prompt:
Chapter: The Sunday after Miss Bartlett's arrival was a glorious day, like most
of the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up
the green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of
mist, the beech-trees with russet, the oak-trees with gold. Up on the
heights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves
unchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in
either arose the tinkle of church bells.

The garden of Windy Corners was deserted except for a red book, which
lay sunning itself upon the gravel path. From the house came incoherent
sounds, as of females preparing for worship. "The men say they won't
go"--"Well, I don't blame them"--Minnie says, "need she go?"--"Tell
her, no nonsense"--"Anne! Mary! Hook me behind!"--"Dearest Lucia, may I
trespass upon you for a pin?" For Miss Bartlett had announced that she
at all events was one for church.

The sun rose higher on its journey, guided, not by Phaethon, but by
Apollo, competent, unswerving, divine. Its rays fell on the ladies
whenever they advanced towards the bedroom windows; on Mr. Beebe down
at Summer Street as he smiled over a letter from Miss Catharine Alan; on
George Emerson cleaning his father's boots; and lastly, to complete the
catalogue of memorable things, on the red book mentioned previously. The
ladies move, Mr. Beebe moves, George moves, and movement may engender
shadow. But this book lies motionless, to be caressed all the morning
by the sun and to raise its covers slightly, as though acknowledging the
caress.

Presently Lucy steps out of the drawing-room window. Her new cerise
dress has been a failure, and makes her look tawdry and wan. At her
throat is a garnet brooch, on her finger a ring set with rubies--an
engagement ring. Her eyes are bent to the Weald. She frowns a
little--not in anger, but as a brave child frowns when he is trying not
to cry. In all that expanse no human eye is looking at her, and she may
frown unrebuked and measure the spaces that yet survive between Apollo
and the western hills.

"Lucy! Lucy! What's that book? Who's been taking a book out of the shelf
and leaving it about to spoil?"

"It's only the library book that Cecil's been reading."

"But pick it up, and don't stand idling there like a flamingo."

Lucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly, Under a
Loggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all her spare time
to solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil up. It was dreadful
how little she knew, and even when she thought she knew a thing, like
the Italian painters, she found she had forgotten it. Only this morning
she had confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and Cecil
had said, "What! you aren't forgetting your Italy already?" And this too
had lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view and the
dear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely conceivable
elsewhere, the dear sun.

"Lucy--have you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for yourself?"

She hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself into a
Sunday fluster.

"It's a special collection--I forget what for. I do beg, no vulgar
clinking in the plate with halfpennies; see that Minnie has a nice
bright sixpence. Where is the child? Minnie! That book's all warped.
(Gracious, how plain you look!) Put it under the Atlas to press.
Minnie!"

"Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch--" from the upper regions.

"Minnie, don't be late. Here comes the horse"--it was always the horse,
never the carriage. "Where's Charlotte? Run up and hurry her. Why is she
so long? She had nothing to do. She never brings anything but blouses.
Poor Charlotte--How I do detest blouses! Minnie!"

Paganism is infectious--more infectious than diphtheria or piety--and
the Rector's niece was taken to church protesting. As usual, she didn't
see why. Why shouldn't she sit in the sun with the young men? The
young men, who had now appeared, mocked her with ungenerous words. Mrs.
Honeychurch defended orthodoxy, and in the midst of the confusion Miss
Bartlett, dressed in the very height of the fashion, came strolling down
the stairs.

"Dear Marian, I am very sorry, but I have no small change--nothing but
sovereigns and half crowns. Could any one give me--"

"Yes, easily. Jump in. Gracious me, how smart you look! What a lovely
frock! You put us all to shame."

"If I did not wear my best rags and tatters now, when should I wear
them?" said Miss Bartlett reproachfully. She got into the victoria and
placed herself with her back to the horse. The necessary roar ensued,
and then they drove off.

"Good-bye! Be good!" called out Cecil.

Lucy bit her lip, for the tone was sneering. On the subject of "church
and so on" they had had rather an unsatisfactory conversation. He had
said that people ought to overhaul themselves, and she did not want to
overhaul herself; she did not know it was done. Honest orthodoxy
Cecil respected, but he always assumed that honesty is the result of a
spiritual crisis; he could not imagine it as a natural birthright, that
might grow heavenward like flowers. All that he said on this subject
pained her, though he exuded tolerance from every pore; somehow the
Emersons were different.

She saw the Emersons after church. There was a line of carriages down
the road, and the Honeychurch vehicle happened to be opposite Cissie
Villa. To save time, they walked over the green to it, and found father
and son smoking in the garden.

"Introduce me," said her mother. "Unless the young man considers that he
knows me already."

He probably did; but Lucy ignored the Sacred Lake and introduced them
formally. Old Mr. Emerson claimed her with much warmth, and said how
glad he was that she was going to be married. She said yes, she was glad
too; and then, as Miss Bartlett and Minnie were lingering behind with
Mr. Beebe, she turned the conversation to a less disturbing topic, and
asked him how he liked his new house.

"Very much," he replied, but there was a note of offence in his voice;
she had never known him offended before. He added: "We find, though,
that the Miss Alans were coming, and that we have turned them out. Women
mind such a thing. I am very much upset about it."

"I believe that there was some misunderstanding," said Mrs. Honeychurch
uneasily.

"Our landlord was told that we should be a different type of person,"
said George, who seemed disposed to carry the matter further. "He
thought we should be artistic. He is disappointed."

"And I wonder whether we ought to write to the Miss Alans and offer to
give it up. What do you think?" He appealed to Lucy.

"Oh, stop now you have come," said Lucy lightly. She must avoid
censuring Cecil. For it was on Cecil that the little episode turned,
though his name was never mentioned.

"So George says. He says that the Miss Alans must go to the wall. Yet it
does seem so unkind."

"There is only a certain amount of kindness in the world," said George,
watching the sunlight flash on the panels of the passing carriages.

"Yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Honeychurch. "That's exactly what I say. Why all
this twiddling and twaddling over two Miss Alans?"

"There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain
amount of light," he continued in measured tones. "We cast a shadow
on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to
place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place
where you won't do harm--yes, choose a place where you won't do very
much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine."

"Oh, Mr. Emerson, I see you're clever!"

"Eh--?"

"I see you're going to be clever. I hope you didn't go behaving like
that to poor Freddy."

George's eyes laughed, and Lucy suspected that he and her mother would
get on rather well.

"No, I didn't," he said. "He behaved that way to me. It is his
philosophy. Only he starts life with it; and I have tried the Note of
Interrogation first."

"What DO you mean? No, never mind what you mean. Don't explain. He looks
forward to seeing you this afternoon. Do you play tennis? Do you mind
tennis on Sunday--?"

"George mind tennis on Sunday! George, after his education, distinguish
between Sunday--"

"Very well, George doesn't mind tennis on Sunday. No more do I. That's
settled. Mr. Emerson, if you could come with your son we should be so
pleased."

He thanked her, but the walk sounded rather far; he could only potter
about in these days.

She turned to George: "And then he wants to give up his house to the
Miss Alans."

"I know," said George, and put his arm round his father's neck. The
kindness that Mr. Beebe and Lucy had always known to exist in him came
out suddenly, like sunlight touching a vast landscape--a touch of the
morning sun? She remembered that in all his perversities he had never
spoken against affection.

Miss Bartlett approached.

"You know our cousin, Miss Bartlett," said Mrs. Honeychurch pleasantly.
"You met her with my daughter in Florence."

"Yes, indeed!" said the old man, and made as if he would come out of the
garden to meet the lady. Miss Bartlett promptly got into the victoria.
Thus entrenched, she emitted a formal bow. It was the pension Bertolini
again, the dining-table with the decanters of water and wine. It was the
old, old battle of the room with the view.

