Chapter: The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not
disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons to
Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through the
negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement,
met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were
duly offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held
responsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the
new-comers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as
soon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse's equipment that she
permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his head,
to be forgotten, and to die.

Lucy--to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows
because there are hills--Lucy was at first plunged into despair, but
settled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least.
Now that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and
were welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring whom
he would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to bring
the Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a little
thinking, and--so illogical are girls--the event remained rather greater
and rather more dreadful than it should have done. She was glad that
a visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due; the tenants moved into Cissie Villa
while she was safe in the London flat.

"Cecil--Cecil darling," she whispered the evening she arrived, and crept
into his arms.

Cecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire had been
kindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a woman should,
and looked up to him because he was a man.

"So you do love me, little thing?" he murmured.

"Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don't know what I should do without you."

Several days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett. A
coolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had not
corresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated from what
Charlotte would call "the flight to Rome," and in Rome it had increased
amazingly. For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval
world becomes exasperating in the classical. Charlotte, unselfish in the
Forum, would have tried a sweeter temper than Lucy's, and once, in the
Baths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue
their tour. Lucy had said she would join the Vyses--Mrs. Vyse was an
acquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and
Miss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned
suddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained, and, for
Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as follows.
It had been forwarded from Windy Corner.


"Tunbridge Wells,

"September.

"Dearest Lucia,

"I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in your
parts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome. Puncturing
her tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while she sat very
woebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her astonishment, a door
open opposite and the younger Emerson man come out. He said his father
had just taken the house. He SAID he did not know that you lived in the
neighbourhood (?). He never suggested giving Eleanor a cup of tea. Dear
Lucy, I am much worried, and I advise you to make a clean breast of his
past behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who will forbid him
to enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune, and I dare say you
have told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I remember how I used
to get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry about it all, and should
not feel easy unless I warned you.

"Believe me,

"Your anxious and loving cousin,

"Charlotte."


Lucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows:


"Beauchamp Mansions, S.W.

"Dear Charlotte,

"Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on the
mountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you said she
would blame you for not being always with me. I have kept that promise,
and cannot possibly tell her now. I have said both to her and Cecil
that I met the Emersons at Florence, and that they are respectable
people--which I do think--and the reason that he offered Miss Lavish no
tea was probably that he had none himself. She should have tried at the
Rectory. I cannot begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that
it would be too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them,
they would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they
are not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him again.
As for the son, I am sorry for him when we meet, rather than for myself.
They are known to Cecil, who is very well and spoke of you the other
day. We expect to be married in January.

"Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at Windy
Corner at all, but here. Please do not put 'Private' outside your
envelope again. No one opens my letters.

"Yours affectionately,

"L. M. Honeychurch."


Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we
cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her
cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil's life if
he discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss
Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a
great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother
and her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained a little thing.
"Emerson, not Harris"; it was only that a few weeks ago. She tried to
tell Cecil even now when they were laughing about some beautiful
lady who had smitten his heart at school. But her body behaved so
ridiculously that she stopped.

She and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted Metropolis
visiting the scenes they were to know so well later on. It did her no
harm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of society, while society
itself was absent on the golf-links or the moors. The weather was cool,
and it did her no harm. In spite of the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to
scrape together a dinner-party consisting entirely of the grandchildren
of famous people. The food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness
that impressed the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One
launched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself
up amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension Bertolini
and Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw that her London
career would estrange her a little from all that she had loved in the
past.

The grandchildren asked her to play the piano.

She played Schumann. "Now some Beethoven" called Cecil, when the
querulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and played
Schumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it
was resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The
sadness of the incomplete--the sadness that is often Life, but should
never be Art--throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of
the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano
at the Bertolini, and "Too much Schumann" was not the remark that Mr.
Beebe had passed to himself when she returned.

When the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse paced
up and down the drawing-room, discussing her little party with her son.
Mrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality, like many another's,
had been swamped by London, for it needs a strong head to live among
many people. The too vast orb of her fate had crushed her; and she had
seen too many seasons, too many cities, too many men, for her abilities,
and even with Cecil she was mechanical, and behaved as if he was not one
son, but, so to speak, a filial crowd.

"Make Lucy one of us," she said, looking round intelligently at the end
of each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she spoke again.
"Lucy is becoming wonderful--wonderful."

"Her music always was wonderful."

"Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most excellent
Honeychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not always quoting
servants, or asking one how the pudding is made."

"Italy has done it."

"Perhaps," she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented Italy
to her. "It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her next January.
She is one of us already."

"But her music!" he exclaimed. "The style of her! How she kept to
Schumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was right for
this evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know, mother, I shall have
our children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest country
folks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and then--not
till then--let them come to London. I don't believe in these London
educations--" He broke off, remembering that he had had one himself, and
concluded, "At all events, not for women."

"Make her one of us," repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed.

As she was dozing off, a cry--the cry of nightmare--rang from Lucy's
room. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs. Vyse thought it
kind to go herself. She found the girl sitting upright with her hand on
her cheek.

"I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyse--it is these dreams."

