e held
more precious--it gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful
reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci's, whom we love
not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us, The
things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo's could have
anything so vulgar as a "story." She did develop most wonderfully day by
day.

So it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly passed if
not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome he
had hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had
touched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion.
Her refusal had been clear and gentle; after it--as the horrid phrase
went--she had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months
later, on the margin of Italy, among the flower-clad Alps, he had asked
her again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo
more than ever; her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock;
at his words she had turned and stood between him and the light with
immeasurable plains behind her. He walked home with her unashamed,
feeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really
mattered were unshaken.

So now he had asked her once more, and, clear and gentle as ever, she
had accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply saying
that she loved him and would do her best to make him happy. His mother,
too, would be pleased; she had counselled the step; he must write her a
long account.

Glancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy's chemicals had come off
on it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw "Dear Mrs. Vyse,"
followed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more, and
after a little hesitation sat down elsewhere, and pencilled a note on
his knee.

Then he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as
the first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner
drawing-room more distinctive. With that outlook it should have been a
successful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it; he
could almost visualize the motor-vans of Messrs. Shoolbred and Messrs.
Maple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished
book-cases, that writing-table. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch's
letter. He did not want to read that letter--his temptations never lay
in that direction; but he worried about it none the less. It was his
own fault t