George did not respond to the bow. Like any boy, he blushed and was
ashamed; he knew that the chaperon remembered. He said: "I--I'll come up
to tennis if I can manage it," and went into the house. Perhaps anything
that he did would have pleased Lucy, but his awkwardness went straight
to her heart; men were not gods after all, but as human and as clumsy as
girls; even men might suffer from unexplained desires, and need help. To
one of her upbringing, and of her destination, the weakness of men was a
truth unfamiliar, but she had surmised it at Florence, when George threw
her photographs into the River Arno.

"George, don't go," cried his father, who thought it a great treat for
people if his son would talk to them. "George has been in such good
spirits today, and I am sure he will end by coming up this afternoon."

Lucy caught her cousin's eye. Something in its mute appeal made her
reckless. "Yes," she said, raising her voice, "I do hope he will." Then
she went to the carriage and murmured, "The old man hasn't been told;
I knew it was all right." Mrs. Honeychurch followed her, and they drove
away.

Satisfactory that Mr. Emerson had not been told of the Florence
escapade; yet Lucy's spirits should not have leapt up as if she had
sighted the ramparts of heaven. Satisfactory; yet surely she greeted
it with disproportionate joy. All the way home the horses' hoofs sang a
tune to her: "He has not told, he has not told." Her brain expanded the
melody: "He has not told his father--to whom he tells all things. It was
not an exploit. He did not laugh at me when I had gone." She raised her
hand to her cheek. "He does not love me. No. How terrible if he did! But
he has not told. He will not tell."

She longed to shout the words: "It is all right. It's a secret between
us two for ever. Cecil will never hear." She was even glad that Miss
Bartlett had made her promise secrecy, that last dark evening at
Florence, when they had knelt packing in his room. The secret, big or
little, was guarded.

Only three English people knew of it in the world. Thus she interpreted
her joy. She greeted Cecil with unusual radiance, because she felt so
safe. As he helped her out of the carriage, she said:

"The Emersons have been so nice. George Emerson has improved
enormously."

"How are my proteges?" asked Cecil, who took no real interest in them,
and had long since forgotten his resolution to bring them to Windy
Corner for educational purposes.

"Proteges!" she exclaimed with some warmth. For the only relationship
which Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He
had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl's soul yearned.

"You shall see for yourself how your proteges are. George Emerson is
coming up this afternoon. He is a most interesting man to talk to. Only
don't--" She nearly said, "Don't protect him." But the bell was ringing
for lunch, and, as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to
her remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte.

Lunch was a cheerful meal. Generally Lucy was depressed at meals. Some
one had to be soothed--either Cecil or Miss Bartlett or a Being not
visible to the mortal eye--a Being who whispered to her soul: "It
will not last, this cheerfulness. In January you must go to London to
entertain the grandchildren of celebrated men." But to-day she felt she
had received a guarantee. Her mother would always sit there, her brother
here. The sun, though it had moved a little since the morning, would
never be hidden behind the western hills. After luncheon they asked her
to play. She had seen Gluck's Armide that year, and played from memory
the music of the enchanted garden--the music to which Renaud approaches,
beneath the light of an eternal dawn, the music that never gains, never
wanes, but ripples for ever like the tideless seas of fairyland. Such
music is not for the piano, and her audience began to get restive,
and Cecil, sharing the discontent, called out: "Now play us the other
garden--the one in Parsifal."

She closed the instrument.

"Not very dutiful," said her mother's voice.

Fearing that she had offended Cecil, she turned quickly round. There
George was. He had crept in without interrupting her.

"Oh, I had no idea!" she exclaimed, getting very red; and then, without
a word of greeting, she reopened the piano. Cecil should have the
Parsifal, and anything else that he liked.

"Our performer has changed her mind," said Miss Bartlett, perhaps
implying, she will play the music to Mr. Emerson. Lucy did not know
what to do nor even what she wanted to do. She played a few bars of the
Flower Maidens' song very badly and then she stopped.

"I vote tennis," said Freddy, disgusted at the scrappy entertainment.

"Yes, so do I." Once more she closed the unfortunate piano. "I vote you
have a men's four."

"All right."

"Not for me, thank you," said Cecil. "I will not spoil the set." He
never realized that it may be an act of kindness in a bad player to make
up a fourth.

"Oh, come along Cecil. I'm bad, Floyd's rotten, and so I dare say's
Emerson."

George corrected him: "I am not bad."

One looked down one's nose at this. "Then certainly I won't play," said
Cecil, while Miss Bartlett, under the impression that she was snubbing
George, added: "I agree with you, Mr. Vyse. You had much better not
play. Much better not."

Minnie, rushing in where Cecil feared to tread, announced that she would
play. "I shall miss every ball anyway, so what does it matter?" But
Sunday intervened and stamped heavily upon the kindly suggestion.

"Then it will have to be Lucy," said Mrs. Honeychurch; "you must fall
back on Lucy. There is no other way out of it. Lucy, go and change your
frock."

Lucy's Sabbath was generally of this amphibious nature. She kept it
without hypocrisy in the morning, and broke it without reluctance in
the afternoon. As she changed her frock, she wondered whether Cecil was
sneering at her; really she must overhaul herself and settle everything
up before she married him.

Mr. Floyd was her partner. She liked music, but how much better tennis
seemed. How much better to run about in comfortable clothes than to sit
at the piano and feel girt under the arms. Once more music appeared to
her the employment of a child. George served, and surprised her by his
anxiety to win. She remembered how he had sighed among the tombs at
Santa Croce because things wouldn't fit; how after the death of that
obscure Italian he had leant over the parapet by the Arno and said to
her: "I shall want to live, I tell you." He wanted to live now, to win
at tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sun--the sun which had
begun to decline and was shining in her eyes; and he did win.

Ah, how beautiful the Weald looked! The hills stood out above its
radiance, as Fiesole stands above the Tuscan Plain, and the South Downs,
if one chose, were the mountains of Carrara. She might be forgetting her
Italy, but she was noticing more things in her England. One could play
a new game with the view, and try to find in its innumerable folds some
town or village that would do for Florence. Ah, how beautiful the Weald
looked!

But now Cecil claimed her. He chanced to be in a lucid critical mood,
and would not sympathize with exaltation. He had been rather a nuisance
all through the tennis, for the novel that he was reading was so bad
that he was obliged to read it aloud to others. He would stroll round
the precincts of the court and call out: "I say, listen to this, Lucy.
Three split infinitives."

"Dreadful!" said Lucy, and missed her stroke. When they had finished
their set, he still went on reading; there was some murder scene, and
really everyone must listen to it. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were obliged to
hunt for a lost ball in the laurels, but the other two acquiesced.

"The scene is laid in Florence."

"What fun, Cecil! Read away. Come, Mr. Emerson, sit down after all your
energy." She had "forgiven" George, as she put it, and she made a point
of being pleasant to him.

He jumped over the net and sat down at her feet asking: "You--and are
you tired?"

"Of course I'm not!"

"Do you mind being beaten?"

She was going to answer, "No," when it struck her that she did mind,
so she answered, "Yes." She added merrily, "I don't see you're such
a splendid player, though. The light was behind you, and it was in my
eyes."

"I never said I was."

"Why, you did!"

"You didn't attend."

"You said--oh, don't go in for accuracy at this house. We all
exaggerate, and we get very angry with people who don't."

"'The scene is laid in Florence,'" repeated Cecil, with an upward note.

Lucy recollected herself.

"'Sunset. Leonora was speeding--'"

Lucy interrupted. "Leonora? Is Leonora the heroine? Who's the book by?"

"Joseph Emery Prank. 'Sunset. Leonora speeding across the square. Pray
the saints she might not arrive too late. Sunset--the sunset of Italy.
Under Orcagna's Loggia--the Loggia de' Lanzi, as we sometimes call it
now--'"

Lucy burst into laughter. "'Joseph Emery Prank' indeed! Why it's Miss
Lavish! It's Miss Lavish's novel, and she's publishing it under somebody
else's name."

"Who may Miss Lavish be?"

"Oh, a dreadful person--Mr. Emerson, you remember Miss Lavish?"

Excited by her pleasant afternoon, she clapped her hands.

