, and there was no more to be said. He
never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was
not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and
shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the
milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once--on another
occasion--she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a
laugh: "My motto is Concentrate. I've no intention of frittering away
my strength on that sort of thing." "It isn't frittering away the
strength," she protested. "It's enlarging the space in which you may
be strong." He answered: "You're a clever little woman, but my motto's
Concentrate." And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.

They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday. In the daylight the bushes
were inconsiderable and the path was bright in the morning sun. She was
with Helen, who had been ominously quiet since the affair was settled.
"Here we all are!" she cried, and took him by one hand, retaining her
sister's in the other.

"Here we are. Good-morning, Helen."

Helen replied, "Good-morning, Mr. Wilcox."

"Henry, she has had such a nice letter from the queer, cross boy. Do
you remember him? He had a sad moustache, but the back of his head was
young."

"I have had a letter too. Not a nice one--I want to talk it over with
you"; for Leonard Bast was nothing to him now that she had given him her
word; the triangle of sex was broken for ever.

"Thanks to your hint, he's clearing out of the Porphyrion."

"Not a bad business that Porphyrion," he said absently, as he took his
own letter out of his pocket.

"Not a BAD--" she exclaimed, dropping his hand. "Surely, on Chelsea
Embankment--"

"Here's our hostess. Good-morning, Mrs. Munt. Fine rhododendrons.
Good-morning, Frau Liesecke; we manage to grow flowers in England, don't
we?"

"Not a BAD business?"

"No. My letter's about Howards End. Bryce has been ordered abroad, and
wants to sublet it--I am far from sure that I shall give him permission.
There was no clause in the agreement. In my opinion, subletting is a
mistake. If he can find me another tenant, whom I consider suitable,
I may cancel the agreement. Morning, Schlegel. Don't you think that's
better than subletting?"

Helen had dropped her hand now, and he had steered her past the whole
party to the seaward side of the house. Beneath them was the bourgeois
little bay, which must have yearned all through the centu