had gained a little of the world." Then they said, "No, we do not
believe it," and she admitted that an overworked clerk may save his soul
in the superterrestrial sense, where the effort will be taken for the
deed, but she denied that he will ever explore the spiritual resources
of this world, will ever know the rarer joys of the body, or attain to
clear and passionate intercourse with his fellows. Others had attacked
the fabric of Society--Property, Interest, etc.; she only fixed her eyes
on a few human beings, to see how, under present conditions, they could
be made happier. Doing good to humanity was useless: the many-coloured
efforts thereto spreading over the vast area like films and resulting in
an universal grey. To do good to one, or, as in this case, to a few, was
the utmost she dare hope for.

Between the idealists, and the political economists, Margaret had a
bad time. Disagreeing elsewhere, they agreed in disowning her, and
in keeping the administration of the millionaire's money in their
own hands. The earnest girl brought forward a scheme of "personal
supervision and mutual help," the effect of which was to alter poor
people until they became exactly like people who were not so poor. The
hostess pertinently remarked that she, as eldest son, might surely rank
among the millionaire's legatees. Margaret weakly admitted the claim,
and another claim was at once set up by Helen, who declared that she
had been the millionaire's housemaid for over forty years, overfed and
underpaid; was nothing to be done for her, so corpulent and poor? The
millionaire then read out her last will and testament, in which she left
the whole of her fortune to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then she
died. The serious parts of the discussion had been of higher merit than
the playful--in a men's debate is the reverse more general?--but the
meeting broke up hilariously enough, and a dozen happy ladies dispersed
to their homes.

Helen and Margaret walked with the earnest girl as far as Battersea
Bridge Station, arguing copiously all the way. When she had gone
they were conscious of an alleviation, and of the great beauty of the
evening. They turned back towards Oakley Street. The lamps and the
plane-trees, following the line of the embankment, struck a note of
dignity that is rare in English cities. The seats, almost deserted, were
here and there occupied by gentlefolk in evening dress, who had strolled
out from the houses behind to enjoy fresh air and the whisper of the
rising tide. There is something continental about Chelsea Embankment. It
is an open space used rightly, a blessing more frequent in Germany than
here. As Margaret and Helen sat down, the city behind them seemed to
be a vast theatre, an opera-house in which some endless trilogy was
performing, and they themselves a pair of satisfied subscribers, who did
not mind losing a little of the second act.

"Cold?"

"No."

"Tired?"

"Doesn't matter."

The earnest girl's train rumbled away over the bridge, "I say, Helen--"

"Well?"

"Are we really going to follow up Mr. Bast?"

"I don't know."

"I think we won't."

"As you like."

"It's no good, I think, unless you really mean to know people. The
discussion brought that home to me. We got on well enough with him in a
spirit of excitement, but think of rational intercourse. We mustn't play
at friendship. No, it's no good."

"There's Mrs. Lanoline, too," Helen yawned. "So dull."

"Just so, and possibly worse than dull."

"I should like to know how he got hold of your card."

"But he said--something about a concert and an umbrella."

"Then did the card see the wife--"

"Helen, come to bed."

"No, just a little longer, it is so beautiful. Tell me; oh yes; did you
say money is the warp of the world?"

"Yes."

"Then what's the woof?"

"Very much what one chooses," said Margaret. "It's something that isn't
money--one can't say more."

"Walking at night?"

"Probably."

"For Tibby, Oxford?"

"It seems so."

"For you?"

"Now that we have to leave Wickham Place, I begin to think it's that.
For Mrs. Wilcox it was certainly Howards End."

One's own name will carry immense distances. Mr. Wilcox, who was sitting
with friends many seats away, heard this, rose to his feet, and strolled
along towards the speakers.

"It is sad to suppose that places may ever be more important than
people," continued Margaret.

"Why, Meg? They're so much nicer generally. I'd rather think of that
forester's house in Pomerania than of the fat Herr Forstmeister who
lived in it."