George looked up. "Of course I do. I saw her the day I arrived at Summer
Street. It was she who told me that you lived here."

"Weren't you pleased?" She meant "to see Miss Lavish," but when he bent
down to the grass without replying, it struck her that she could mean
something else. She watched his head, which was almost resting against
her knee, and she thought that the ears were reddening. "No wonder the
novel's bad," she added. "I never liked Miss Lavish. But I suppose one
ought to read it as one's met her."

"All modern books are bad," said Cecil, who was annoyed at her
inattention, and vented his annoyance on literature. "Every one writes
for money in these days."

"Oh, Cecil--!"

"It is so. I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer."

Cecil, this afternoon seemed such a twittering sparrow. The ups and
downs in his voice were noticeable, but they did not affect her. She had
dwelt amongst melody and movement, and her nerves refused to answer to
the clang of his. Leaving him to be annoyed, she gazed at the black head
again. She did not want to stroke it, but she saw herself wanting to
stroke it; the sensation was curious.

"How do you like this view of ours, Mr. Emerson?"

"I never notice much difference in views."

"What do you mean?"

"Because they're all alike. Because all that matters in them is distance
and air."

"H'm!" said Cecil, uncertain whether the remark was striking or not.

"My father"--he looked up at her (and he was a little flushed)--"says
that there is only one perfect view--the view of the sky straight over
our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of
it."

"I expect your father has been reading Dante," said Cecil, fingering the
novel, which alone permitted him to lead the conversation.

"He told us another day that views are really crowds--crowds of trees
and houses and hills--and are bound to resemble each other, like human
crowds--and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural,
for the same reason."

Lucy's lips parted.

"For a crowd is more than the people who make it up. Something gets
added to it--no one knows how--just as something has got added to those
hills."

He pointed with his racquet to the South Downs.

"What a splendid idea!" she murmured. "I shall enjoy hearing your father
talk again. I'm so sorry he's not so well."

"No, he isn't well."

"There's an absurd account of a view in this book," said Cecil. "Also
that men fall into two classes--those who forget views and those who
remember them, even in small rooms."

"Mr. Emerson, have you any brothers or sisters?"

"None. Why?"

"You spoke of 'us.'"

"My mother, I was meaning."

Cecil closed the novel with a bang.

"Oh, Cecil--how you made me jump!"

"I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer."

"I can just remember us all three going into the country for the day and
seeing as far as Hindhead. It is the first thing that I remember."

Cecil got up; the man was ill-bred--he hadn't put on his coat after
tennis--he didn't do. He would have strolled away if Lucy had not
stopped him.

"Cecil, do read the thing about the view."

"Not while Mr. Emerson is here to entertain us."

"No--read away. I think nothing's funnier than to hear silly things read
out loud. If Mr. Emerson thinks us frivolous, he can go."

This struck Cecil as subtle, and pleased him. It put their visitor in
the position of a prig. Somewhat mollified, he sat down again.

"Mr. Emerson, go and find tennis balls." She opened the book. Cecil
must have his reading and anything else that he liked. But her attention
wandered to George's mother, who--according to Mr. Eager--had been
murdered in the sight of God and--according to her son--had seen as far as
Hindhead.

"Am I really to go?" asked George.

"No, of course not really," she answered.

"Chapter two," said Cecil, yawning. "Find me chapter two, if it isn't
bothering you."

Chapter two was found, and she glanced at its opening sentences.

She thought she had gone mad.

"Here--hand me the book."

She heard her voice saying: "It isn't worth reading--it's too silly
to read--I never saw such rubbish--it oughtn't to be allowed to be
printed."

He took the book from her.

"'Leonora,'" he read, "'sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich
champaign of Tuscany, dotted over with many a smiling village. The
season was spring.'"

Miss Lavish knew, somehow, and had printed the past in draggled prose,
for Cecil to read and for George to hear.

"'A golden haze,'" he read. He read: "'Afar off the towers of Florence,
while the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All
unobserved Antonio stole up behind her--'"

Lest Cecil should see her face she turned to George and saw his face.

He read: "'There came from his lips no wordy protestation such as formal
lovers use. No eloquence was his, nor did he suffer from the lack of it.
He simply enfolded her in his manly arms.'"

"This isn't the passage I wanted," he informed them, "there is another
much funnier, further on." He turned over the leaves.

"Should we go in to tea?" said Lucy, whose voice remained steady.

She led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She
thought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery
it came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had
been forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it; and George, who loved
passionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path.

"No--" she gasped, and, for the second time, was kissed by him.

As if no more was possible, he slipped back; Cecil rejoined her; they
reached the upper lawn alone.

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

completion: Sunday is a beautiful day. Forster prominently mentions a red book lying on the path at Windy Corner; the people inside the house are busy with preparations for church. Only the women are going. The red book, as we will soon learn, is a library book of Cecil's. It is a bad novel called Under a Loggia, and it will soon become important. Lucy and Cecil have had a dismal conversation about church. The polite, half-secular religion of the upper bourgeoisie offends him; it must be fervent orthodoxy or nothing to Cecil. Lucy does not want to change. She likes her family's half-committed and social approach to religion, and sees nothing wrong with it. After church, the women stop at Cissie to see the Emersons. Mr. Emerson is upset because he has learned that Cissie was originally going to belong to the Miss Alans. In the course of the conversation, Lucy realizes that George has not told his father about the kiss, even though he tells his father everything. The idea that he has kept it a secret, not treating it as a conquest, makes her incredibly happy. She returns home in high spirits. Cecil refers to the Emersons with condescension, calling them his "proteges. It seems not right to Lucy somehow, but Cecil ignores her. Forster writes, "For the only relationship which Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl's soul yearned". Lucy has some worries about the impending marriage and London, but the weather is so beautiful and her family so loving and familiar that she believes that somehow everything at Windy Corner will last forever. She plays piano after lunch, but George comes in and soon Lucy cannot concentrate. Freddy proposes tennis, but Cecil refuses to play. It is up to Lucy to make a fourth for doubles. They play, and George is eager to win. Lucy plays on the opposite team. She is enjoying the beauty of the country around her house; in the beauty of the land, she is reminded of Florence. George, too, is beautiful. He is eager and athletic. Cecil reads aloud occasionally from his bad novel. The name of the protagonist is "Leonora," the name that Miss Lavish proposed for the protagonist of her novel. Lucy realizes that it is Miss Lavish's novel, even though it has been published under a pen name. They continue at tennis, and George and Freddy win. They talk about views and people rather abstractly; Cecil is somewhat threatened by George. Cecil closes the book, but Lucy insists on hearing more from it. She takes the book and opens it, asking Cecil what part he might like to read. She opens it to the desired chapter, and after reading a few lines feels like she is going insane. Cecil takes the book and reads: it is clearly an account of Lucy's kiss with George. On the way back into the house, Cecil realizes he has forgotten the book and goes back to get it. George and Lucy are alone in the shrubbery: he stumbles against her and then kisses her. He slips away and Cecil returns.


prompt:
Chapter: But Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now
better able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the
world disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by
deep sobs. She said to Cecil, "I am not coming in to tea--tell mother--I
must write some letters," and went up to her room. Then she prepared
for action. Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and
our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that
we shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world's enemy, and she must
stifle it.

She sent for Miss Bartlett.

The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is such a
contest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and Lucy's first aim
was to defeat herself. As her brain clouded over, as the memory of the
views grew dim and the words of the book died away, she returned to her
old shibboleth of nerves. She "conquered her breakdown." Tampering with
the truth, she forgot that the truth had ever been. Remembering that she
was engaged to Cecil, she compelled herself to confused remembrances
of George; he was nothing to her; he never had been anything; he
had behaved abominably; she had never encouraged him. The armour of
falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only
from others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was equipped
for battle.

"Something too awful has happened," she began, as soon as her cousin
arrived. "Do you know anything about Miss Lavish's novel?"

Miss Bartlett looked surprised, and said that she had not read the book,
nor known that it was published; Eleanor was a reticent woman at heart.