"Bad dreams?"

"Just dreams."

The elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly: "You
should have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you more than
ever. Dream of that."

Lucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand. Mrs.
Vyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke, snored.
Darkness enveloped the flat.



It was a Saturday afternoon, gay and brilliant after abundant rains, and
the spirit of youth dwelt in it, though the season was now autumn. All
that was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer
Street they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon
dispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or
of the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life's amenities, leant over his
Rectory gate. Freddy leant by him, smoking a pendant pipe.

"Suppose we go and hinder those new people opposite for a little."

"M'm."

"They might amuse you."

Freddy, whom his fellow-creatures never amused, suggested that the new
people might be feeling a bit busy, and so on, since they had only just
moved in.

"I suggested we should hinder them," said Mr. Beebe. "They are worth
it." Unlatching the gate, he sauntered over the triangular green to
Cissie Villa. "Hullo!" he cried, shouting in at the open door, through
which much squalor was visible.

A grave voice replied, "Hullo!"

"I've brought someone to see you."

"I'll be down in a minute."

The passage was blocked by a wardrobe, which the removal men had failed
to carry up the stairs. Mr. Beebe edged round it with difficulty. The
sitting-room itself was blocked with books.

"Are these people great readers?" Freddy whispered. "Are they that
sort?"

"I fancy they know how to read--a rare accomplishment. What have they
got? Byron. Exactly. A Shropshire Lad. Never heard of it. The Way of
All Flesh. Never heard of it. Gibbon. Hullo! dear George reads German.
Um--um--Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and so we go on. Well, I suppose your
generation knows its own business, Honeychurch."

"Mr. Beebe, look at that," said Freddy in awestruck tones.

On the cornice of the wardrobe, the hand of an amateur had painted this
inscription: "Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes."

"I know. Isn't it jolly? I like that. I'm certain that's the old man's
doing."

"How very odd of him!"

"Surely you agree?"

But Freddy was his mother's son and felt that one ought not to go on
spoiling the furniture.

"Pictures!" the clergyman continued, scrambling about the room.
"Giotto--they got that at Florence, I'll be bound."

"The same as Lucy's got."

"Oh, by-the-by, did Miss Honeychurch enjoy London?"

"She came back yesterday."

"I suppose she had a good time?"

"Yes, very," said Freddy, taking up a book. "She and Cecil are thicker
than ever."

"That's good hearing."

"I wish I wasn't such a fool, Mr. Beebe."

Mr. Beebe ignored the remark.

"Lucy used to be nearly as stupid as I am, but it'll be very different
now, mother thinks. She will read all kinds of books."

"So will you."

"Only medical books. Not books that you can talk about afterwards. Cecil
is teaching Lucy Italian, and he says her playing is wonderful. There
are all kinds of things in it that we have never noticed. Cecil says--"

"What on earth are those people doing upstairs? Emerson--we think we'll
come another time."

George ran down-stairs and pushed them into the room without speaking.

"Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, a neighbour."

Then Freddy hurled one of the thunderbolts of youth. Perhaps he was shy,
perhaps he was friendly, or perhaps he thought that George's face wanted
washing. At all events he greeted him with, "How d'ye do? Come and have
a bathe."

"Oh, all right," said George, impassive.

Mr. Beebe was highly entertained.

"'How d'ye do? how d'ye do? Come and have a bathe,'" he chuckled.
"That's the best conversational opening I've ever heard. But I'm afraid
it will only act between men. Can you picture a lady who has been
introduced to another lady by a third lady opening civilities with 'How
do you do? Come and have a bathe'? And yet you will tell me that the
sexes are equal."

"I tell you that they shall be," said Mr. Emerson, who had been slowly
descending the stairs. "Good afternoon, Mr. Beebe. I tell you they shall
be comrades, and George thinks the same."

"We are to raise ladies to our level?" the clergyman inquired.

"The Garden of Eden," pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, "which you
place in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no
longer despise our bodies."

Mr. Beebe disclaimed placing the Garden of Eden anywhere.

"In this--not in other things--we men are ahead. We despise the body
less than women do. But not until we are comrades shall we enter the
garden."

"I say, what about this bathe?" murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass of
philosophy that was approaching him.

"I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to
Nature when we have never been with her? To-day, I believe that we must
discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is
our heritage."

"Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, whose sister you will remember at
Florence."

"How do you do? Very glad to see you, and that you are taking George for
a bathe. Very glad to hear that your sister is going to marry. Marriage
is a duty. I am sure that she will be happy, for we know Mr. Vyse, too.
He has been most kind. He met us by chance in the National Gallery, and
arranged everything about this delightful house. Though I hope I have
not vexed Sir Harry Otway. I have met so few Liberal landowners, and
I was anxious to compare his attitude towards the game laws with the
Conservative attitude. Ah, this wind! You do well to bathe. Yours is a
glorious country, Honeychurch!"

"Not a bit!" mumbled Freddy. "I must--that is to say, I have to--have
the pleasure of calling on you later on, my mother says, I hope."