"I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The
more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one
of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a
place."

Here Mr. Wilcox reached them. It was several weeks since they had met.

"How do you do?" he cried. "I thought I recognised your voices. Whatever
are you both doing down here?"

His tones were protective. He implied that one ought not to sit out
on Chelsea Embankment without a male escort. Helen resented this, but
Margaret accepted it as part of the good man's equipment.

"What an age it is since I've seen you, Mr. Wilcox. I met Evie in the
Tube, though, lately. I hope you have good news of your son."

"Paul?" said Mr. Wilcox, extinguishing his cigarette, and sitting down
between them. "Oh, Paul's all right. We had a line from Madeira. He'll
be at work again by now."

"Ugh--" said Helen, shuddering from complex causes.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Isn't the climate of Nigeria too horrible?"

"Some one's got to go," he said simply. "England will never keep her
trade overseas unless she is prepared to make sacrifices. Unless we get
firm in West Africa, Ger--untold complications may follow. Now tell me
all your news."

"Oh, we've had a splendid evening," cried Helen, who always woke up at
the advent of a visitor. "We belong to a kind of club that reads papers,
Margaret and I--all women, but there is a discussion after. This evening
it was on how one ought to leave one's money--whether to one's family,
or to the poor, and if so how--oh, most interesting."

The man of business smiled. Since his wife's death he had almost doubled
his income. He was an important figure at last, a reassuring name on
company prospectuses, and life had treated him very well. The world
seemed in his grasp as he listened to the River Thames, which still
flowed inland from the sea. So wonderful to the girls, it held no
mysteries for him. He had helped to shorten its long tidal trough by
taking shares in the lock at Teddington, and if he and other capitalists
thought good, some day it could be shortened again. With a good dinner
inside him and an amiable but academic woman on either flank, he felt
that his hands were on all the ropes of life, and that what he did not
know could not be worth knowing.

"Sounds a most original entertainment!" he exclaimed, and laughed in
his pleasant way. "I wish Evie would go to that sort of thing. But she
hasn't the time. She's taken to breeding Aberdeen terriers--jolly little
dogs."

"I expect we'd better be doing the same, really."

"We pretend we're improving ourselves, you see," said Helen a little
sharply, for the Wilcox glamour is not of the kind that returns, and she
had bitter memories of the days when a speech such as he had just made
would have impressed her favourably. "We suppose it a good thing to
waste an evening once a fortnight over a debate, but, as my sister says,
it may be better to breed dogs."

"Not at all. I don't agree with your sister. There's nothing like a
debate to teach one quickness. I often wish I had gone in for them when
I was a youngster. It would have helped me no end."

"Quickness--?"

"Yes. Quickness in argument. Time after time I've missed scoring a point
because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't. Oh, I
believe in these discussions."

The patronising tone, thought Margaret, came well enough from a man who
was old enough to be their father. She had always maintained that Mr.
Wilcox had a charm. In times of sorrow or emotion his inadequacy had
pained her, but it was pleasant to listen to him now, and to watch his
thick brown moustache and high forehead confronting the stars. But Helen
was nettled. The aim of their debates she implied was Truth.

"Oh yes, it doesn't much matter what subject you take," said he.

Margaret laughed and said, "But this is going to be far better than the
debate itself." Helen recovered herself and laughed too. "No, I won't go
on," she declared. "I'll just put our special case to Mr. Wilcox."

"About Mr. Bast? Yes, do. He'll be more lenient to a special case."

"But, Mr. Wilcox, do first light another cigarette. It's this. We've
just come across a young fellow, who's evidently very poor, and who
seems interest--"

"What's his profession?"

"Clerk."

"What in?"

"Do you remember, Margaret?"

"Porphyrion Fire Insurance Company."