"There is a scene in it. The hero and heroine make love. Do you know
about that?"

"Dear--?"

"Do you know about it, please?" she repeated. "They are on a hillside,
and Florence is in the distance."

"My good Lucia, I am all at sea. I know nothing about it whatever."

"There are violets. I cannot believe it is a coincidence. Charlotte,
Charlotte, how could you have told her? I have thought before speaking;
it must be you."

"Told her what?" she asked, with growing agitation.

"About that dreadful afternoon in February."

Miss Bartlett was genuinely moved. "Oh, Lucy, dearest girl--she hasn't
put that in her book?"

Lucy nodded.

"Not so that one could recognize it. Yes."

"Then never--never--never more shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of
mine."

"So you did tell?"

"I did just happen--when I had tea with her at Rome--in the course of
conversation--"

"But Charlotte--what about the promise you gave me when we were packing?
Why did you tell Miss Lavish, when you wouldn't even let me tell
mother?"

"I will never forgive Eleanor. She has betrayed my confidence."

"Why did you tell her, though? This is a most serious thing."

Why does any one tell anything? The question is eternal, and it was not
surprising that Miss Bartlett should only sigh faintly in response. She
had done wrong--she admitted it, she only hoped that she had not done
harm; she had told Eleanor in the strictest confidence.

Lucy stamped with irritation.

"Cecil happened to read out the passage aloud to me and to Mr. Emerson;
it upset Mr. Emerson and he insulted me again. Behind Cecil's back. Ugh!
Is it possible that men are such brutes? Behind Cecil's back as we were
walking up the garden."

Miss Bartlett burst into self-accusations and regrets.

"What is to be done now? Can you tell me?"

"Oh, Lucy--I shall never forgive myself, never to my dying day. Fancy if
your prospects--"

"I know," said Lucy, wincing at the word. "I see now why you wanted me
to tell Cecil, and what you meant by 'some other source.' You knew that
you had told Miss Lavish, and that she was not reliable."

It was Miss Bartlett's turn to wince. "However," said the girl,
despising her cousin's shiftiness, "What's done's done. You have put me
in a most awkward position. How am I to get out of it?"

Miss Bartlett could not think. The days of her energy were over. She was
a visitor, not a chaperon, and a discredited visitor at that. She stood
with clasped hands while the girl worked herself into the necessary
rage.

"He must--that man must have such a setting down that he won't forget.
And who's to give it him? I can't tell mother now--owing to you. Nor
Cecil, Charlotte, owing to you. I am caught up every way. I think I
shall go mad. I have no one to help me. That's why I've sent for you.
What's wanted is a man with a whip."

Miss Bartlett agreed: one wanted a man with a whip.

"Yes--but it's no good agreeing. What's to be DONE. We women go
maundering on. What DOES a girl do when she comes across a cad?"

"I always said he was a cad, dear. Give me credit for that, at all
events. From the very first moment--when he said his father was having a
bath."

"Oh, bother the credit and who's been right or wrong! We've both made a
muddle of it. George Emerson is still down the garden there, and is he
to be left unpunished, or isn't he? I want to know."

Miss Bartlett was absolutely helpless. Her own exposure had unnerved
her, and thoughts were colliding painfully in her brain. She moved
feebly to the window, and tried to detect the cad's white flannels among
the laurels.

"You were ready enough at the Bertolini when you rushed me off to Rome.
Can't you speak again to him now?"

"Willingly would I move heaven and earth--"

"I want something more definite," said Lucy contemptuously. "Will you
speak to him? It is the least you can do, surely, considering it all
happened because you broke your word."

"Never again shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine."

Really, Charlotte was outdoing herself.

"Yes or no, please; yes or no."

"It is the kind of thing that only a gentleman can settle." George
Emerson was coming up the garden with a tennis ball in his hand.

"Very well," said Lucy, with an angry gesture. "No one will help me. I
will speak to him myself." And immediately she realized that this was
what her cousin had intended all along.

"Hullo, Emerson!" called Freddy from below. "Found the lost ball? Good
man! Want any tea?" And there was an irruption from the house on to the
terrace.

"Oh, Lucy, but that is brave of you! I admire you--"

They had gathered round George, who beckoned, she felt, over the
rubbish, the sloppy thoughts, the furtive yearnings that were beginning
to cumber her soul. Her anger faded at the sight of him. Ah! The
Emersons were fine people in their way. She had to subdue a rush in her
blood before saying:

"Freddy has taken him into the dining-room. The others are going down
the garden. Come. Let us get this over quickly. Come. I want you in the
room, of course."

"Lucy, do you mind doing it?"

"How can you ask such a ridiculous question?"

"Poor Lucy--" She stretched out her hand. "I seem to bring nothing
but misfortune wherever I go." Lucy nodded. She remembered their
last evening at Florence--the packing, the candle, the shadow of Miss
Bartlett's toque on the door. She was not to be trapped by pathos a
second time. Eluding her cousin's caress, she led the way downstairs.

"Try the jam," Freddy was saying. "The jam's jolly good."

George, looking big and dishevelled, was pacing up and down the
dining-room. As she entered he stopped, and said:

"No--nothing to eat."

"You go down to the others," said Lucy; "Charlotte and I will give Mr.
Emerson all he wants. Where's mother?"

"She's started on her Sunday writing. She's in the drawing-room."

"That's all right. You go away."

He went off singing.

Lucy sat down at the table. Miss Bartlett, who was thoroughly
frightened, took up a book and pretended to read.

She would not be drawn into an elaborate speech. She just said: "I can't
have it, Mr. Emerson. I cannot even talk to you. Go out of this house,
and never come into it again as long as I live here--" flushing as she
spoke and pointing to the door. "I hate a row. Go please."

"What--"

"No discussion."

"But I can't--"

She shook her head. "Go, please. I do not want to call in Mr. Vyse."

"You don't mean," he said, absolutely ignoring Miss Bartlett--"you don't
mean that you are going to marry that man?"

The line was unexpected.

She shrugged her shoulders, as if his vulgarity wearied her. "You are
merely ridiculous," she said quietly.

Then his words rose gravely over hers: "You cannot live with Vyse. He's
only for an acquaintance. He is for society and cultivated talk. He
should know no one intimately, least of all a woman."

It was a new light on Cecil's character.

"Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired?"

"I can scarcely discuss--"

"No, but have you ever? He is the sort who are all right so long as
they keep to things--books, pictures--but kill when they come to
people. That's why I'll speak out through all this muddle even now. It's
shocking enough to lose you in any case, but generally a man must
deny himself joy, and I would have held back if your Cecil had been a
different person. I would never have let myself go. But I saw him first
in the National Gallery, when he winced because my father mispronounced
the names of great painters. Then he brings us here, and we find it
is to play some silly trick on a kind neighbour. That is the man all
over--playing tricks on people, on the most sacred form of life that
he can find. Next, I meet you together, and find him protecting and
teaching you and your mother to be shocked, when it was for YOU to
settle whether you were shocked or no. Cecil all over again. He daren't
let a woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand
years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's
charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly;
and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own.
So it was at the Rectory, when I met you both again; so it has been
the whole of this afternoon. Therefore--not 'therefore I kissed you,'
because the book made me do that, and I wish to goodness I had more
self-control. I'm not ashamed. I don't apologize. But it has frightened
you, and you may not have noticed that I love you. Or would you have
told me to go, and dealt with a tremendous thing so lightly? But
therefore--therefore I settled to fight him."

Lucy thought of a very good remark.

"You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for
suggesting that you have caught the habit."

And he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He said:

"Yes, I have," and sank down as if suddenly weary. "I'm the same kind of
brute at bottom. This desire to govern a woman--it lies very deep, and
men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the garden.
But I do love you surely in a better way than he does." He thought.
"Yes--really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even
when I hold you in my arms." He stretched them towards her. "Lucy, be
quick--there's no time for us to talk now--come to me as you came in the
spring, and afterwards I will be gentle and explain. I have cared
for you since that man died. I cannot live without you, 'No good,' I
thought; 'she is marrying someone else'; but I meet you again when all
the world is glorious water and sun. As you came through the wood I
saw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and have my
chance of joy."