"CALL, my lad? Who taught us that drawing-room twaddle? Call on your
grandmother! Listen to the wind among the pines! Yours is a glorious
country."

Mr. Beebe came to the rescue.

"Mr. Emerson, he will call, I shall call; you or your son will return
our calls before ten days have elapsed. I trust that you have realized
about the ten days' interval. It does not count that I helped you with
the stair-eyes yesterday. It does not count that they are going to bathe
this afternoon."

"Yes, go and bathe, George. Why do you dawdle talking? Bring them back
to tea. Bring back some milk, cakes, honey. The change will do you good.
George has been working very hard at his office. I can't believe he's
well."

George bowed his head, dusty and sombre, exhaling the peculiar smell of
one who has handled furniture.

"Do you really want this bathe?" Freddy asked him. "It is only a pond,
don't you know. I dare say you are used to something better."

"Yes--I have said 'Yes' already."

Mr. Beebe felt bound to assist his young friend, and led the way out
of the house and into the pine-woods. How glorious it was! For a little
time the voice of old Mr. Emerson pursued them dispensing good wishes
and philosophy. It ceased, and they only heard the fair wind blowing the
bracken and the trees. Mr. Beebe, who could be silent, but who could not
bear silence, was compelled to chatter, since the expedition looked like
a failure, and neither of his companions would utter a word. He spoke of
Florence. George attended gravely, assenting or dissenting with slight
but determined gestures that were as inexplicable as the motions of the
tree-tops above their heads.

"And what a coincidence that you should meet Mr. Vyse! Did you realize
that you would find all the Pension Bertolini down here?"

"I did not. Miss Lavish told me."

"When I was a young man, I always meant to write a 'History of
Coincidence.'"

No enthusiasm.

"Though, as a matter of fact, coincidences are much rarer than we
suppose. For example, it isn't purely coincidentally that you are here
now, when one comes to reflect."

To his relief, George began to talk.

"It is. I have reflected. It is Fate. Everything is Fate. We are flung
together by Fate, drawn apart by Fate--flung together, drawn apart. The
twelve winds blow us--we settle nothing--"

"You have not reflected at all," rapped the clergyman. "Let me give you
a useful tip, Emerson: attribute nothing to Fate. Don't say, 'I didn't
do this,' for you did it, ten to one. Now I'll cross-question you. Where
did you first meet Miss Honeychurch and myself?"

"Italy."

"And where did you meet Mr. Vyse, who is going to marry Miss
Honeychurch?"

"National Gallery."

"Looking at Italian art. There you are, and yet you talk of coincidence
and Fate. You naturally seek out things Italian, and so do we and our
friends. This narrows the field immeasurably we meet again in it."

"It is Fate that I am here," persisted George. "But you can call it
Italy if it makes you less unhappy."

Mr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject. But he was
infinitely tolerant of the young, and had no desire to snub George.

"And so for this and for other reasons my 'History of Coincidence' is
still to write."

Silence.

Wishing to round off the episode, he added; "We are all so glad that you
have come."

Silence.

"Here we are!" called Freddy.

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Mr. Beebe, mopping his brow.

"In there's the pond. I wish it was bigger," he added apologetically.

They climbed down a slippery bank of pine-needles. There lay the pond,
set in its little alp of green--only a pond, but large enough to contain
the human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky. On account of the
rains, the waters had flooded the surrounding grass, which showed like a
beautiful emerald path, tempting these feet towards the central pool.

"It's distinctly successful, as ponds go," said Mr. Beebe. "No apologies
are necessary for the pond."

George sat down where the ground was dry, and drearily unlaced his
boots.

"Aren't those masses of willow-herb splendid? I love willow-herb in
seed. What's the name of this aromatic plant?"

No one knew, or seemed to care.

"These abrupt changes of vegetation--this little spongeous tract of
water plants, and on either side of it all the growths are tough or
brittle--heather, bracken, hurts, pines. Very charming, very charming."

"Mr. Beebe, aren't you bathing?" called Freddy, as he stripped himself.

Mr. Beebe thought he was not.

"Water's wonderful!" cried Freddy, prancing in.

"Water's water," murmured George. Wetting his hair first--a sure sign of
apathy--he followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were
a statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds. It was necessary to use his
muscles. It was necessary to keep clean. Mr. Beebe watched them, and
watched the seeds of the willow-herb dance chorically above their heads.

"Apooshoo, apooshoo, apooshoo," went Freddy, swimming for two strokes in
either direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud.

"Is it worth it?" asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded
margin.

The bank broke away, and he fell into the pool before he had weighed the
question properly.

"Hee-poof--I've swallowed a pollywog, Mr. Beebe, water's wonderful,
water's simply ripping."

"Water's not so bad," said George, reappearing from his plunge, and
sputtering at the sun.

"Water's wonderful. Mr. Beebe, do."

"Apooshoo, kouf."

Mr. Beebe, who was hot, and who always acquiesced where possible, looked
around him. He could detect no parishioners except the pine-trees,
rising up steeply on all sides, and gesturing to each other against
the blue. How glorious it was! The world of motor-cars and rural Deans
receded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a wind--these things not
even the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the intrusion of
man?