"Oh yes; the nice people who gave Aunt Juley a new hearth rug. He seems
interesting, in some ways very, and one wishes one could help him. He is
married to a wife whom he doesn't seem to care for much. He likes books,
and what one may roughly call adventure, and if he had a chance--But he
is so poor. He lives a life where all the money is apt to go on nonsense
and clothes. One is so afraid that circumstances will be too strong
for him and that he will sink. Well, he got mixed up in our debate. He
wasn't the subject of it, but it seemed to bear on his point. Suppose
a millionaire died, and desired to leave money to help such a man. How
should he be helped? Should he be given three hundred pounds a year
direct, which was Margaret's plan? Most of them thought this would
pauperise him. Should he and those like him be given free libraries?
I said 'No!' He doesn't want more books to read, but to read books
rightly. My suggestion was he should be given something every year
towards a summer holiday, but then there is his wife, and they said she
would have to go too. Nothing seemed quite right! Now what do you think?
Imagine that you were a millionaire, and wanted to help the poor. What
would you do?"

Mr. Wilcox, whose fortune was not so very far below the standard
indicated, laughed exuberantly. "My dear Miss Schlegel, I will not rush
in where your sex has been unable to tread. I will not add another plan
to the numerous excellent ones that have been already suggested. My only
contribution is this: let your young friend clear out of the Porphyrion
Fire Insurance Company with all possible speed."

"Why?" said Margaret.

He lowered his voice. "This is between friends. It'll be in the
Receiver's hands before Christmas. It'll smash," he added, thinking that
she had not understood.

"Dear me, Helen, listen to that. And he'll have to get another place!"

"WILL have? Let him leave the ship before it sinks. Let him get one
now."

"Rather than wait, to make sure?"

"Decidedly."

"Why's that?"

Again the Olympian laugh, and the lowered voice. "Naturally the man
who's in a situation when he applies stands a better chance, is in a
stronger position, that the man who isn't. It looks as if he's worth
something. I know by myself--(this is letting you into the State
secrets)--it affects an employer greatly. Human nature, I'm afraid."

"I hadn't thought of that," murmured Margaret, while Helen said, "Our
human nature appears to be the other way round. We employ people because
they're unemployed. The boot man, for instance."

"And how does he clean the boots?"

"Not well," confessed Margaret.

"There you are!"

"Then do you really advise us to tell this youth--?"

"I advise nothing," he interrupted, glancing up and down the Embankment,
in case his indiscretion had been overheard. "I oughtn't to have
spoken--but I happen to know, being more or less behind the scenes. The
Porphyrion's a bad, bad concern--Now, don't say I said so. It's outside
the Tariff Ring."

"Certainly I won't say. In fact, I don't know what that means."

"I thought an insurance company never smashed," was Helen's
contribution. "Don't the others always run in and save them?"

"You're thinking of reinsurance," said Mr. Wilcox mildly. "It is exactly
there that the Porphyrion is weak. It has tried to undercut, has been
badly hit by a long series of small fires, and it hasn't been able to
reinsure. I'm afraid that public companies don't save one another for
love."

"'Human nature,' I suppose," quoted Helen, and he laughed and agreed
that it was. When Margaret said that she supposed that clerks, like
every one else, found it extremely difficult to get situations in these
days, he replied, "Yes, extremely," and rose to rejoin his friends. He
knew by his own office--seldom a vacant post, and hundreds of applicants
for it; at present no vacant post.

"And how's Howards End looking?" said Margaret, wishing to change the
subject before they parted. Mr. Wilcox was a little apt to think one
wanted to get something out of him.

"It's let."

"Really. And you wandering homeless in longhaired Chelsea? How strange
are the ways of Fate!"

"No; it's let unfurnished. We've moved."

"Why, I thought of you both as anchored there for ever. Evie never told
me."

"I dare say when you met Evie the thing wasn't settled. We only moved
a week ago. Paul has rather a feeling for the old place, and we held on
for him to have his holiday there; but, really, it is impossibly small.
Endless drawbacks. I forget whether you've been up to it?"