"And Mr. Vyse?" said Lucy, who kept commendably calm. "Does he not
matter? That I love Cecil and shall be his wife shortly? A detail of no
importance, I suppose?"

But he stretched his arms over the table towards her.

"May I ask what you intend to gain by this exhibition?"

He said: "It is our last chance. I shall do all that I can." And as
if he had done all else, he turned to Miss Bartlett, who sat like some
portent against the skies of the evening. "You wouldn't stop us this
second time if you understood," he said. "I have been into the dark, and
I am going back into it, unless you will try to understand."

Her long, narrow head drove backwards and forwards, as though
demolishing some invisible obstacle. She did not answer.

"It is being young," he said quietly, picking up his racquet from the
floor and preparing to go. "It is being certain that Lucy cares for me
really. It is that love and youth matter intellectually."

In silence the two women watched him. His last remark, they knew, was
nonsense, but was he going after it or not? Would not he, the cad,
the charlatan, attempt a more dramatic finish? No. He was apparently
content. He left them, carefully closing the front door; and when they
looked through the hall window, they saw him go up the drive and begin
to climb the slopes of withered fern behind the house. Their tongues
were loosed, and they burst into stealthy rejoicings.

"Oh, Lucia--come back here--oh, what an awful man!"

Lucy had no reaction--at least, not yet. "Well, he amuses me," she
said. "Either I'm mad, or else he is, and I'm inclined to think it's the
latter. One more fuss through with you, Charlotte. Many thanks. I think,
though, that this is the last. My admirer will hardly trouble me again."

And Miss Bartlett, too, essayed the roguish:

"Well, it isn't everyone who could boast such a conquest, dearest, is
it? Oh, one oughtn't to laugh, really. It might have been very serious.
But you were so sensible and brave--so unlike the girls of my day."

"Let's go down to them."

But, once in the open air, she paused. Some emotion--pity, terror, love,
but the emotion was strong--seized her, and she was aware of autumn.
Summer was ending, and the evening brought her odours of decay, the
more pathetic because they were reminiscent of spring. That something or
other mattered intellectually? A leaf, violently agitated, danced past
her, while other leaves lay motionless. That the earth was hastening to
re-enter darkness, and the shadows of those trees over Windy Corner?

"Hullo, Lucy! There's still light enough for another set, if you two'll
hurry."

"Mr. Emerson has had to go."

"What a nuisance! That spoils the four. I say, Cecil, do play, do,
there's a good chap. It's Floyd's last day. Do play tennis with us, just
this once."

Cecil's voice came: "My dear Freddy, I am no athlete. As you well
remarked this very morning, 'There are some chaps who are no good for
anything but books'; I plead guilty to being such a chap, and will not
inflict myself on you."

The scales fell from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment?
He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her
engagement.

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

completion: Lucy tries to suppress her feelings. She thinks that she must at all costs rid herself of George and maintain her engagement to Cecil. She calls for Charlotte, and confronts her with the events of the novel. Lucy has correctly deduced that Charlotte must have told Miss Lavish about the kiss in Florence. Now, it becomes clear why Charlotte initially made Lucy promise not to tell anyone but later so adamantly insisted that Lucy should tell everyone. Charlotte told Miss Lavish and feared that the woman would prove indiscreet. Lucy hopes that Charlotte will step in and confront George, as she did in Florence, but Charlotte hems and haws until it becomes clear that it is up to Lucy. She asks Charlotte to be present while she does it. She tells George, with Charlotte in the room, that he can never enter the house again. George argues passionately with her: he tells her that he would not have tried anything if Cecil were a different man. But Cecil is abominable, good for talk of books and painting but not much else. He is unkind and "should know no one intimately, least of all a woman". George pegged him as awful from the first day they met. He is always telling Lucy how to think, and what to be shocked by. Lucy responds that George is now doing the same thing. George admits that all men have some level of brutishness in them, and he has difficulty suppressing certain instincts, but he promises that he loves her in a deeper and more respectful way than Cecil does. Men and women will have to fight these attitudes together. They continue to argue, with George's pleas becoming more desperate. When it becomes clear that Lucy will not be moved, he leaves in despair. Charlotte commends Lucy for her courage. Lucy and Charlotte go back outside. She is suddenly aware that it is autumn, and she realizes that time is passing. She is seized by emotions she cannot articulate. Freddy wishes to play doubles again. With George gone, they need a fourth. Freddy asks Cecil, and Cecil refuses with pomp. Lucy's reaction is sudden: "The scales fell from Lucy's eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment. He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her engagement".


prompt:
Chapter: He was bewildered. He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but
stood, with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what
had led her to such a conclusion.

She had chosen the moment before bed, when, in accordance with their
bourgeois habit, she always dispensed drinks to the men. Freddy and Mr.
Floyd were sure to retire with their glasses, while Cecil invariably
lingered, sipping at his while she locked up the sideboard.

"I am very sorry about it," she said; "I have carefully thought things
over. We are too different. I must ask you to release me, and try to
forget that there ever was such a foolish girl."

It was a suitable speech, but she was more angry than sorry, and her
voice showed it.

"Different--how--how--"

"I haven't had a really good education, for one thing," she continued,
still on her knees by the sideboard. "My Italian trip came too late, and
I am forgetting all that I learnt there. I shall never be able to talk
to your friends, or behave as a wife of yours should."

"I don't understand you. You aren't like yourself. You're tired, Lucy."

"Tired!" she retorted, kindling at once. "That is exactly like you. You
always think women don't mean what they say."

"Well, you sound tired, as if something has worried you."

"What if I do? It doesn't prevent me from realizing the truth. I can't
marry you, and you will thank me for saying so some day."

"You had that bad headache yesterday--All right"--for she had exclaimed
indignantly: "I see it's much more than headaches. But give me a
moment's time." He closed his eyes. "You must excuse me if I say stupid
things, but my brain has gone to pieces. Part of it lives three minutes
back, when I was sure that you loved me, and the other part--I find it
difficult--I am likely to say the wrong thing."

It struck her that he was not behaving so badly, and her irritation
increased. She again desired a struggle, not a discussion. To bring on
the crisis, she said:

"There are days when one sees clearly, and this is one of them. Things
must come to a breaking-point some time, and it happens to be to-day. If
you want to know, quite a little thing decided me to speak to you--when
you wouldn't play tennis with Freddy."

"I never do play tennis," said Cecil, painfully bewildered; "I never
could play. I don't understand a word you say."

"You can play well enough to make up a four. I thought it abominably
selfish of you."

"No, I can't--well, never mind the tennis. Why couldn't you--couldn't
you have warned me if you felt anything wrong? You talked of our wedding
at lunch--at least, you let me talk."

"I knew you wouldn't understand," said Lucy quite crossly. "I might have
known there would have been these dreadful explanations. Of course,
it isn't the tennis--that was only the last straw to all I have been
feeling for weeks. Surely it was better not to speak until I felt
certain." She developed this position. "Often before I have wondered if
I was fitted for your wife--for instance, in London; and are you fitted
to be my husband? I don't think so. You don't like Freddy, nor my
mother. There was always a lot against our engagement, Cecil, but all
our relations seemed pleased, and we met so often, and it was no good
mentioning it until--well, until all things came to a point. They have
to-day. I see clearly. I must speak. That's all."

"I cannot think you were right," said Cecil gently. "I cannot tell
why, but though all that you say sounds true, I feel that you are not
treating me fairly. It's all too horrible."

"What's the good of a scene?"

"No good. But surely I have a right to hear a little more."

He put down his glass and opened the window. From where she knelt,
jangling her keys, she could see a slit of darkness, and, peering into
it, as if it would tell him that "little more," his long, thoughtful
face.

