eoccupations and scruples fell away
from her; she had never known a greater happiness than the week she
passed in this initiation.

Wandering through clear chambers where the general effect made
preferences almost as impossible as if they had been shocks, pausing at
open doors where vistas were long and bland, she would, even if she had
not already known, have discovered for herself that Poynton was the
record of a life. It was written in great syllables of color and form,
the tongues of other countries and the hands of rare artists. It was all
France and Italy, with their ages composed to rest. For England you
looked out of old windows--it was England that was the wide embrace.
While outside, on the low terraces, she contradicted gardeners and
refined on nature, Mrs. Gereth left her guest to finger fondly the
brasses that Louis Quinze might have thumbed, to sit with Venetian
velvets just held in a loving palm, to hang over cases of enamels and
pass and repass before cabinets. There were not many pictures--the
panels and the stuffs were themselves the picture; and in all the great
wainscoted house there was not an inch of pasted paper. What struck
Fleda most in it was the high pride of her friend's taste, a fine
arrogance, a sense of style which, however amused and amusing, never
compromised nor stooped. She felt indeed, as this lady had intimated to
her that she would, both a respect and a compassion that she had not
known before; the vision of the coming surrender filled her with an
equal pain. To give it all up, to die to it--that thought ached in her
breast. She herself could imagine clinging there with a closeness
separate from dignity. To have created such a place was to have had
dignity enough; when there was a question of defending it the fiercest
attitude was the right one. After so intense a taking of possession she
too was to give it up; for she reflected that if Mrs. Gereth's remaining
there would have offered her a sort of future--stretching away in safe
years on the other side of a gulf--the advent of the others could only
be, by the same law, a great vague menace, the ruffling of a still
water. Such were the emotions of a hungry girl whose sensibility was
almost as great as her opportunities for comparison had been small. The
museums had done something for her, but nature had done more.

If Owen had not come down with them nor joined them later, it was
because he still found London jolly; yet the questio