"As far as the house, never."

"Well, Howards End is one of those converted farms. They don't really
do, spend what you will on them. We messed away with a garage all among
the wych-elm roots, and last year we enclosed a bit of the meadow and
attempted a rockery. Evie got rather keen on Alpine plants. But it
didn't do--no, it didn't do. You remember, your sister will remember,
the farm with those abominable guinea-fowls, and the hedge that the old
woman never would cut properly, so that it all went thin at the
bottom. And, inside the house, the beams--and the staircase through a
door--picturesque enough, but not a place to live in." He glanced
over the parapet cheerfully. "Full tide. And the position wasn't right
either. The neighbourhood's getting suburban. Either be in London or out
of it, I say; so we've taken a house in Ducie Street, close to Sloane
Street, and a place right down in Shropshire--Oniton Grange. Ever heard
of Oniton? Do come and see us--right away from everywhere, up towards
Wales."

"What a change!" said Margaret. But the change was in her own voice,
which had become most sad. "I can't imagine Howards End or Hilton
without you."

"Hilton isn't without us," he replied. "Charles is there still."

"Still?" said Margaret, who had not kept up with the Charles's. "But I
thought he was still at Epsom. They were furnishing that Christmas--one
Christmas. How everything alters! I used to admire Mrs. Charles from our
windows very often. Wasn't it Epsom?"

"Yes, but they moved eighteen months ago. Charles, the good chap"--his
voice dropped--"thought I should be lonely. I didn't want him to move,
but he would, and took a house at the other end of Hilton, down by
the Six Hills. He had a motor, too. There they all are, a very jolly
party--he and she and the two grandchildren."

"I manage other people's affairs so much better than they manage them
themselves," said Margaret as they shook hands. "When you moved out of
Howards End, I should have moved Mr. Charles Wilcox into it. I should
have kept so remarkable a place in the family."

"So it is," he replied. "I haven't sold it, and don't mean to."

"No; but none of you are there."

"Oh, we've got a splendid tenant--Hamar Bryce, an invalid. If
Charles ever wanted it--but he won't. Dolly is so dependent on modern
conveniences. No, we have all decided against Howards End. We like it in
a way, but now we feel that it is neither one thing nor the other. One
must have one thing or the other."

"And some people are lucky enough to have both. You're doing yourself
proud, Mr. Wilcox. My congratulations."

"And mine," said Helen.

"Do remind Evie to come and see us--2 Wickham Place. We shan't be there
very long, either."

"You, too, on the move?"

"Next September," Margaret sighed.

"Every one moving! Good-bye."

The tide had begun to ebb. Margaret leant over the parapet and watched
it sadly. Mr. Wilcox had forgotten his wife, Helen her lover; she
herself was probably forgetting. Every one moving. Is it worth while
attempting the past when there is this continual flux even in the hearts
of men?

Helen roused her by saying: "What a prosperous vulgarian Mr. Wilcox has
grown! I have very little use for him in these days. However, he did
tell us about the Porphyrion. Let us write to Mr. Bast as soon as ever
we get home, and tell him to clear out of it at once."

