prompt:
Chapter: The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near
Bloomsbury--a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial
England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas,
and for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books,
mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries.
That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them, for
they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken
by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss
Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly.
Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help
towards freshening up one's face in the train. Lucy promised, a little
depressed.

"But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse
to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by."

Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to
drum nervously upon her card-case.

"We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you," Miss Catharine
continued. "It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But
perhaps he will come out and join you later on."

"Or does his work keep him in London?" said Miss Teresa, the more acute
and less kindly of the two sisters.

"However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see
him."

"No one will see Lucy off," interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. "She doesn't
like it."

"No, I hate seeings-off," said Lucy.

"Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case--"

"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren't going? It is such a pleasure to have
met you!"

They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: "That's all right. We just got
through that time."

But her mother was annoyed. "I should be told, dear, that I am
unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn't tell your friends about
Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing, and
almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is most
unpleasant."

Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans'
character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would
be everywhere in no time.

"But why shouldn't it be everywhere in no time?"

"Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England. I
shall tell them then. It's much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let's turn in
here."

"Here" was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must
take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was
on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a
mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses
and gods.

"Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let's go to Mudie's. I'll buy a
guide-book."

"You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I'm
so stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this
hole-and-corner work. You've got rid of Cecil--well and good, and I'm
thankful he's gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not
announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?"

"It's only for a few days."

"But why at all?"

Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite
easy to say, "Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he
hears I've given up Cecil may begin again"--quite easy, and it had
the incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She
disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that
king of terrors--Light. Ever since that last evening at Florence she had
deemed it unwise to reveal her soul.

Mrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, "My daughter won't
answer me; she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids than
with Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if she
can leave her home." And as in her case thoughts never remained unspoken
long, she burst out with: "You're tired of Windy Corner."

This was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner when
she escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed no
longer. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought straight,
but not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She did not
acknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself must assist
in that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very instruments of
life. She only felt, "I do not love George; I broke off my engagement
because I did not love George; I must go to Greece because I do not
love George; it is more important that I should look up gods in the
dictionary than that I should help my mother; everyone else is behaving
very badly." She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to do
what she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded with
the conversation.

"Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of Windy
Corner."

"Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?"

She laughed faintly, "Half a minute would be nearer."

"Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?"

"Hush, mother! People will hear you"; for they had entered Mudie's. She
bought Baedeker, and then continued: "Of course I want to live at home;
but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to
be away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my
money next year."

Tears came into her mother's eyes.

Driven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed
"eccentricity," Lucy determined to make this point clear. "I've seen the
world so little--I felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so little
of life; one ought to come up to London more--not a cheap ticket like
to-day, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with some
other girl."

"And mess with typewriters and latch-keys," exploded Mrs. Honeychurch.
"And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And
call it a Mission--when no one wants you! And call it Duty--when
it means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Work--when
thousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And then
to prepare yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad with
them."

"I want more independence," said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wanted
something, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that we
have not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence: those
had been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather than
short skirts and latch-keys. But independence was certainly her cue.

"Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down and
round the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food.
Despise the house that your father built and the garden that he planted,
and our dear view--and then share a flat with another girl."

Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: "Perhaps I spoke hastily."

"Oh, goodness!" her mother flashed. "How you do remind me of Charlotte
Bartlett!"

"Charlotte!" flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid pain.

"More every moment."

"I don't know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the very
least alike."

"Well, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same taking
back of words. You and Charlotte trying to divide two apples among three
people last night might be sisters."

"What rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, it's rather a pity you
asked her to stop. I warned you about her; I begged you, implored you
not to, but of course it was not listened to."

"There you go."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Charlotte again, my dear; that's all; her very words."

Lucy clenched her teeth. "My point is that you oughtn't to have
asked Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point." And the
conversation died off into a wrangle.

She and her mother shopped in silence, spoke little in the train, little
again in the carriage, which met them at Dorking Station. It had poured
all day and as they ascended through the deep Surrey lanes showers of
water fell from the over-hanging beech-trees and rattled on the hood.
Lucy complained that the hood was stuffy. Leaning forward, she looked
out into the steaming dusk, and watched the carriage-lamp pass like a
search-light over mud and leaves, and reveal nothing beautiful. "The
crush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable," she remarked. For
they were to pick up Miss Bartlett at Summer Street, where she had been
dropped as the carriage went down, to pay a call on Mr. Beebe's old
mother. "We shall have to sit three a side, because the trees drop, and
yet it isn't raining. Oh, for a little air!" Then she listened to the
horse's hoofs--"He has not told--he has not told." That melody was
blurred by the soft road. "CAN'T we have the hood down?" she demanded,
and her mother, with sudden tenderness, said: "Very well, old lady, stop
the horse." And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and Powell wrestled with
the hood, and squirted water down Mrs. Honeychurch's neck. But now
that the hood was down, she did see something that she would have
missed--there were no lights in the windows of Cissie Villa, and round
the garden gate she fancied she saw a padlock.

"Is that house to let again, Powell?" she called.

"Yes, miss," he replied.

"Have they gone?"

"It is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his father's
rheumatism has come on, so he can't stop on alone, so they are trying to
let furnished," was the answer.

"They have gone, then?"

"Yes, miss, they have gone."

Lucy sank back. The carriage stopped at the Rectory. She got out to call
for Miss Bartlett. So the Emersons had gone, and all this bother about
Greece had been unnecessary. Waste! That word seemed to sum up the whole
of life. Wasted plans, wasted money, wasted love, and she had wounded
her mother. Was it possible that she had muddled things away? Quite
possible. Other people had. When the maid opened the door, she was
unable to speak, and stared stupidly into the hall.