"Don't open the window; and you'd better draw the curtain, too; Freddy
or any one might be outside." He obeyed. "I really think we had better
go to bed, if you don't mind. I shall only say things that will make me
unhappy afterwards. As you say it is all too horrible, and it is no good
talking."

But to Cecil, now that he was about to lose her, she seemed each moment
more desirable. He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first
time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living
woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even
eluded art. His brain recovered from the shock, and, in a burst of
genuine devotion, he cried: "But I love you, and I did think you loved
me!"

"I did not," she said. "I thought I did at first. I am sorry, and ought
to have refused you this last time, too."

He began to walk up and down the room, and she grew more and more vexed
at his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his being petty. It would
have made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing out
all that was finest in his disposition.

"You don't love me, evidently. I dare say you are right not to. But it
would hurt a little less if I knew why."

"Because"--a phrase came to her, and she accepted it--"you're the sort
who can't know any one intimately."

A horrified look came into his eyes.

"I don't mean exactly that. But you will question me, though I beg you
not to, and I must say something. It is that, more or less. When we
were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always
protecting me." Her voice swelled. "I won't be protected. I will choose
for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't
I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through
you? A woman's place! You despise my mother--I know you do--because
she's conventional and bothers over puddings; but, oh goodness!"--she
rose to her feet--"conventional, Cecil, you're that, for you may
understand beautiful things, but you don't know how to use them; and you
wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up
me. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are
more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my
engagement. You were all right as long as you kept to things, but when
you came to people--" She stopped.

There was a pause. Then Cecil said with great emotion:

"It is true."

"True on the whole," she corrected, full of some vague shame.

"True, every word. It is a revelation. It is--I."

"Anyhow, those are my reasons for not being your wife."

He repeated: "'The sort that can know no one intimately.' It is true. I
fell to pieces the very first day we were engaged. I behaved like a cad
to Beebe and to your brother. You are even greater than I thought." She
withdrew a step. "I'm not going to worry you. You are far too good to
me. I shall never forget your insight; and, dear, I only blame you for
this: you might have warned me in the early stages, before you felt
you wouldn't marry me, and so have given me a chance to improve. I have
never known you till this evening. I have just used you as a peg for
my silly notions of what a woman should be. But this evening you are a
different person: new thoughts--even a new voice--"

"What do you mean by a new voice?" she asked, seized with incontrollable
anger.

"I mean that a new person seems speaking through you," said he.

Then she lost her balance. She cried: "If you think I am in love with
someone else, you are very much mistaken."

"Of course I don't think that. You are not that kind, Lucy."

"Oh, yes, you do think it. It's your old idea, the idea that has kept
Europe back--I mean the idea that women are always thinking of men. If
a girl breaks off her engagement, everyone says: 'Oh, she had some
one else in her mind; she hopes to get someone else.' It's disgusting,
brutal! As if a girl can't break it off for the sake of freedom."

He answered reverently: "I may have said that in the past. I shall never
say it again. You have taught me better."

She began to redden, and pretended to examine the windows again. "Of
course, there is no question of 'someone else' in this, no 'jilting' or
any such nauseous stupidity. I beg your pardon most humbly if my words
suggested that there was. I only meant that there was a force in you
that I hadn't known of up till now."

"All right, Cecil, that will do. Don't apologize to me. It was my
mistake."

"It is a question between ideals, yours and mine--pure abstract ideals,
and yours are the nobler. I was bound up in the old vicious notions,
and all the time you were splendid and new." His voice broke. "I must
actually thank you for what you have done--for showing me what I really
am. Solemnly, I thank you for showing me a true woman. Will you shake
hands?"

"Of course I will," said Lucy, twisting up her other hand in the
curtains. "Good-night, Cecil. Good-bye. That's all right. I'm sorry
about it. Thank you very much for your gentleness."

"Let me light your candle, shall I?"

They went into the hall.

"Thank you. Good-night again. God bless you, Lucy!"

"Good-bye, Cecil."

She watched him steal up-stairs, while the shadows from three banisters
passed over her face like the beat of wings. On the landing he paused
strong in his renunciation, and gave her a look of memorable beauty. For
all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his love
became him like the leaving of it.

She could never marry. In the tumult of her soul, that stood firm. Cecil
believed in her; she must some day believe in herself. She must be one
of the women whom she had praised so eloquently, who care for liberty
and not for men; she must forget that George loved her, that George had
been thinking through her and gained her this honourable release, that
George had gone away into--what was it?--the darkness.

She put out the lamp.

It did not do to think, nor, for the matter of that, to feel. She gave up
trying to understand herself, and joined the vast armies of the benighted, who
follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to their destiny by
catch-words. The armies are full of pleasant and pious folk. But they
have yielded to the only enemy that matters--the enemy within. They have
sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be their strife after
virtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their pleasantry and
their piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism, their unselfishness
hypocrisy; they feel and produce discomfort wherever they go. They have
sinned against Eros and against Pallas Athene, and not by any heavenly
intervention, but by the ordinary course of nature, those allied deities
will be avenged.

Lucy entered this army when she pretended to George that she did not
love him, and pretended to Cecil that she loved no one. The night
received her, as it had received Miss Bartlett thirty years before.

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

completion: Cecil is horribly hurt, and he wants explanations. Lucy eludes him as long as she can, but finally she tells him many of the things that George has helped her to realize. Cecil is selfish, condescending, and cruel to other human beings. He is barbaric to women, and will not respect Lucy enough to let her decide how to think and act. None of the art or books he has studied has helped him to be better to other people. Cecil is floored; he concedes that she is right. He is more in love with her than ever. When he says that she speaks with a new voice, he means that she seems more herself than he has ever seen; she mistakes his meaning and thinks he is accusing her of being in love with someone else. She becomes very defensive, but he assures her that he intended no such meaning. They part, Cecil full of new respect for Lucy. Lucy resolves never to marry. She will become a lone woman; she must forget that George ever loved her. She has lied to both Cecil and George, and she must now stick with the lie. She will stay with her choice. The narrator condemns her choice, calling it a sin against passion and truth. Forster writes, "The night received her, as it had received Miss Bartlett thirty years before".


prompt:
Chapter: Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred feet
down the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great buttresses
that supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow ravine,
filled with ferns and pine-trees, and down the ravine on the left ran
the highway into the Weald.

Whenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these noble
dispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of them, Windy
Corner,--he laughed. The situation was so glorious, the house so
commonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr. Honeychurch had
affected the cube, because it gave him the most accommodation for his
money, and the only addition made by his widow had been a small turret,
shaped like a rhinoceros' horn, where she could sit in wet weather and
watch the carts going up and down the road. So impertinent--and yet the
house "did," for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings
honestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive
architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all
these suggested the accidental, the temporary; while Windy Corner seemed
as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature's own creation. One might laugh
at the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling over
this Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from the Miss
Alans. These admirable ladies, since they could not go to Cissie Villa,
had changed their plans. They were going to Greece instead.

"Since Florence did my poor sister so much good," wrote Miss Catharine,
"we do not see why we should not try Athens this winter. Of course,
Athens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered her special digestive
bread; but, after all, we can take that with us, and it is only getting
first into a steamer and then into a train. But is there an English
Church?" And the letter went on to say: "I do not expect we shall go any
further than Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable pension at
Constantinople, we should be so grateful."

Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe greeted
Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it, and some
of its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though she was hopeless
about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly--oh, that cerise
frock yesterday at church!--she must see some beauty in life, or she
could not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians are
incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want
and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends;
that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been
understood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been
illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was only
riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether
Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies
to visit Athens.

A carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught
sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped abruptly
when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse, who
always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him. The
door opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized
as Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving; but he saw
a trunk beside the coachman's legs. Cecil, who wore a bowler, must be
going away, while Freddy (a cap)--was seeing him to the station. They
walked rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the summit while the
carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road.

They shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak.

"So you're off for a minute, Mr. Vyse?" he asked.