"Do; yes, that's worth doing. Let us."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: As luck would have it for the Wilcox family, Mrs. Wilcox never informed Margaret that she was to have Howards End. Even after her friend's death, Margaret continues to be involved with the Wilcoxes. In spite of their seriousness and practicality, she recognizes the importance of embracing different kinds of people, for she realizes that because of men like the Wilcoxes, England has flourished. As she thinks about Mrs. Wilcox's life and death, she feels more optimistic about people and life, for Mrs. Wilcox lived a wonderfully balanced existence. Several weeks later, Helen returns from Germany, putting the three siblings together again. Tibby is looking to study at Oxford, which he finds remarkable not for the people but for the location. In conversation with her siblings, Margaret mentions that Charles Wilcox recently contacted her to inquire as to whether Mrs. Wilcox had mentioned anything about bequeathing something to her upon her death. Margaret replies that this was not the case, but they give her a small trinket anyway. Margaret sees this gesture as considerate and polite, completely unaware of the reason for the gift. It is evident that the Wilcoxes feel some guilt about disobeying the orders of the deceased. Two years have passed, and the Schlegels are continuing on as usual, although some things have changed. Their world is becoming more and more urbanized, and the day finally comes when the expiration of their lease on Wickham Place is imminent. Margaret must spend a good deal of time house hunting, and she discusses this with Tibby, who is home on vacation from his studies at Oxford. During this conversation she reminds her brother of the importance of working, or at least seeming to work, in order to keep busy. Tibby is evolving into an interesting character, showing true Schlegel traits such as the refusal to conform to the typical expectations of society. Helen enters in the midst of Margaret and Tibby's discussion with baffling news. She has just received a female caller who was seeking her husband at Wickham Place. The woman, reports Helen, seemed very suspicious and was called Mrs. Lanoline, although Helen is not exactly sure if she properly heard her name. In fact, the woman is Jacky, Leonard Bast's wife, but the Schlegels do not yet know this and are mystified by the situation. It is highly bizarre that an unknown woman would come to them seeking her husband. The next day, Leonard Bast comes to call on the Schlegels. As it has been several years since the incident involving Helen and his umbrella, the Schlegels do not recall who he is. Leonard reminds them of their meeting and of receiving Margaret's card, although they admit that they go to music concerts so often that they have a hard time remembering each specific instance. Leonard explains that he was influenced by his reading to take a long walk out of the city in order to see the dawn. Because he was gone for so long, Jacky grew suspicious, found Margaret's card and assumed that he would be at Wickham Place. The Schlegel sisters are far more interested in Leonard's poetic evening than in Jacky's reasons for coming. Helen is especially enraptured. Leonard keeps alluding to literature in describing his reasons for wanting to walk all night, but the girls are more interested in his personal motivation. He describes how when he finally saw the dawn, it was much less than he expected, and Helen agrees with him wholeheartedly on this point. Their conversation is cut short when the Schlegels must go to dinner, but the encounter is so pleasant that Leonard does not want to meet them again. He feels that no subsequent meeting could ever compare to this one, thus he does not want to spoil it. As he walks home, he remembers the ladies fondly. It was delightful for him to be able to talk to them about his experience, for he finds it very difficult to explain such things to Jacky. Seeing Leonard Bast again impacts the Schlegel sisters as well. They cannot help but to bring him up with their friends. At one gathering, a discussion occurs regarding how a theoretical inheritance might best be distributed. They agree on the need to benefit the less fortunate, and as they consider people like Leonard, they end up referring to him as "Mr. Bast." Some members of the party think that Mr. Bast should be given the opportunity to be cultured through exposure to experiences that he may not otherwise be able to afford. Margaret, however, believes that he should be given the money so that he may choose his own experiences. This way he will be able to figure out his life for himself without having somebody else's ideals imposed upon him. On the way home from this gathering, the Schlegel sisters encounter Mr. Wilcox, who has become much more financially successful since his wife's death, acquiring property all over England. Leonard Bast continues to be a presence in the ladies' thoughts, and they bring him up in conversation with Mr. Wilcox. He inquires as to how this Mr. Bast is employed, and upon hearing that he works at an insurance company known as Porphyrion, he informs the sisters that the company is about to crash and that he should get out while he is ahead. It will be easier for him to find another job while he is employed rather than to wait until he is unemployed. It is also in this conversation that Mr. Wilcox informs the Schlegels that he has rented out Howards End because it does not suit his family's purposes. Once they bid Mr. Wilcox farewell, Margaret and Helen resolve to invite Leonard over once again in order to inform him of his company's situation.