"I may as well wash too"; and soon his garments made a third little pile
on the sward, and he too asserted the wonder of the water.

It was ordinary water, nor was there very much of it, and, as Freddy
said, it reminded one of swimming in a salad. The three gentlemen
rotated in the pool breast high, after the fashion of the nymphs in
Gotterdammerung. But either because the rains had given a freshness or
because the sun was shedding a most glorious heat, or because two of the
gentlemen were young in years and the third young in spirit--for some
reason or other a change came over them, and they forgot Italy and
Botany and Fate. They began to play. Mr. Beebe and Freddy splashed each
other. A little deferentially, they splashed George. He was quiet: they
feared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out. He
smiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked them,
muddied them, and drove them out of the pool.

"Race you round it, then," cried Freddy, and they raced in the sunshine,
and George took a short cut and dirtied his shins, and had to bathe a
second time. Then Mr. Beebe consented to run--a memorable sight.

They ran to get dry, they bathed to get cool, they played at being
Indians in the willow-herbs and in the bracken, they bathed to get
clean. And all the time three little bundles lay discreetly on the
sward, proclaiming:

"No. We are what matters. Without us shall no enterprise begin. To us
shall all flesh turn in the end."

"A try! A try!" yelled Freddy, snatching up George's bundle and placing
it beside an imaginary goal-post.

"Socker rules," George retorted, scattering Freddy's bundle with a kick.

"Goal!"

"Goal!"

"Pass!"

"Take care my watch!" cried Mr. Beebe.

Clothes flew in all directions.

"Take care my hat! No, that's enough, Freddy. Dress now. No, I say!"

But the two young men were delirious. Away they twinkled into the trees,
Freddy with a clerical waistcoat under his arm, George with a wide-awake
hat on his dripping hair.

"That'll do!" shouted Mr. Beebe, remembering that after all he was in
his own parish. Then his voice changed as if every pine-tree was a Rural
Dean. "Hi! Steady on! I see people coming you fellows!"

Yells, and widening circles over the dappled earth.

"Hi! hi! LADIES!"

Neither George nor Freddy was truly refined. Still, they did not hear
Mr. Beebe's last warning or they would have avoided Mrs. Honeychurch,
Cecil, and Lucy, who were walking down to call on old Mrs. Butterworth.
Freddy dropped the waistcoat at their feet, and dashed into some
bracken. George whooped in their faces, turned and scudded away down the
path to the pond, still clad in Mr. Beebe's hat.

"Gracious alive!" cried Mrs. Honeychurch. "Whoever were those
unfortunate people? Oh, dears, look away! And poor Mr. Beebe, too!
Whatever has happened?"

"Come this way immediately," commanded Cecil, who always felt that he
must lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though he
knew not against what. He led them now towards the bracken where Freddy
sat concealed.

"Oh, poor Mr. Beebe! Was that his waistcoat we left in the path? Cecil,
Mr. Beebe's waistcoat--"

"No business of ours," said Cecil, glancing at Lucy, who was all parasol
and evidently 'minded.'

"I fancy Mr. Beebe jumped back into the pond."

"This way, please, Mrs. Honeychurch, this way."

They followed him up the bank attempting the tense yet nonchalant
expression that is suitable for ladies on such occasions.

"Well, I can't help it," said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared a
freckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. "I can't
be trodden on, can I?"

"Good gracious me, dear; so it's you! What miserable management! Why not
have a comfortable bath at home, with hot and cold laid on?"

"Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow's got to dry, and
if another fellow--"

"Dear, no doubt you're right as usual, but you are in no position to
argue. Come, Lucy." They turned. "Oh, look--don't look! Oh, poor Mr.
Beebe! How unfortunate again--"

For Mr. Beebe was just crawling out of the pond, on whose surface
garments of an intimate nature did float; while George, the world-weary
George, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish.

"And me, I've swallowed one," answered he of the bracken. "I've
swallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall die--Emerson you
beast, you've got on my bags."

"Hush, dears," said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain
shocked. "And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first. All these
colds come of not drying thoroughly."

"Mother, do come away," said Lucy. "Oh for goodness' sake, do come."

"Hullo!" cried George, so that again the ladies stopped.

He regarded himself as dressed. Barefoot, bare-chested, radiant and
personable against the shadowy woods, he called:

"Hullo, Miss Honeychurch! Hullo!"

"Bow, Lucy; better bow. Whoever is it? I shall bow."

Miss Honeychurch bowed.

That evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the
pool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a
call to the blood and to the relaxed will, a passing benediction whose
influence did not pass, a holiness, a spell, a momentary chalice for
youth.



How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had
always rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which
surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George
would meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of coats
and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She had
imagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or indifferent
or furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these. But she had
never imagined one who would be happy and greet her with the shout of
the morning star.

Indoors herself, partaking of tea with old Mrs. Butterworth, she
reflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree
of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the
scenery, a face in the audience, an irruption of the audience on to the
stage, and all our carefully planned gestures mean nothing, or mean too
much. "I will bow," she had thought. "I will not shake hands with him.
That will be just the proper thing." She had bowed--but to whom? To
gods, to heroes, to the nonsense of school-girls! She had bowed across
the rubbish that cumbers the world.

