alled forth in actual life. There dwelt the things one might have
felt, had there been cause; the perfect happiness of which here we taste
the fragment; the beauty seen here in flying glimpses only. No doubt
much of the furniture of this world was drawn directly from the
past, and even from the England of the Elizabethan age. However the
embellishment of this imaginary world might change, two qualities were
constant in it. It was a place where feelings were liberated from the
constraint which the real world puts upon them; and the process of
awakenment was always marked by resignation and a kind of stoical
acceptance of facts. She met no acquaintance there, as Denham did,
miraculously transfigured; she played no heroic part. But there
certainly she loved some magnanimous hero, and as they swept together
among the leaf-hung trees of an unknown world, they shared the feelings
which came fresh and fast as the waves on the shore. But the sands of
her liberation were running fast; even through the forest branches came
sounds of Rodney moving things on his dressing-table; and Katharine woke
herself from this excursion by shutting the cover of the book she was
holding, and replacing it in the bookshelf.

"William," she said, speaking rather faintly at first, like one sending
a voice from sleep to reach the living. "William," she repeated firmly,
"if you still want me to marry you, I will."

Perhaps it was that no man could expect to have the most momentous
question of his life settled in a voice so level, so toneless, so
devoid of joy or energy. At any rate William made no answer. She waited
stoically. A moment later he stepped briskly from his dressing-room, and
observed that if she wanted to buy more oysters he thought he knew where
they could find a fishmonger's shop still open. She breathed deeply a
sigh of relief.

Extract from a letter sent a few days later by Mrs. Hilbery to her
sister-in-law, Mrs. Milvain:

"... How stupid of me to forget the name in my telegram. Such a nice,
rich, English name, too, and, in addition, he has all the graces of
intellect; he has read literally EVERYTHING. I tell Katharine, I shall
always put him on my right side at dinner, so as to have him by me when
people begin talking about characters in Shakespeare. They won't be
rich, but they'll be very, very happy. I was sitting in my room late one
night, feeling that nothing nice would ever happen to me again, when I
heard Katharine outs