hey could not remember
why. Round every knob and cushion in the house gathered a sentiment
that was at times personal, but more often a faint piety to the dead, a
prolongation of rites that might have ended at the grave.

It was absurd, if you came to think of it; Helen and Tibby came to think
of it; Margaret was too busy with the house-agents. The feudal ownership
of land did bring dignity, whereas the modern ownership of movables
is reducing us again to a nomadic horde. We are reverting to the
civilisation of luggage, and historians of the future will note how the
middle classes accreted possessions without taking root in the earth,
and may find in this the secret of their imaginative poverty. The
Schlegels were certainly the poorer for the loss of Wickham Place. It
had helped to balance their lives, and almost to counsel them. Nor is
their ground-landlord spiritually the richer. He has built flats on
its site, his motor-cars grow swifter, his exposures of Socialism more
trenchant. But he has spilt the precious distillation of the years, and
no chemistry of his can give it back to society again.

Margaret grew depressed; she was anxious to settle on a house before
they left town to pay their annual visit to Mrs. Munt. She enjoyed this
visit, and wanted to have her mind at ease for it. Swanage, though dull,
was stable, and this year she longed more than usual for its fresh air
and for the magnificent downs that guard it on the north. But London
thwarted her; in its atmosphere she could not concentrate. London only
stimulates, it cannot sustain; and Margaret, hurrying over its surface
for a house without knowing what sort of a house she wanted, was paying
for many a thrilling sensation in the past. She could not even break
loose from culture, and her time was wasted by concerts which it would
be a sin to miss, and invitations which it would never do to refuse. At
last she grew desperate; she resolved that she would go nowhere and be
at home to no one until she found a house, and broke the resolution in
half an hour.

Once she had humorously lamented that she had never been to Simpson's
restaurant in the Strand. Now a note arrived from Miss Wilcox, asking
her to lunch there. Mr Cahill was coming and the three would have such a
jolly chat, and perhaps end up at the Hippodrome. Margaret had no strong
regard for Evie, and no desire to meet her fiance, and she was surprised
that Helen, who had been far funnier about Simpso