Miss Bartlett at once came forward, and after a long preamble asked
a great favour: might she go to church? Mr. Beebe and his mother had
already gone, but she had refused to start until she obtained her
hostess's full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting a
good ten minutes more.

"Certainly," said the hostess wearily. "I forgot it was Friday. Let's
all go. Powell can go round to the stables."

"Lucy dearest--"

"No church for me, thank you."

A sigh, and they departed. The church was invisible, but up in the
darkness to the left there was a hint of colour. This was a stained
window, through which some feeble light was shining, and when the door
opened Lucy heard Mr. Beebe's voice running through the litany to a
minute congregation. Even their church, built upon the slope of the hill
so artfully, with its beautiful raised transept and its spire of silvery
shingle--even their church had lost its charm; and the thing one never
talked about--religion--was fading like all the other things.

She followed the maid into the Rectory.

Would she object to sitting in Mr. Beebe's study? There was only that
one fire.

She would not object.

Some one was there already, for Lucy heard the words: "A lady to wait,
sir."

Old Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon a
gout-stool.

"Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!" he quavered; and Lucy saw
an alteration in him since last Sunday.

Not a word would come to her lips. George she had faced, and could have
faced again, but she had forgotten how to treat his father.

"Miss Honeychurch, dear, we are so sorry! George is so sorry! He thought
he had a right to try. I cannot blame my boy, and yet I wish he had told
me first. He ought not to have tried. I knew nothing about it at all."

If only she could remember how to behave!

He held up his hand. "But you must not scold him."

Lucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe's books.

"I taught him," he quavered, "to trust in love. I said: 'When love
comes, that is reality.' I said: 'Passion does not blind. No. Passion
is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever
really understand.'" He sighed: "True, everlastingly true, though my day
is over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry!
He said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in; that
whatever you felt you did not mean. Yet"--his voice gathered strength:
he spoke out to make certain--"Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?"

Lucy selected a book--a volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holding
it up to her eyes, she said: "I have no wish to discuss Italy or any
subject connected with your son."

"But you do remember it?"

"He has misbehaved himself from the first."

"I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judge
behaviour. I--I--suppose he has."

Feeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round to
him. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they were
sunken deep, gleamed with a child's courage.

"Why, he has behaved abominably," she said. "I am glad he is sorry. Do
you know what he did?"

"Not 'abominably,'" was the gentle correction. "He only tried when he
should not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch: you are
going to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George's life saying
he is abominable."

"No, of course," said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil.
"'Abominable' is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son. I
think I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have gone.
I shall not be so very late--"

"Especially as he has gone under," he said quietly.

"What was that?"

"Gone under naturally." He beat his palms together in silence; his head
fell on his chest.

"I don't understand."

"As his mother did."

"But, Mr. Emerson--MR. EMERSON--what are you talking about?"

"When I wouldn't have George baptized," said he.

Lucy was frightened.

"And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that fever
when he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgement." He
shuddered. "Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing and
broken away from her parents. Oh, horrible--worst of all--worse than
death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted
your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in
again! A judgement! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman had
dropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shall
we slip back into the darkness for ever?"

"I don't know," gasped Lucy. "I don't understand this sort of thing. I
was not meant to understand it."

"But Mr. Eager--he came when I was out, and acted according to his
principles. I don't blame him or any one... but by the time George
was well she was ill. He made her think about sin, and she went under
thinking about it."

It was thus that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife in the sight of God.

"Oh, how terrible!" said Lucy, forgetting her own affairs at last.

"He was not baptized," said the old man. "I did hold firm." And he
looked with unwavering eyes at the rows of books, as if--at what
cost!--he had won a victory over them. "My boy shall go back to the
earth untouched."

She asked whether young Mr. Emerson was ill.

"Oh--last Sunday." He started into the present. "George last Sunday--no,
not ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son.
Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful,
and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and
go. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He will
never think anything worth while. You remember that church at Florence?"

Lucy did remember, and how she had suggested that George should collect
postage stamps.

"After you left Florence--horrible. Then we took the house here, and he
goes bathing with your brother, and became better. You saw him bathing?"

"I am so sorry, but it is no good discussing this affair. I am deeply
sorry about it."

"Then there came something about a novel. I didn't follow it at all; I
had to hear so much, and he minded telling me; he finds me too old. Ah,
well, one must have failures. George comes down to-morrow, and takes me
up to his London rooms. He can't bear to be about here, and I must be
where he is."

"Mr. Emerson," cried the girl, "don't leave at least, not on my account.
I am going to Greece. Don't leave your comfortable house."

It was the first time her voice had been kind and he smiled. "How good
everyone is! And look at Mr. Beebe housing me--came over this morning
and heard I was going! Here I am so comfortable with a fire."

"Yes, but you won't go back to London. It's absurd."

"I must be with George; I must make him care to live, and down here he
can't. He says the thought of seeing you and of hearing about you--I am
not justifying him: I am only saying what has happened."

"Oh, Mr. Emerson"--she took hold of his hand--"you mustn't. I've been
bother enough to the world by now. I can't have you moving out of your
house when you like it, and perhaps losing money through it--all on my
account. You must stop! I am just going to Greece."

"All the way to Greece?"

Her manner altered.

"To Greece?"

"So you must stop. You won't talk about this business, I know. I can
trust you both."

"Certainly you can. We either have you in our lives, or leave you to the
life that you have chosen."

"I shouldn't want--"

"I suppose Mr. Vyse is very angry with George? No, it was wrong of
George to try. We have pushed our beliefs too far. I fancy that we
deserve sorrow."