So ran her thoughts, while her faculties were busy with Cecil. It was
another of those dreadful engagement calls. Mrs. Butterworth had wanted
to see him, and he did not want to be seen. He did not want to hear
about hydrangeas, why they change their colour at the seaside. He did
not want to join the C. O. S. When cross he was always elaborate, and
made long, clever answers where "Yes" or "No" would have done. Lucy
soothed him and tinkered at the conversation in a way that promised well
for their married peace. No one is perfect, and surely it is wiser to
discover the imperfections before wedlock. Miss Bartlett, indeed, though
not in word, had taught the girl that this our life contains nothing
satisfactory. Lucy, though she disliked the teacher, regarded the
teaching as profound, and applied it to her lover.

"Lucy," said her mother, when they got home, "is anything the matter
with Cecil?"

The question was ominous; up till now Mrs. Honeychurch had behaved with
charity and restraint.

"No, I don't think so, mother; Cecil's all right."

"Perhaps he's tired."

Lucy compromised: perhaps Cecil was a little tired.

"Because otherwise"--she pulled out her bonnet-pins with gathering
displeasure--"because otherwise I cannot account for him."

"I do think Mrs. Butterworth is rather tiresome, if you mean that."

"Cecil has told you to think so. You were devoted to her as a little
girl, and nothing will describe her goodness to you through the typhoid
fever. No--it is just the same thing everywhere."

"Let me just put your bonnet away, may I?"

"Surely he could answer her civilly for one half-hour?"

"Cecil has a very high standard for people," faltered Lucy, seeing
trouble ahead. "It's part of his ideals--it is really that that makes
him sometimes seem--"

"Oh, rubbish! If high ideals make a young man rude, the sooner he gets
rid of them the better," said Mrs. Honeychurch, handing her the bonnet.

"Now, mother! I've seen you cross with Mrs. Butterworth yourself!"

"Not in that way. At times I could wring her neck. But not in that way.
No. It is the same with Cecil all over."

"By-the-by--I never told you. I had a letter from Charlotte while I was
away in London."

This attempt to divert the conversation was too puerile, and Mrs.
Honeychurch resented it.

"Since Cecil came back from London, nothing appears to please him.
Whenever I speak he winces;--I see him, Lucy; it is useless to
contradict me. No doubt I am neither artistic nor literary nor
intellectual nor musical, but I cannot help the drawing-room furniture;
your father bought it and we must put up with it, will Cecil kindly
remember."

"I--I see what you mean, and certainly Cecil oughtn't to. But he does
not mean to be uncivil--he once explained--it is the things that upset
him--he is easily upset by ugly things--he is not uncivil to PEOPLE."

"Is it a thing or a person when Freddy sings?"

"You can't expect a really musical person to enjoy comic songs as we
do."

"Then why didn't he leave the room? Why sit wriggling and sneering and
spoiling everyone's pleasure?"

"We mustn't be unjust to people," faltered Lucy. Something had enfeebled
her, and the case for Cecil, which she had mastered so perfectly in
London, would not come forth in an effective form. The two civilizations
had clashed--Cecil hinted that they might--and she was dazzled and
bewildered, as though the radiance that lies behind all civilization
had blinded her eyes. Good taste and bad taste were only catchwords,
garments of diverse cut; and music itself dissolved to a whisper through
pine-trees, where the song is not distinguishable from the comic song.

She remained in much embarrassment, while Mrs. Honeychurch changed
her frock for dinner; and every now and then she said a word, and made
things no better. There was no concealing the fact, Cecil had meant
to be supercilious, and he had succeeded. And Lucy--she knew not
why--wished that the trouble could have come at any other time.

"Go and dress, dear; you'll be late."

"All right, mother--"

"Don't say 'All right' and stop. Go."

She obeyed, but loitered disconsolately at the landing window. It faced
north, so there was little view, and no view of the sky. Now, as in the
winter, the pine-trees hung close to her eyes. One connected the landing
window with depression. No definite problem menaced her, but she sighed
to herself, "Oh, dear, what shall I do, what shall I do?" It seemed to
her that everyone else was behaving very badly. And she ought not to
have mentioned Miss Bartlett's letter. She must be more careful; her
mother was rather inquisitive, and might have asked what it was about.
Oh, dear, what should she do?--and then Freddy came bounding upstairs, and
joined the ranks of the ill-behaved.

"I say, those are topping people."

"My dear baby, how tiresome you've been! You have no business to take
them bathing in the Sacred Lake; it's much too public. It was all right for
you but most awkward for everyone else. Do be more careful. You forget
the place is growing half suburban."

"I say, is anything on to-morrow week?"

"Not that I know of."

"Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis."

"Oh, I wouldn't do that, Freddy, I wouldn't do that with all this
muddle."

"What's wrong with the court? They won't mind a bump or two, and I've
ordered new balls."

"I meant it's better not. I really mean it."