Cecil said, "Yes," while Freddy edged away.

"I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends
of Miss Honeychurch." He quoted from it. "Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it
romance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken
in a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world."

Cecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be amused
and interested.

"Isn't Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people; you
do nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is dead, while the
Miss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against the
terrible thing. 'A really comfortable pension at Constantinople!' So
they call it out of decency, but in their hearts they want a pension
with magic windows opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland
forlorn! No ordinary view will content the Miss Alans. They want the
Pension Keats."

"I'm awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe," said Freddy, "but have you
any matches?"

"I have," said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe's notice that he
spoke to the boy more kindly.

"You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?"

"Never."

"Then you don't see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven't been
to Greece myself, and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine any of my
friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don't you
think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is heroic,
but Greece is godlike or devilish--I am not sure which, and in either
case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy--I am
not being clever, upon my word I am not--I took the idea from another
fellow; and give me those matches when you've done with them." He lit a
cigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. "I was saying, if
our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian.
Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for
me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But not the
Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and here comes the
victoria."

"You're quite right," said Cecil. "Greece is not for our little lot";
and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he
trusted not to be pulling one's leg, really. And before they had gone a
dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse's match-box,
which had not been returned. As he took it, he said: "I'm so glad you
only talked about books. Cecil's hard hit. Lucy won't marry him. If
you'd gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken
down."

"But when--"

"Late last night. I must go."

"Perhaps they won't want me down there."

"No--go on. Good-bye."

"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle
of his bicycle approvingly, "It was the one foolish thing she ever
did. Oh, what a glorious riddance!" And, after a little thought, he
negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was
again as it ought to be--cut off forever from Cecil's pretentious world.

He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden.

In the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated a
moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a mournful
company. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and broken the
dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them up,
while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of
assistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the "garden-child," a
minute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass.

"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look
at my scarlet pompoms, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the
ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage
having to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, who--give every
one their due--does tie up dahlias properly."

Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered.

"How do you do?" said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though
conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn
gales.

"Here, Lennie, the bass," cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The garden-child, who
did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror. Minnie
slipped to her uncle and whispered that everyone was very disagreeable
to-day, and that it was not her fault if dahlia-strings would tear
longways instead of across.

"Come for a walk with me," he told her. "You have worried them as much
as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I shall
take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may."

"Oh, must you? Yes do.--Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when
both my hands are full already--I'm perfectly certain that the orange
cactus will go before I can get to it."

Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss
Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity.

"Yes, Charlotte, I don't want you--do go; there's nothing to stop about
for, either in the house or out of it."

Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she had
exasperated everyone, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round and
exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden, the
orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe's last vision was of the garden-child
clasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth of blossom.

"It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers," he remarked.

"It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a
moment," enunciated Miss Bartlett.

"Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will
she come with us?"

"I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits."

"They're angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for
breakfast," whispered Minnie, "and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has
gone, and Freddy won't play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house is
not AT ALL what it was yesterday."

"Don't be a prig," said her Uncle Arthur. "Go and put on your boots."

He stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still attentively
pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered.

"How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at
the Beehive. Would you come too?"

"I don't think I will, thank you."

"No, I didn't suppose you would care to much."

Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords.

"How delicate those Sonatas are!" said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom
of his heart, he thought them silly little things.

Lucy passed into Schumann.

"Miss Honeychurch!"

"Yes."

"I met them on the hill. Your brother told me."

"Oh he did?" She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had
thought that she would like him to be told.

"I needn't say that it will go no further."

"Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you," said Lucy, playing a note for
each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note.

"If you'll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you have
done the right thing."

"So I hoped other people would think, but they don't seem to."

"I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise."

"So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully."

"I am very sorry for that," said Mr. Beebe with feeling.

Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as
much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really
a ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondency--a ruse of which she was not
herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness.

"And Freddy minds."

"Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that
he disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you."

"Boys are so odd."

Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea
at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr.
Beebe saw that Lucy--very properly--did not wish to discuss her action,
so after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, "I have had an
absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I
thought it might amuse you all."

"How delightful!" said Lucy, in a dull voice.

For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After
a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with
"Going abroad? When do they start?"

"Next week, I gather."

"Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?"

"No, he didn't."

"Because I do hope he won't go gossiping."

So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always complaisant,
he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a high voice, "Oh,
do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly splendid of them to
go abroad!"

"I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the
Illyrian coast!"

She laughed heartily. "Oh, delightful! I wish they'd take me."

"Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson
is right. He says that 'Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.'"

"Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to
Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn't it?"

Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that
the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, "with Delphi, perhaps, if the roads
are safe." But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had always
longed to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his surprise,
that she was apparently serious.

"I didn't realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends,
after Cissie Villa."

"Oh, that's nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa's nothing to me; I would
give anything to go with them."

"Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home
three months."

"She MUST spare me!" cried Lucy, in growing excitement. "I simply MUST
go away. I have to." She ran her fingers hysterically through her hair.
"Don't you see that I HAVE to go away? I didn't realize at the time--and
of course I want to see Constantinople so particularly."

"You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel--"

"Yes, yes. I knew you'd understand."

Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch
repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the
dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that
her family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she
accepted the hint eagerly.

"Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to the idea
and everything has calmed down."

"I am afraid it has been a bothersome business," he said gently.

"No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only--I had better tell
you the whole truth, since you have heard a little--it was that he is
so masterful. I found that he wouldn't let me go my own way. He would
improve me in places where I can't be improved. Cecil won't let a woman
decide for herself--in fact, he daren't. What nonsense I do talk! But
that is the kind of thing."

"It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is what I
gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree
most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little
criticism: Is it worth while rushing off to Greece?"

"But I must go somewhere!" she cried. "I have been worrying all the
morning, and here comes the very thing." She struck her knees with
clenched fists, and repeated: "I must! And the time I shall have with
mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think
much too highly of me. I wish you weren't so kind." At this moment Miss
Bartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. "I must get away, ever
so far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go."

"Come along; tea, tea, tea," said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out
of the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat.
When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the
tinkling of a Mozart Sonata.

"She is playing again," he said to Miss Bartlett.

"Lucy can always play," was the acid reply.

"One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently
much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it. The
marriage was so near that it must have been a hard struggle before she
could wind herself up to speak."

Miss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a discussion.
He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself
at Florence, "she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of
meaning." But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable. He
assumed that much, and he had no hesitation in discussing Lucy with her.
Minnie was fortunately collecting ferns.

She opened the discussion with: "We had much better let the matter
drop."

"I wonder."

"It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip in
Summer Street. It would be DEATH to gossip about Mr. Vyse's dismissal at
the present moment."

Mr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong word--surely too
strong. There was no question of tragedy. He said: "Of course, Miss
Honeychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and when she
chooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would not mind."

"I know," said Miss Bartlett civilly. "Yet Freddy ought not to have told
even you. One cannot be too careful."

"Quite so."

"I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering friend,
and--"

"Exactly." He was used to these nervous old maids and to the exaggerated
importance that they attach to words. A rector lives in a web of petty
secrets, and confidences and warnings, and the wiser he is the less he
will regard them. He will change the subject, as did Mr. Beebe, saying
cheerfully: "Have you heard from any Bertolini people lately? I believe
you keep up with Miss Lavish. It is odd how we of that pension,
who seemed such a fortuitous collection, have been working into one
another's lives. Two, three, four, six of us--no, eight; I had forgotten
the Emersons--have kept more or less in touch. We must really give the
Signora a testimonial."

And, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the hill in
a silence which was only broken by the rector naming some fern. On the
summit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since he stood there last
hour, giving to the land a tragic greatness that is rare in Surrey.
Grey clouds were charging across tissues of white, which stretched and
shredded and tore slowly, until through their final layers there gleamed
a hint of the disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The wind roared,
the trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for those vast
operations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking, broken,
and it is a sense of the fit rather than of the supernatural that equips
such crises with the salvos of angelic artillery. Mr. Beebe's eyes
rested on Windy Corner, where Lucy sat, practising Mozart. No smile came
to his lips, and, changing the subject again, he said: "We shan't have
rain, but we shall have darkness, so let us hurry on. The darkness last
night was appalling."