She looked at the books again--black, brown, and that acrid theological
blue. They surrounded the visitors on every side; they were piled on the
tables, they pressed against the very ceiling. To Lucy who could not see
that Mr. Emerson was profoundly religious, and differed from Mr. Beebe
chiefly by his acknowledgment of passion--it seemed dreadful that the
old man should crawl into such a sanctum, when he was unhappy, and be
dependent on the bounty of a clergyman.

More certain than ever that she was tired, he offered her his chair.

"No, please sit still. I think I will sit in the carriage."

"Miss Honeychurch, you do sound tired."

"Not a bit," said Lucy, with trembling lips.

"But you are, and there's a look of George about you. And what were you
saying about going abroad?"

She was silent.

"Greece"--and she saw that he was thinking the word over--"Greece; but
you were to be married this year, I thought."

"Not till January, it wasn't," said Lucy, clasping her hands. Would she
tell an actual lie when it came to the point?

"I suppose that Mr. Vyse is going with you. I hope--it isn't because
George spoke that you are both going?"

"No."

"I hope that you will enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse."

"Thank you."

At that moment Mr. Beebe came back from church. His cassock was covered
with rain. "That's all right," he said kindly. "I counted on you two
keeping each other company. It's pouring again. The entire congregation,
which consists of your cousin, your mother, and my mother, stands
waiting in the church, till the carriage fetches it. Did Powell go
round?"

"I think so; I'll see."

"No--of course, I'll see. How are the Miss Alans?"

"Very well, thank you."

"Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece?"

"I--I did."

"Don't you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake the
two Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go back--keep warm. I think three
is such a courageous number to go travelling." And he hurried off to the
stables.

"He is not going," she said hoarsely. "I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does stop
behind in England."

Somehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil,
she would have lied again; but he seemed so near the end of things, so
dignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account, and
the books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths that
he had traversed, that the true chivalry--not the worn-out chivalry
of sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all the
old--awoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil was
not her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the risk
became a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said: "You are leaving
him? You are leaving the man you love?"

"I--I had to."

"Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?"

Terror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincing
speech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the world
when she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her in
silence, and then said: "My dear, I am worried about you. It seems to
me"--dreamily; she was not alarmed--"that you are in a muddle."

She shook her head.

"Take an old man's word; there's nothing worse than a muddle in all the
world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound
so dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror--on the
things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I
used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know
better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware
of muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be
annoyed with me and weren't? Do you remember before, when you refused
the room with the view? Those were muddles--little, but ominous--and I
am fearing that you are in one now." She was silent. "Don't trust me,
Miss Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult."
She was still silent. "'Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public
performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you
go along.' I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his
functions as he goes along--especially the function of Love." Then he
burst out excitedly; "That's it; that's what I mean. You love George!"
And after his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy like
waves from the open sea.

"But you do," he went on, not waiting for contradiction. "You love the
boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word
expresses it. You won't marry the other man for his sake."

"How dare you!" gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears.
"Oh, how like a man!--I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking
about a man."

"But you are."

She summoned physical disgust.

"You're shocked, but I mean to shock you. It's the only hope at times. I
can reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be wasted.
You have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the tenderness, and
the comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that really matter, and
for which you marry. I know that, with George, you will find them, and
that you love him. Then be his wife. He is already part of you. Though
you fly to Greece, and never see him again, or forget his very name,
George will work in your thoughts till you die. It isn't possible to
love and to part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love,
ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by
experience that the poets are right: love is eternal."

Lucy began to cry with anger, and though her anger passed away soon, her
tears remained.

"I only wish poets would say this, too: love is of the body; not
the body, but of the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we
confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! Your
soul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with which
superstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls. I cannot say how
they came nor whither they go, but we have them, and I see you ruining
yours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in; it
is hell." Then he checked himself. "What nonsense I have talked--how
abstract and remote! And I have made you cry! Dear girl, forgive my
prosiness; marry my boy. When I think what life is, and how seldom love
is answered by love--Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the
world was made."

She could not understand him; the words were indeed remote. Yet as he
spoke the darkness was withdrawn, veil after veil, and she saw to the
bottom of her soul.

"Then, Lucy--"

"You've frightened me," she moaned. "Cecil--Mr. Beebe--the ticket's
bought--everything." She fell sobbing into the chair. "I'm caught in
the tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break the
whole of life for his sake. They trusted me."

A carriage drew up at the front-door.

"Give George my love--once only. Tell him 'muddle.'" Then she arranged
her veil, while the tears poured over her cheeks inside.

"Lucy--"

"No--they are in the hall--oh, please not, Mr. Emerson--they trust me--"

"But why should they, when you have deceived them?"

Mr. Beebe opened the door, saying: "Here's my mother."

"You're not worthy of their trust."

"What's that?" said Mr. Beebe sharply.

"I was saying, why should you trust her when she deceived you?"

"One minute, mother." He came in and shut the door.

"I don't follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom?"

"I mean she has pretended to you that she did not love George. They have
loved one another all along."

Mr. Beebe looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet, and his white
face, with its ruddy whiskers, seemed suddenly inhuman. A long black
column, he stood and awaited her reply.

"I shall never marry him," quavered Lucy.

A look of contempt came over him, and he said, "Why not?"

"Mr. Beebe--I have misled you--I have misled myself--"

"Oh, rubbish, Miss Honeychurch!"

"It is not rubbish!" said the old man hotly. "It's the part of people
that you don't understand."

Mr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man's shoulder pleasantly.

"Lucy! Lucy!" called voices from the carriage.

"Mr. Beebe, could you help me?"