He seized her by the elbows and humorously danced her up and down the
passage. She pretended not to mind, but she could have screamed with
temper. Cecil glanced at them as he proceeded to his toilet and they
impeded Mary with her brood of hot-water cans. Then Mrs. Honeychurch
opened her door and said: "Lucy, what a noise you're making! I
have something to say to you. Did you say you had had a letter from
Charlotte?" and Freddy ran away.

"Yes. I really can't stop. I must dress too."

"How's Charlotte?"

"All right."

"Lucy!"

The unfortunate girl returned.

"You've a bad habit of hurrying away in the middle of one's sentences.
Did Charlotte mention her boiler?"

"Her WHAT?"

"Don't you remember that her boiler was to be had out in October, and
her bath cistern cleaned out, and all kinds of terrible to-doings?"

"I can't remember all Charlotte's worries," said Lucy bitterly. "I shall
have enough of my own, now that you are not pleased with Cecil."

Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said: "Come
here, old lady--thank you for putting away my bonnet--kiss me." And,
though nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and
Windy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect.

So the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner.
At the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one
member or other of the family poured in a drop of oil. Cecil despised
their methods--perhaps rightly. At all events, they were not his own.

Dinner was at half-past seven. Freddy gabbled the grace, and they drew
up their heavy chairs and fell to. Fortunately, the men were hungry.
Nothing untoward occurred until the pudding. Then Freddy said:

"Lucy, what's Emerson like?"

"I saw him in Florence," said Lucy, hoping that this would pass for a
reply.

"Is he the clever sort, or is he a decent chap?"

"Ask Cecil; it is Cecil who brought him here."

"He is the clever sort, like myself," said Cecil.

Freddy looked at him doubtfully.

"How well did you know them at the Bertolini?" asked Mrs. Honeychurch.

"Oh, very slightly. I mean, Charlotte knew them even less than I did."

"Oh, that reminds me--you never told me what Charlotte said in her
letter."

"One thing and another," said Lucy, wondering whether she would get
through the meal without a lie. "Among other things, that an awful
friend of hers had been bicycling through Summer Street, wondered if
she'd come up and see us, and mercifully didn't."

"Lucy, I do call the way you talk unkind."

"She was a novelist," said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one,
for nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands
of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those women
who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek notoriety
by print. Her attitude was: "If books must be written, let them be
written by men"; and she developed it at great length, while Cecil
yawned and Freddy played at "This year, next year, now, never," with his
plum-stones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother's wrath. But
soon the conflagration died down, and the ghosts began to gather in the
darkness. There were too many ghosts about. The original ghost--that
touch of lips on her cheek--had surely been laid long ago; it could be
nothing to her that a man had kissed her on a mountain once. But it
had begotten a spectral family--Mr. Harris, Miss Bartlett's letter,
Mr. Beebe's memories of violets--and one or other of these was bound to
haunt her before Cecil's very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who returned
now, and with appalling vividness.

"I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte's. How is she?"

"I tore the thing up."

"Didn't she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful?"

"Oh, yes I suppose so--no--not very cheerful, I suppose."

"Then, depend upon it, it IS the boiler. I know myself how water preys
upon one's mind. I would rather anything else--even a misfortune with
the meat."

Cecil laid his hand over his eyes.

"So would I," asserted Freddy, backing his mother up--backing up the
spirit of her remark rather than the substance.

"And I have been thinking," she added rather nervously, "surely we could
squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday while
plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor Charlotte for
so long."

It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest
violently after her mother's goodness to her upstairs.

"Mother, no!" she pleaded. "It's impossible. We can't have Charlotte on
the top of the other things; we're squeezed to death as it is. Freddy's
got a friend coming Tuesday, there's Cecil, and you've promised to take
in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can't be
done."

"Nonsense! It can."

"If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise."

"Minnie can sleep with you."

"I won't have her."

"Then, if you're so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy."

"Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett," moaned Cecil, again
laying his hand over his eyes.

"It's impossible," repeated Lucy. "I don't want to make difficulties,
but it really isn't fair on the maids to fill up the house so."

Alas!

"The truth is, dear, you don't like Charlotte."

"No, I don't. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You
haven't seen her lately, and don't realize how tiresome she can be,
though so good. So please, mother, don't worry us this last summer; but
spoil us by not asking her to come."

"Hear, hear!" said Cecil.

Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling
than she usually permitted herself, replied: "This isn't very kind of
you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of
beautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and
plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are, and
however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels like
to grow old."

Cecil crumbled his bread.

"I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on
my bike," put in Freddy. "She thanked me for coming till I felt like
such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea
just right."

"I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this
difficulty when we try to give her some little return."

But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss Bartlett.
She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might lay up
treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss
Bartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: "I
can't help it, mother. I don't like Charlotte. I admit it's horrid of
me."

"From your own account, you told her as much."

"Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried--"

The ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping
the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the
same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy
Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible
world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.

"I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well,"
said Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the
admirable cooking.

"I didn't mean the egg was WELL boiled," corrected Freddy, "because in
point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I don't
care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed."

Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers, hydrangeas,
maids--of such were their lives compact. "May me and Lucy get down from
our chairs?" he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence. "We don't want no
dessert."



Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure
that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior
spare room--something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And,
equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday
week.

Lucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only
faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at
times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves.
When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her
nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might
upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to
George--they met again almost immediately at the Rectory--his voice
moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she
really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to nerves,
which love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had suffered
from "things that came out of nothing and meant she didn't know what."
Now Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet afternoon, and all the
troubles of youth in an unknown world could be dismissed.

It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, "She loves young
Emerson." A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is
easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome "nerves"
or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved
Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the
phrases should have been reversed?

But the external situation--she will face that bravely.

The meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between
Mr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy,
and George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy,
and was glad that he did not seem shy either.

"A nice fellow," said Mr. Beebe afterwards "He will work off his
crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life
gracefully."

Lucy said, "He seems in better spirits. He laughs more."

"Yes," replied the clergyman. "He is waking up."

That was all. But, as the week wore on, more of her defences fell,
and she entertained an image that had physical beauty. In spite of the
clearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival.
She was due at the South-Eastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs.
Honeychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton
station, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy
and his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for
a solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o'clock, and these, with
little Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper
lawn for tea.

"I shall never forgive myself," said Miss Bartlett, who kept on rising
from her seat, and had to be begged by the united company to remain.
"I have upset everything. Bursting in on young people! But I insist on
paying for my cab up. Grant that, at any rate."

"Our visitors never do such dreadful things," said Lucy, while her
brother, in whose memory the boiled egg had already grown unsubstantial,
exclaimed in irritable tones: "Just what I've been trying to convince
Cousin Charlotte of, Lucy, for the last half hour."

"I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor," said Miss Bartlett, and
looked at her frayed glove.

"All right, if you'd really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to
the driver."

Miss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could
any one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four
half-crowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said: "But who
am I to give the sovereign to?"

"Let's leave it all till mother comes back," suggested Lucy.

"No, dear; your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not
hampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the prompt
settling of accounts."

Here Freddy's friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need be
quoted: he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett's quid. A solution
seemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously drinking
his tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance, and turned
round.

But this did not do, either.

"Please--please--I know I am a sad spoil-sport, but it would make me
wretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost."

"Freddy owes me fifteen shillings," interposed Cecil. "So it will work
out right if you give the pound to me."

"Fifteen shillings," said Miss Bartlett dubiously. "How is that, Mr.
Vyse?"

"Because, don't you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and we
shall avoid this deplorable gambling."

Miss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered
up the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths. For
a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his peers.
Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had marred the
smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying
twaddle.

"But I don't see that!" exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched
the iniquitous transaction. "I don't see why Mr. Vyse is to have the
quid."

"Because of the fifteen shillings and the five," they said solemnly.
"Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see."

"But I don't see--"

They tried to stifle her with cake.

"No, thank you. I'm done. I don't see why--Freddy, don't poke me. Miss
Honeychurch, your brother's hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd's
ten shillings? Ow! No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss
What's-her-name shouldn't pay that bob for the driver."

"I had forgotten the driver," said Miss Bartlett, reddening. "Thank you,
dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change
for half a crown?"

"I'll get it," said the young hostess, rising with decision.

"Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get
Euphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the
beginning."

"Lucy--Lucy--what a nuisance I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and
followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity.
When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said
quite briskly: "Have you told him about him yet?"

"No, I haven't," replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue
for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. "Let me see--a
sovereign's worth of silver."

She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were
too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke
or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had
been a ruse to surprise the soul.

"No, I haven't told Cecil or any one," she remarked, when she returned.
"I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except
two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely
now."

Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St.
John ascending, which had been framed.

"How dreadful!" she murmured, "how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse
should come to hear of it from some other source."

"Oh, no, Charlotte," said the girl, entering the battle. "George Emerson
is all right, and what other source is there?"

Miss Bartlett considered. "For instance, the driver. I saw him looking
through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth."

Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves
if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of
Cecil?"

"We must think of every possibility."

"Oh, it's all right."

"Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know."

"I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but
even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at
it."

"To contradict it?"

"No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust
him, for he desired her untouched.

"Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what
they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different."

"Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing.
What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say,
'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!"

Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I
blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able
to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You
will never forgive me."

"Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't."

For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with
a teaspoon.

"Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have
you seen the young one yet?"

"Yes, I have."

"What happened?"

"We met at the Rectory."

"What line is he taking up?"

"No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all
right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly?
I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any
nuisance, Charlotte."

"Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion."

Lucy paused. "Cecil said one day--and I thought it so profound--that
there are two kinds of cads--the conscious and the subconscious." She
paused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil's profundity. Through
the window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel. It
was a new one from Smith's library. Her mother must have returned from
the station.

"Once a cad, always a cad," droned Miss Bartlett.