They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o'clock. That amiable
hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do
dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant
sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that
Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be
dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would hand
the child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally enabled
to discuss the fortunes of Lucy.

"I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett," he said, "and, unless you
very much object, I would like to reopen that discussion." She bowed.
"Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that; I am
absolutely certain that it is to your cousin's credit. She has acted
loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we
think too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think of
this Greek plan?" He pulled out the letter again. "I don't know whether
you overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their mad career.
It's all--I can't explain--it's wrong."

Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to
hesitate, and then read it again.

"I can't see the point of it myself."

To his astonishment, she replied: "There I cannot agree with you. In it
I spy Lucy's salvation."

"Really. Now, why?"

"She wanted to leave Windy Corner."

"I know--but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so--I was going to
say--selfish."

"It is natural, surely--after such painful scenes--that she should
desire a change."

Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect
misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: "So she says herself, and since another
lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps
she must have a change. I have no sisters or--and I don't understand
these things. But why need she go as far as Greece?"

"You may well ask that," replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently
interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. "Why Greece?
(What is it, Minnie dear--jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe!
I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this
morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already
said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with
me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused."

Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.

"But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on
Lucy's nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence, and
when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the time I
felt that I was spending her mother's money--."

"Let us keep to the future, though," interrupted Mr. Beebe. "I want your
advice."

"Very well," said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to
him, though familiar to Lucy. "I for one will help her to go to Greece.
Will you?"

Mr. Beebe considered.

"It is absolutely necessary," she continued, lowering her veil and
whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him.
"I know--I know." The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this odd
woman really did know. "She must not stop here a moment, and we must
keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing.
Afterwards--but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are
helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed.
Otherwise--"

"Otherwise--?"

"Otherwise," she repeated as if the word held finality.

"Yes, I will help her," said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm. "Come,
let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up."

Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign--a beehive
trimmed evenly with bees--creaked in the wind outside as she thanked
him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he did
not desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of "another
man" that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss
Bartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be
delivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its very
vagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in celibacy, so
reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and culture, now
came to the surface and expanded like some delicate flower. "They that
marry do well, but they that refrain do better." So ran his belief,
and he never heard that an engagement was broken off but with a slight
feeling of pleasure. In the case of Lucy, the feeling was intensified
through dislike of Cecil; and he was willing to go further--to place her
out of danger until she could confirm her resolution of virginity. The
feeling was very subtle and quite undogmatic, and he never imparted it
to any other of the characters in this entanglement. Yet it existed,
and it alone explains his action subsequently, and his influence on the
action of others. The compact that he made with Miss Bartlett in the
tavern, was to help not only Lucy, but religion also.

They hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed on
indifferent topics: the Emersons' need of a housekeeper; servants;
Italian servants; novels about Italy; novels with a purpose; could
literature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered. In the garden, Mrs.
Honeychurch, now helped by Freddy, still wrestled with the lives of her
flowers.

"It gets too dark," she said hopelessly. "This comes of putting off. We
might have known the weather would break up soon; and now Lucy wants to
go to Greece. I don't know what the world's coming to."

"Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "go to Greece she must. Come up to the
house and let's talk it over. Do you, in the first place, mind her
breaking with Vyse?"

"Mr. Beebe, I'm thankful--simply thankful."

"So am I," said Freddy.

"Good. Now come up to the house."

They conferred in the dining-room for half an hour.

Lucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive
and dramatic--both qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would
Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe.
By his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergyman--for
a clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly--he
bent her to their purpose, "I don't see why Greece is necessary," she
said; "but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I
can't understand. Lucy! Let's tell her. Lucy!"

"She is playing the piano," Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and
heard the words of a song:

     "Look not thou on beauty's charming."

"I didn't know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too."

  "Sit thou still when kings are arming,
   Taste not when the wine-cup glistens--"

"It's a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!"

"What's that?" called Lucy, stopping short.

"All right, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the
drawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: "I am sorry I
was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias."

Rather a hard voice said: "Thank you, mother; that doesn't matter a
bit."

"And you are right, too--Greece will be all right; you can go if the
Miss Alans will have you."

"Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!"

Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the
keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother
bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the
floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips.
Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of
the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the Santa Conversazione,
in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together
about noble things--a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and
therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to
marry or to travel when she had such friends at home?

  "Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,
   Speak not when the people listens,"

she continued.

"Here's Mr. Beebe."

"Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways."

"It's a beautiful song and a wise one," said he. "Go on."

"It isn't very good," she said listlessly. "I forget why--harmony or
something."

"I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful."

"The tune's right enough," said Freddy, "but the words are rotten. Why
throw up the sponge?"

"How stupidly you talk!" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione was
broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about
Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye.

Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual
felicity of phrase, said: "This has been a day and a half."

    "Stop thine ear against the singer--"

"Wait a minute; she is finishing."

   "From the red gold keep thy finger;
    Vacant heart and hand and eye
    Easy live and quiet die."

"I love weather like this," said Freddy.

Mr. Beebe passed into it.

The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had
helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a change
in a girl's life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or puzzled, he
must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part.

   "Vacant heart and hand and eye--"

Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He half
fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose in the
shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing
the words that it adorned:

  "Vacant heart and hand and eye
   Easy live and quiet die."

However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--now as a
beacon in the roaring tides of darkness.

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

completion: Mr. Beebe rides his bicycle to Windy Corner, bringing amusing news. Since the Miss Alans lost Cissie Villa, they have decided to go to Greece instead. He sees Freddy and Cecil first; he does not know that the engagement has been broken off. He speaks to them glowingly of the Miss Alans and their proposed trip. Cecil is unresponsive, and he gets on the victoria to go. With Cecil in the carriage, Freddy discreetly tells Mr. Beebe that Lucy broke off the engagement. Then the boy rushes off to escort Cecil on his way. Mr. Beebe is delighted by the news. It is a windy day, and Mrs. Honeychurch is busy trying to save the plants in the garden. Mr. Beebe goes in to find Lucy tinkering on the piano. After some polite conversation, Mr. Beebe tells her that he knows she broke off the engagement. Lucy thinks that Mrs. Honeychurch, Charlotte, and Freddy don't really approve of the decision. He changes the subject, and tells her about the Miss Alans going to Greece. Lucy's interest is piqued. The idea seizes her that she should accompany the Miss Alans. She speaks of a longing to see Constantinople, so near to Greece, and maybe even beyond; she becomes more attached to the idea with each passing second. A moment later, Mr. Beebe has a word alone with Miss Bartlett. Miss Bartlett seems surprised that Freddy told Mr. Beebe what happened. She advises Mr. Beebe to keep quiet about the incident. He and Miss Bartlett take Minnie out for food. He wonders why Lucy needs so desperately to go to Greece. Charlotte agrees that Lucy should go; she says elusively that Lucy has good reason. She will try to persuade Mrs. Honeychurch to let her go, but she asks that Mr. Beebe help. Intrigued and perhaps worried by Miss Bartlett's obtuseness, he agrees to help. Forster lets us in on Mr. Beebe's thoughts: he is delighted by the idea of Lucy remaining celibate. Celibate himself, he imagines the same sort of life for Lucy. He returns to Windy Corner and meets Mrs. Honeychurch and Freddy outside. He asks them how they feel about the end of the engagement, and they both admit that they are relieved. He goes inside with Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy goes to join Lucy, who is playing the piano. He persuades Mrs. Honeychurch that Greece is necessary. They go in to give the good news to Lucy, who is singing to Freddy. She receives the news happily, but not overwhelmingly so. She continues to sing, and Mr. Beebe goes along his way. As he leaves, he hears the end of the song. The song is about living quietly and forsaking passion, but Lucy finishes with a tone that seems to condemn the lyrics.