He looked amazed at the request, and said in a low, stern voice: "I
am more grieved than I can possibly express. It is lamentable,
lamentable--incredible."

"What's wrong with the boy?" fired up the other again.

"Nothing, Mr. Emerson, except that he no longer interests me. Marry
George, Miss Honeychurch. He will do admirably."

He walked out and left them. They heard him guiding his mother
up-stairs.

"Lucy!" the voices called.

She turned to Mr. Emerson in despair. But his face revived her. It was
the face of a saint who understood.

"Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed.
I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah, dear,
if I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave. You
have to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the muddle
that you have made yourself; and your mother and all your friends
will despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever right to
despise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery without a word
from him. Am I justified?" Into his own eyes tears came. "Yes, for we
fight for more than Love or Pleasure; there is Truth. Truth counts,
Truth does count."

"You kiss me," said the girl. "You kiss me. I will try."

He gave her a sense of deities reconciled, a feeling that, in gaining
the man she loved, she would gain something for the whole world.
Throughout the squalor of her homeward drive--she spoke at once--his
salutation remained. He had robbed the body of its taint, the world's
taunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.
She "never exactly understood," she would say in after years, "how he
managed to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole of
everything at once."

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

completion: Lucy and Mrs. Honeychurch meet with the Miss Alans at their hotel near Bloomsbury. They discuss making the final preparations for their trip to Greece. Lucy has still told no one of the end of the engagement; this leads to the Honeychurches being forced to tell a few uncomfortable lies. After they leave the Miss Alans, Mrs. Honeychurch gets after Lucy about keeping the end of the engagement a secret. She cannot understand the reasoning behind it. Lucy cannot bring herself to tell the truth: she is afraid that if George hears about the end of the engagement, he will confront her again. Mrs. Honeychurch is hurt. She thinks Lucy is leaving again simply because she is tired of Windy Corner. Lucy reminds Mrs. Honeychurch that next year the girl will come into her money. The reminder brings tears to Mrs. Honeychurch's eyes. Lucy speaks of moving to London and taking a flat with some other girls. Mrs. Honeychurch is upset by the idea. They continue to argue, and Mrs. Honeychurch says that Lucy is reminding her of Charlotte. Lucy is horrified by the idea, but sure enough, Lucy is beginning to sound like Charlotte. There is the same fussiness, the same worry in her words. They take the train home. On the carriage ride back from the station, Lucy sees that Cissie has been abandoned. George and Mr. Emerson have left. Lucy and Mrs. Honeychurch stop to pick up Charlotte, who wants to go to church. While Mrs. Honeychurch and Charlotte go to services, Lucy decides to wait in Mr. Beebe's study. She goes in, and there sits Mr. Emerson, dozing quietly. They have moved out of Cissie, but Mr. Emerson has not yet left Surrey. Mr. Emerson has heard about the confrontation with George; he now knows of all that has happened between George and Lucy. Lucy tries to be standoffish at first, refusing to talk about George. Mr. Emerson speaks about love, and the body, and George's honesty. The man's honesty and forwardness disarm Lucy. He tells her that George has "gone under," just as his mother did. Finally, we hear the story of how Mr. Emerson "murdered" his wife. Because of his stand against organized religion, Mr. Emerson and his wife did not have George baptized. When George was twelve, he contracted typhoid. Mrs. Emerson feared it was divine retribution. While Mr. Emerson was away, Mr. Eager came and spoke with Mrs. Emerson. The clergyman fueled the fears Mrs. Emerson was having. George was never baptized; Mr. Emerson stood firm. But even after George recovered, Mrs. Emerson was never the same. She died soon afterward. This story is the basis for Mr. Eager's outrageous slander that Mr. Emerson murdered his wife "in the sight of God. George, Mr. Emerson says, will go on living. But he will not think life is worth the trouble. He is his mother's son. After Lucy left them in Florence, George became deeply depressed. It has happened again. Lucy is increasingly troubled, and Mr. Emerson tries to justify his son's actions while apologizing at the same time. She tries to convince him to stay at Cissie villa. She explains that she will be going to Greece; there is no need for them to move on her account. Greece leads to questions about Cecil: Mr. Emerson assumes that Cecil will accompany her. At first she tries to lie about it. Mr. Beebe enters suddenly, and talks with the two of them briefly. He mentions that Lucy is going to Greece with the Miss Alans, and then leaves. Now Lucy is caught in her lie, and she admits to Mr. Emerson that she is going without Cecil. She tries to explain herself, but Mr. Emerson quickly grasps the truth. He tells her that she is in a muddle, and speaks of the importance of getting through it. And then he tells her that she loves George. Lucy denies it at first, but Mr. Emerson continues to speak of George and love. George will be a comrade for her; he will be faithful and devoted. Mr. Emerson speaks of love and the beauty of passion, desire, and the body; Lucy is crying, terribly confused and frightened. She speaks of the ticket already bought, and the trust her family has in her, and the impossibility of backing out of Greece and all of her deceptions now. Mr. Emerson replies that Lucy no longer deserves their trust. She has deceived all of them. Mr. Beebe enters, hearing the last bit about trust. Mr. Beebe asks what they're talking about, and Mr. Emerson tells him that Lucy and George are in love. Mr. Beebe is disgusted. Lucy tries to talk with Mr. Beebe, pleading for advice, but the clergyman has become very angry. He tells her to marry George if she likes. Lucy now has a great battle before her: if she follows passion, she must tell her family about her hypocrisy. Mr. Emerson strengthens her with a final speech about the difficulties she will face. She will need to be strong. He finishes by telling her that she is fighting not only for Love and Pleasure, but also for Truth. On the carriage ride home, Lucy tells them the truth. She no longer is afraid of convention. She sees the beauty of passion and desire. Mr. Emerson's words have strengthened her.


prompt:
Chapter: The Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They alone
of this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of the
Saronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either shrine
of intellectual song--that upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue seas;
that under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze charioteer
drives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious, cumbered with
much digestive bread, they did proceed to Constantinople, they did go
round the world. The rest of us must be contented with a fair, but a
less arduous, goal. Italiam petimus: we return to the Pension Bertolini.