"What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into
all those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don't think we
ought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a
person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does;
it makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head: he doesn't admire
me, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him, and
has asked him up here on Sunday, so you can judge for yourself. He has
improved; he doesn't always look as if he's going to burst into
tears. He is a clerk in the General Manager's office at one of the big
railways--not a porter! and runs down to his father for week-ends. Papa
was to do with journalism, but is rheumatic and has retired. There!
Now for the garden." She took hold of her guest by the arm. "Suppose we
don't talk about this silly Italian business any more. We want you to
have a nice restful visit at Windy Corner, with no worriting."

Lucy thought this rather a good speech. The reader may have detected
an unfortunate slip in it. Whether Miss Bartlett detected the slip one
cannot say, for it is impossible to penetrate into the minds of elderly
people. She might have spoken further, but they were interrupted by the
entrance of her hostess. Explanations took place, and in the midst of
them Lucy escaped, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her
brain.

 Lucy goes to stay with Cecil's family in London, where she receives a letter from Charlotte, forwarded from Windy Corner. Charlotte has found out that the Emersons are moving to Summer Street. Lucy and Charlotte had a falling-out in Rome and have not been on such good terms since then. Charlotte wants Lucy to tell her mother and Cecil about what happened with her and George Emerson in the violets, but Lucy writes back reminding Charlotte that she herself made Lucy promise not to tell her mother. Cecil and his mother introduce Lucy to the London society that they know, and Lucy realizes that in this urbane, sophisticated world where everyone seems a little bored with everything, she will need to become somewhat estranged from her own past. She plays the piano for her hosts, but refuses to play Beethoven, Cecil's request, and instead plays mournful Schumann. Mrs. Vyse is thrilled with her and asks Cecil to make Lucy "one of us." Lucy has a bad dream that night from which she awakes with a shriek. Back at Summer Street, Mr. Beebe takes Freddy to call on the Emersons, who are moving into their new house. Their rooms are full of books written by the latest novelists and philosophers, which impresses Freddy. George appears and Freddy invites him for a swim in the forest pool. Mr. Emerson also arrives, speaking philosophically about a return to Nature. Mr. Beebe accompanies the young men into the woods, awkwardly and unsuccessfully trying to make conversation on such topics as Nature and Italy. George and Mr. Beebe briefly debate whether their lives are ruled by coincidence, as Mr. Beebe suggests, or Fate, as George heavily believes. At the pool, Freddy excitedly strips and jumps in, and George apathetically follows. Mr. Beebe is convinced to join them. They tentatively start a water fight, which escalates until they are running naked around the pool and tossing clothes everywhere. Suddenly Mrs. Honeychurch, Lucy, and Cecil are seen making their way down the path on the way to visit old Mrs. Butterworth, a neighbor. Cecil tries to take command, but everything is chaotic, with Freddy hiding in the bracken and Mr. Beebe in the pond. George, with only his pants on, greets Lucy, who bows. Cecil, Lucy, and Mrs. Honeychurch have tea with Mrs. Butterworth, where Lucy reflects that it is impossible to plan ahead for situations. She had been planning to bow when she met George, but the situation and his "shout of the morning star" made her bow seem inappropriate, a meaningless gesture. Cecil is cross with Mrs. Butterworth, whom he despises, while Lucy, aware from Charlotte's teaching that everyone has faults, tries to smooth over her fiance's curtness. After tea, Mrs. Honeychurch is upset with Cecil, who behaved rather rudely toward Ms. Butterworth. She doesn't think that Cecil's sophistication and fine upbringing justify his arrogant attitude. Lucy finds that her worlds are beginning to clash as she tries to defend Cecil against her mother. In the process, she mentions Charlotte's letter, which Mrs. Honeychurch asks about again at dinner, inquiring whether Charlotte's boiler has been repaired yet. Despite Lucy and Cecil's objections that they find her tiresome, Mrs. Honeychurch decides to invite Charlotte to Windy Corner. Cecil is insolent and disgusted by the entire conversation. Lucy feels that the ghosts surrounding her trip to Italy are returning. Though tormented by internal doubts as to what she should do, Lucy handles the external situation with courage. When she meets George at the Rectory, they both put aside shyness and speak of Italy. George seems to be in better spirits than he once was. The narrator of the story intercedes to explain that Lucy think she loves Cecil and is nervous about George, and doesn't realize that the reverse is actually true. Charlotte arrives, confusing everyone by showing up at the wrong train station, missing Mrs. Honeychurch who was waiting at a different station, and taking a cab to Windy Corners. Once she arrives, Lucy, Cecil, Freddy, Freddy's friend Mr. Floyd, and Minnie try to persuade her not to pay them back for the cab fare, which Freddy paid. A long protracted discussion results in which Freddy and Cecil try to trick Charlotte into paying less, but Minnie intercedes, and finally Lucy goes into the house to get change from a maid. Charlotte follows her and quickly begins asking whether Lucy has told Cecil about George. Lucy objects, saying that George won't present anyone any problems by being a "cad." She tries to excuse his kiss by saying that he was simply carried away in a moment of beauty, and acted irrationally, but that it amounts to nothing. Yet she makes a little slip in her explanation: when telling Charlotte that it makes a difference when you are overcome by someone beautiful, she identifies the person as a he and not a she.