George said it was his old room.

"No, it isn't," said Lucy; "because it is the room I had, and I had your
father's room. I forget why; Charlotte made me, for some reason."

He knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap.

"George, you baby, get up."

"Why shouldn't I be a baby?" murmured George.

Unable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she was
trying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening and
again the spring.

"Oh, bother Charlotte," she said thoughtfully. "What can such people be
made of?"

"Same stuff as parsons are made of."

"Nonsense!"

"Quite right. It is nonsense."

"Now you get up off the cold floor, or you'll be starting rheumatism
next, and you stop laughing and being so silly."

"Why shouldn't I laugh?" he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and
advancing his face to hers. "What's there to cry at? Kiss me here." He
indicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome.

He was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she who
remembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, she
who knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her
strangely that he should be sometimes wrong.

"Any letters?" he asked.

"Just a line from Freddy."

"Now kiss me here; then here."

Then, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window,
opened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet,
there the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. The
cab-driver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, might
be that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelve
months ago. A passion of gratitude--all feelings grow to passions in the
South--came over the husband, and he blessed the people and the things
who had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped himself,
it is true, but how stupidly!

All the fighting that mattered had been done by others--by Italy, by his
father, by his wife.

"Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever its
name is, still shows."

"San Miniato. I'll just finish your sock."

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro," called the cabman, with engaging
certainty.

George told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away on
driving.

And the people who had not meant to help--the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils,
the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the
forces that had swept him into this contentment.

"Anything good in Freddy's letter?"

"Not yet."

His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the
Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past
hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever.

"What does he say?"

"Silly boy! He thinks he's being dignified. He knew we should go off in
the spring--he has known it for six months--that if mother wouldn't give
her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair
warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy--"

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--"

"But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up
from the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so
cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why
will men have theories about women? I haven't any about men. I wish,
too, that Mr. Beebe--"

"You may well wish that."

"He will never forgive us--I mean, he will never be interested in us
again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I
wish he hadn't--But if we act the truth, the people who really love us
are sure to come back to us in the long run."

"Perhaps." Then he said more gently: "Well, I acted the truth--the
only thing I did do--and you came back to me. So possibly you know." He
turned back into the room. "Nonsense with that sock." He carried her
to the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their
knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one
another's names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they
had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt.
They were silent.

"Signorino, domani faremo--"

"Oh, bother that man!"

But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, "No, don't be
rude to him." Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: "Mr.
Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be
to a man like that!"

"Look at the lights going over the bridge."

"But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in
Charlotte's way! To think that evening at the rectory that she shouldn't
have heard your father was in the house. For she would have stopped me
going in, and he was the only person alive who could have made me see
sense. You couldn't have made me. When I am very happy"--she kissed
him--"I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had only
known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone to
silly Greece, and become different for ever."

"But she did know," said George; "she did see my father, surely. He said
so."

"Oh, no, she didn't see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe, don't
you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so."

George was obstinate again. "My father," said he, "saw her, and I prefer
his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his eyes,
and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in. She was
turning to go as he woke up. He didn't speak to her."

Then they spoke of other things--the desultory talk of those who have
been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly
in each other's arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett,
but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who
disliked any darkness, said: "It's clear that she knew. Then, why
did she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to
church."

They tried to piece the thing together.

As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy's mind. She
rejected it, and said: "How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble
muddle at the last moment." But something in the dying evening, in the
roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words fell
short of life, and George whispered: "Or did she mean it?"

"Mean what?"

"Signorino, domani faremo uno giro--"

Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: "Lascia, prego, lascia.
Siamo sposati."

"Scusi tanto, signora," he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up his
horse.

"Buona sera--e grazie."

"Niente."

The cabman drove away singing.

"Mean what, George?"

He whispered: "Is it this? Is this possible? I'll put a marvel to you.
That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we
met, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this--of
course, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she
hoped. I can't explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me
alive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month after
month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted
her--or she couldn't have described us as she did to her friend. There
are details--it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen,
Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but
in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us
happy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do believe
that, far down in her heart, far below all speech and behaviour, she is
glad."

"It is impossible," murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the experiences
of her own heart, she said: "No--it is just possible."

Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited,
love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than
this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows
of winter into the Mediterranean.

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

completion: Forster tells us that the Miss Alans did go to Greece, and beyond. They ended up going around the whole world. But they went without Lucy. We are again in the Pension Bertolini, with Lucy and George. They are in Lucy's old room; George insists it was his, but Lucy remembers that she took old Mr. Emerson's room. She corrects him. His errors only endear her more to him. They play with each other as newlyweds do. Lucy has a letter from Freddy; the people of Windy Corner, with the exception of Freddy, continue to be angry with her about her past hypocrisy. They do not approve of the match with George. Mr. Beebe and Mrs. Honeychurch are both quite angry. Lucy and George courted throughout the autumn and the winter. It is now spring, and, lacking Mrs. Honeychurch's consent, they have now eloped and gone off to Italy. Lucy thinks about how many unlikely events have led to their happiness. If Charlotte had seen Mr. Emerson in the rectory that day, she would not have allowed Lucy to go in. Mr. Emerson and Lucy would never have talked, and Lucy would have gone off to Greece. But George insists that Charlotte did know. His father told him that when he was dozing by the fire, he woke and saw Miss Bartlett walking away. Lucy does not know what to make of it. George suggests that Charlotte wanted Lucy to meet with Mr. Emerson; somehow, deep down, she wanted George and Lucy to end up together. George has read the book by Miss Lavish, and details of it are taken straight from George and Lucy's time in Florence. Something about the affair touched her, and though she fought against it, in the end, at the last moment, she helped them. Lucy initially says it is impossible, but then, after reflection, believes that it might be true.


prompt:
Chapter: "The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business
at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead
of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way
apart. Oh, Lucy!"

"And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by
the Signora's unexpected accent. "It might be London." She looked at the
two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row
of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the
English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet
Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the
notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that
was the only other decoration of the wall. "Charlotte, don't you feel,
too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all kinds of
other things are just outside. I suppose it is one's being so tired."

"This meat has surely been used for soup," said Miss Bartlett, laying
down her fork.

"I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her
letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to
do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!"

"Any nook does for me," Miss Bartlett continued; "but it does seem hard
that you shouldn't have a view."

Lucy felt that she had been selfish. "Charlotte, you mustn't spoil me:
of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first
vacant room in the front--" "You must have it," said Miss Bartlett, part
of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy's mother--a piece of
generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.

"No, no. You must have it."

"I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy."

"She would never forgive me."

The ladies' voices grew animated, and--if the sad truth be owned--a
little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness
they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one
of them--one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad--leant
forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He
said:

"I have a view, I have a view."

Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them
over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that
they would "do" till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was
ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy
build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something
childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility.
What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her
glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was
probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the
swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then
said: "A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!"

"This is my son," said the old man; "his name's George. He has a view
too."

"Ah," said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.

"What I mean," he continued, "is that you can have our rooms, and we'll
have yours. We'll change."

The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with
the new-comers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little
as possible, and said "Thank you very much indeed; that is out of the
question."

"Why?" said the old man, with both fists on the table.

"Because it is quite out of the question, thank you."

"You see, we don't like to take--" began Lucy. Her cousin again
repressed her.

"But why?" he persisted. "Women like looking at a view; men don't." And
he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,
saying, "George, persuade them!"

"It's so obvious they should have the rooms," said the son. "There's
nothing else to say."

He did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed
and sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in
for what is known as "quite a scene," and she had an odd feeling that
whenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened
till it dealt, not with rooms and views, but with--well, with something
quite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the
old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not
change? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half an
hour.

Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was
powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any
one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as
much as to say, "Are you all like this?" And two little old ladies, who
were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs
of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating "We are not; we are
genteel."

"Eat your dinner, dear," she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with
the meat that she had once censured.

Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite.

"Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. To-morrow we will
make a change."

Hardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The
curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout
but attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table,
cheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired
decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: "Oh, oh! Why, it's
Mr. Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now,
however bad the rooms are. Oh!"

Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint:

"How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss
Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you
helped the Vicar of St. Peter's that very cold Easter."

The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember
the ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward
pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by
Lucy.

"I AM so glad to see you," said the girl, who was in a state of
spiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if
her cousin had permitted it. "Just fancy how small the world is. Summer
Street, too, makes it so specially funny."

"Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street," said Miss
Bartlett, filling up the gap, "and she happened to tell me in the course
of conversation that you have just accepted the living--"

"Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn't know that I knew you
at Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: 'Mr. Beebe
is--'"

"Quite right," said the clergyman. "I move into the Rectory at Summer
Street next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming
neighbourhood."

"Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner." Mr. Beebe
bowed.

"There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it's not often
we get him to ch---- The church is rather far off, I mean."

"Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner."

"I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it."

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than
to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the girl
whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length that she
had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a newcomer, and
he was first in the field. "Don't neglect the country round," his advice
concluded. "The first fine afternoon drive up to Fiesole, and round by
Settignano, or something of that sort."

"No!" cried a voice from the top of the table. "Mr. Beebe, you are
wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato."

"That lady looks so clever," whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. "We
are in luck."

And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People told
them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams, how to
get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter, how
much the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had decided,
almost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way they looked,
kind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose the voice of
the clever lady, crying: "Prato! They must go to Prato. That place is
too sweetly squalid for words. I love it; I revel in shaking off the
trammels of respectability, as you know."

The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then returned
moodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do. Lucy, in
the midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave her no
extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when she
rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous little
bow.

The father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow,
but by raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across
something.

She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the
curtains--curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with
more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing
good-evening to her guests, and supported by 'Enery, her little boy, and
Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this attempt
of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South. And even
more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival the solid
comfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really Italy?

Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which
had the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr.
Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and
forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some
invisible obstacle. "We are most grateful to you," she was saying.
"The first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a
peculiarly mauvais quart d'heure."

He expressed his regret.

"Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us
at dinner?"

"Emerson."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

"We are friendly--as one is in pensions."

"Then I will say no more."

He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.

"I am, as it were," she concluded, "the chaperon of my young cousin,
Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation
to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate.
I hope I acted for the best."

"You acted very naturally," said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after
a few moments added: "All the same, I don't think much harm would have
come of accepting."

"No harm, of course. But we could not be under an obligation."

"He is rather a peculiar man." Again he hesitated, and then said gently:
"I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor expect you
to show gratitude. He has the merit--if it is one--of saying exactly
what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks you would
value them. He no more thought of putting you under an obligation than
he thought of being polite. It is so difficult--at least, I find it
difficult--to understand people who speak the truth."

Lucy was pleased, and said: "I was hoping that he was nice; I do so
always hope that people will be nice."

"I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every
point of any importance, and so, I expect--I may say I hope--you will
differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When
he first came here he not unnaturally put people's backs up. He has no
tact and no manners--I don't mean by that that he has bad manners--and
he will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about
him to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of
it."

"Am I to conclude," said Miss Bartlett, "that he is a Socialist?"

Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching
of the lips.

"And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?"

"I hardly know George, for he hasn't learnt to talk yet. He seems a nice
creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his father's
mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a Socialist."

"Oh, you relieve me," said Miss Bartlett. "So you think I ought to
have accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and
suspicious?"

"Not at all," he answered; "I never suggested that."

"But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent rudeness?"

He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary,
and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room.

"Was I a bore?" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. "Why
didn't you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I'm sure. I do hope I
haven't monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as
well as all dinner-time."

"He is nice," exclaimed Lucy. "Just what I remember. He seems to see
good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman."

"My dear Lucia--"

"Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally laugh;
Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man."

"Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will
approve of Mr. Beebe."

"I'm sure she will; and so will Freddy."

"I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable
world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind
the times."

"Yes," said Lucy despondently.

There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval
was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy
Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not
determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss
Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added "I am
afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion."

And the girl again thought: "I must have been selfish or unkind; I must
be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor."

Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been
smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed
to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to chatter
gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the gratifying
success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister's health, the
necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of thoroughly
emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her subjects
agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention than
the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was proceeding
tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real catastrophe,
not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when she had found
in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea, though one
better than something else.

"But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so
English."

"Yet our rooms smell," said poor Lucy. "We dread going to bed."

"Ah, then you look into the court." She sighed. "If only Mr. Emerson was
more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner."

"I think he was meaning to be kind."

"Undoubtedly he was," said Miss Bartlett.

"Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of
course, I was holding back on my cousin's account."

"Of course," said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could
not be too careful with a young girl.

Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No
one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not noticed
it.

"About old Mr. Emerson--I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have
you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time--beautiful?"

"Beautiful?" said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. "Are not beauty
and delicacy the same?"

"So one would have thought," said the other helplessly. "But things are
so difficult, I sometimes think."

She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking
extremely pleasant.

"Miss Bartlett," he cried, "it's all right about the rooms. I'm so glad.
Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing what
I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me come and
ask you. He would be so pleased."

"Oh, Charlotte," cried Lucy to her cousin, "we must have the rooms now.
The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be."

Miss Bartlett was silent.

"I fear," said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, "that I have been officious. I
must apologize for my interference."

Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett
reply: "My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with
yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at
Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to
turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,
Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and
then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?"

She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the
drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The
clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with her
message.

"Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the
acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events."

Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:

"Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead."

The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the
floor, so low were their chairs.

"My father," he said, "is in his bath, so you cannot thank him
personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to
him as soon as he comes out."

Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came
forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to the
delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.

"Poor young man!" said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.

"How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do to
keep polite."

"In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready," said Mr. Beebe. Then
looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own
rooms, to write up his philosophic diary.

"Oh, dear!" breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the
winds of heaven had entered the apartment. "Gentlemen sometimes do not
realize--" Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand
and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly
realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was reduced
to literature. Taking up Baedeker's Handbook to Northern Italy, she
committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History. For
she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the half-hour
crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a sigh, and
said:

"I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will
superintend the move."

"How you do do everything," said Lucy.

"Naturally, dear. It is my affair."

"But I would like to help you."

"No, dear."

Charlotte's energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her
life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So
Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet--there was a rebellious spirit
in her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less
delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room
without any feeling of joy.

"I want to explain," said Miss Bartlett, "why it is that I have taken
the largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you;
but I happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure
your mother would not like it."

Lucy was bewildered.

"If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under
an obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in
my small way, and I know where things lead to. However, Mr. Beebe is a
guarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this."

"Mother wouldn't mind I'm sure," said Lucy, but again had the sense of
larger and unsuspected issues.

Miss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as
she wished her good-night. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and when
she reached her own room she opened the window and breathed the clean
night air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to see the
lights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato, and the
foot-hills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon.

Miss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the window-shutters and locked the
door, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards
led, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was
then that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on
which was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more.

"What does it mean?" she thought, and she examined it carefully by the
light of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing,
obnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to
destroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so,
since it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it
carefully, and put it between two pieces of blotting-paper to keep it
clean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed
heavily according to her habit, and went to bed.

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

completion: Lucy Honeychurch, a young Englishwoman, and her cousin/traveling companion Charlotte Bartlett, a not-so-young Englishwoman, are in Florence, Italy. They are disappointed in their lodgings at a hotel called The Bertolini, which, despite its promising name, is run by a Cockney landlady. Of particular disturbance is the fact that their rooms have no view of the Arno River, something they had specifically requested when booking accommodations. Charlotte is bothered by the rooms-without-views situation, while Lucy is dismayed to find the hotel entirely populated by genteel English tourists much like themselves, with not a single real live Italian in sight. They're also at dinner eating what sounds like a very unpleasant meal, which can't possibly improve anyone's mood. Lucy and Charlotte clearly have something of a polite but occasionally difficult relationship. Charlotte is a poor relation, and Lucy's mother gave her some financial assistance for the trip - a fact she can't let Lucy forget. Charlotte has a special way of making Lucy feel guilty. The two cousins argue a little louder than ladies should . Their neighbors at the dinner table notice; an "ill-bred" man offers to trade his and his son's rooms so that the ladies will be able to see the river. Charlotte is not amused. The offer to exchange rooms with strangers is positively unheard of. Everyone at the table is shocked, especially Charlotte. Lucy tries to be nice about it, but Charlotte "represses" her. The ill-bred older man and his son, George, keep insisting upon the exchange. Charlotte is upset, while Lucy is "perplexed;" she has the feeling that the argument isn't just about rooms, but hints at something else. Keep thinking about that "something else" as the book goes on - it'll come into focus eventually. Charlotte is in such a tizzy that she attempts to leave with dramatic haughtiness. As she announces that they will leave the hotel the next day, the two ladies see a familiar face: Rev. Mr. Beebe, a clergyman on holiday that they know from England. Now there's no question of leaving the hotel; the women decide to stay. We learn that Mr. Beebe, who the two ladies met at Charlotte's church in Tunbridge Wells , will be taking over the parish in Lucy's neighborhood, Summer Street. The trio makes small talk; Mr. Beebe thinks to himself that he prefers talking to Lucy, and gives her some advice for her first visit to Florence. The rest of the table, headed by a talkative "clever lady," takes up this conversation, and everyone puts in their two cents about where Lucy ought to go . George and his father aren't part of this conversation; it's obvious that the rest of the guests don't approve of them. Lucy briefly wishes they did, and offers them a little bow as she leaves the table. George sees it and smiles mysteriously in return. Lucy follows Charlotte out of the dining room, and encounters her disturbingly Cockney landlady again. She wonders if they're really in Italy at all. In the drawing room, Charlotte is "talking to" Mr. Beebe again. She asks him about the man who offered his rooms to them. Mr. Beebe confirms that he knows the man, Mr. Emerson, and is friendly with him. Charlotte, attempting to be coy, says she won't say anything else about him. She obviously wants the clergyman's opinion, though, and when pressed, she explains her logic on not taking the rooms - she's worried about being "under an obligation" to Mr. Emerson and his son. Mr. Beebe suggests that Mr. Emerson wasn't trying to take advantage of the two ladies, and that he was actually trying to be polite, not improper. Unlike the rest of society, Mr. Emerson apparently only says exactly what he means . This makes Lucy happy - she's glad to hear that Mr. Emerson is as nice as she'd hoped he'd be. Mr. Beebe, despite Mr. Emerson's lack of tact and manners, likes the old man, even if he disagrees with him on just about every topic. Charlotte comes to the conclusion that Mr. Emerson and his son are Socialists; Mr. Beebe, containing his laughter, agrees. This seems to explain everything to Charlotte. With the mystery of the Emersons solved, Charlotte worries that perhaps she should have taken up their offer. She assumes that Mr. Beebe has been judging her for not accepting. She hopes she hasn't been "narrow-minded and suspicious" . Mr. Beebe assures Charlotte that she has not; with that, he leaves. Charlotte hopes she hasn't bored Mr. Beebe, which of course she has. Lucy and Charlotte discuss Mr. Beebe's many qualities. Lucy praises him, saying that he's not at all like a clergyman . Charlotte makes a passive aggressive comment about how Lucy, her mother, and her brother Freddy live in the "fashionable world," while she lives in dull Tunbridge Wells, which is "hopelessly behind the times." Lucy feels like Charlotte disapproves of something, but she can't put her finger on what it is. Again, Charlotte makes Lucy feel guilty through her intense passive aggression. Lucy feels bad about Charlotte's relative poverty. One of the other guests interrupts this uncomfortable exchange. They discuss how sad it is that Mr. Emerson didn't make his offer more delicately, since Lucy and Charlotte's rooms are so unsatisfactory. The trio has an awkward philosophical discussion about beauty versus delicacy. Charlotte thinks the two are the same thing, but Lucy has the nagging feeling that they're not. Mr. Beebe returns, all excited. He's talked with Mr. Emerson, and has resolved the room dilemma delicately, by anyone's standards. Lucy's overjoyed that everything is working out, but Charlotte, predictably, makes herself a martyr, and succeeds in making everyone feel bad. She unwillingly consents to the Emersons' offer. She stuffily directs Mr. Beebe to bring Mr. Emerson to her so she can "thank" him herself. We're already getting sick of Charlotte and her attitude by this point. George comes to accept the cousins' thanks, saying that his father is in the bath. This bluntness shocks even Charlotte, and her "barbed civilities" don't get anywhere. Mr. Beebe and Lucy are secretly pleased. George 1, Charlotte 0. We're pleased, too. Eventually everyone is ready for the big room swap. Charlotte, of course, says she will take care of everything. Her perseverance and so-called unselfishness amazes us... but not in a good way. Lucy attempts to feel amazed positively, but can't quite muster it up. She wonders if perhaps Charlotte's actions could be a little less delicate and more beautiful. Charlotte has taken the bigger room, but for a strictly moral reason, of course. She's certain that since George previously inhabited the room, Lucy shouldn't. She decorously insists that Lucy's mother wouldn't be happy if she knew that Lucy was staying in a room that a boy had been in... if you haven't noticed, some things have changed since Forster's time. Lucy's pretty sure that her mother wouldn't mind, but she still has a lingering feeling that something's vaguely wrong. Charlotte envelops Lucy in a "protecting" hug - to Lucy, it feels more suffocating than protective. After Charlotte leaves, her young cousin opens the window and breathes in the clean night air, thinking about Mr. Emerson's kindness. Charlotte, in her own spacious room, discovers an unsettling object: George has left a mysterious decoration. On the wall, she sees a sheet of paper with a giant question mark on it. The symbol quickly goes from meaningless to horrifying in her mind, so she immediately takes it down and puts it away to give it back to George. What could it possibly mean?