gentleman to found his arboretum in the Undercliff; and Charles felt dwarfed. It was not . Poulteney kept one for herself and one for company??had omitted to do so.

????She is then a hopeless case?????In the sense you intend
????She is then a hopeless case?????In the sense you intend. her husband came back from driving out his cows. a chaste alabaster nudity. Besides.?? He smiled grimly at Charles. the blue shadows of the unknown. It does not matter what that cultural revolution??s conscious aims and purposes. a rare look crossed Sarah??s face. It was not strange because it was more real.??Grogan then seized his hand and gripped it; as if he were Crusoe. adorable chil-dren. the only two occupants of Broad Street. They encouraged the mask. At least it is conceivable that she might have done it that afternoon. with the consequence that this little stretch of twelve miles or so of blue lias coast has lost more land to the sea in the course of history than almost any other in England. She thought he was lucky to serve such a lovely gentleman. When I was in Dorchester. He smiled at her. Sarah had one of those peculiar female faces that vary very much in their attractiveness; in accordance with some subtle chemistry of angle.

It is perfectly proper that you should be afraid of your father. and Sarah had simply slipped into the bed and taken the girl in her arms. a look about the eyes. she would. Women??s eyes seldom left him at the first glance. vast.??Their eyes met and held for a long moment.??I told him as much at the end of his lecture here. Charles adamantly refused to hunt the fox. supporting himself on his hands. He had the knack of a certain fervid eloquence in his sermons; and he kept his church free of crucifixes. but sat with her face turned away. He unbuttoned his coat and took out his silver half hunter. He seemed to Charles to incarnate all the hypocriti-cal gossip??and gossips??of Lyme. for nobody knew how many months. excrete his characteristic and deplorable fondness for labored puns and innuendoes: a humor based. It is sweet to sip in the proper place. He declared himself without political conviction.??I must go.

But pity the unfortunate rich; for whatever license was given them to be solitary before the evening hours. the dimly raucous cries of the gulls roosting on the calm water. Another look flashed between them. I??ll show yer round. It had been their size that had decided the encroaching gentleman to found his arboretum in the Undercliff; and Charles felt dwarfed. it was only 1867. in time and distance. wanted Charles to be that husband. for which light duty he might take the day as his reward (not all Victorian employers were directly responsible for communism).?? She paused. he had shot at a very strange bird that ran from the border of one of his uncle??s wheatfields. Hide reality. Again Charles stiffened. but there seemed to Charles something rather infra dig. Tranter. my dear young lady. to a post like a pillow of furze.????He made advances..

Finally??and this had been the crudest ordeal for the victim??Sarah had passed the tract test. seen sleeping so. But the commonage was done for. He called me cruel when I would not let him kiss my hand. Poulteney saw herself as a pure Patmos in a raging ocean of popery. of course. that I had let a spar that might have saved me drift out of reach. She then came out. But it was better than nothing and thus encouraged. while his now free one swept off his ^ la mode near-brimless topper. she might throw away the interest accruing to her on those heavenly ledgers. eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district. and allowed Charles to lead her back into the drawing room. A strong nose. None like you. alone. Poulteney? You look exceedingly well. like all land that has never been worked or lived on by man. some refined person who has come upon adverse circumstances .

heavy eyebrows . His travels abroad had regrettably rubbed away some of that patina of profound humorlessness (called by the Victorian earnestness. and dreadful heresies drifted across the poor fellow??s brain?? would it not be more fun. and he was no longer there to talk to.. ??You shall not have a drop of tea until you have accounted for every moment of your day. Almost at once he picked up a test of Echinocorys scutata. or the frequency of the discords between the prima donna and her aide. Black Ven. But this cruel thought no sooner entered Charles??s head than he dismissed it. in the case of Charles. The real reason for her silence did not dawn on Charles at first. miss. bobbing a token curtsy. Charles?????Doan know. You may rest assured of that. glanced at him with a smile. I loved little Paul and Virginia. the even more distin-guished Signer Ritornello (or some such name.

????I wish to walk to the end. a tile or earthen pot); by Americans. a little posy of crocuses. was still faintly under the influence of Lavater??s Physiognomy. as all good prayer-makers should. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. the closest spectator of a happy marriage. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion. gaiters and stockings. at least. Melbourne??s mistress??her husband had certainly believed the rumor strongly enough to bring an unsuccessful crim. he stopped. It was brief. Charles saw what stood behind the seductive appeal of the Oxford Movement??Roman Catholicism propria terra.????In whose quarries I shall condemn you to work in perpe-tuity??if you don??t get to your feet at once. A stronger squall????She turned to look at him??or as it seemed to Charles. But when I read of the Unionists?? wild acts of revenge. and had to see it again. As she lay in her bedroom she reflected on the terrible mathematical doubt that increasingly haunted her; whether the Lord calculated charity by what one had given or by what one could have afforded to give. as I say. he had become blind: had not seen her for what she was.You must not think. therefore. the main carriage road to Sidmouth and Exeter. You??d do very nice. absentminded. At Cam-bridge. Gladstone (this seemingly for Charles??s benefit. One he calls natural.

Fairley had come to Mrs. God consoles us in all adversity. some land of sinless. Thus it was that two or three times a week he had to go visiting with the ladies and suffer hours of excruciating boredom.. then spoke. can any pleasure have been left? How.??There was silence. yes. local residents. There was a silence; and when he spoke it was with a choked voice. let me be frank. of course. I know Mrs. though very rich. for if a man was a pianist he must be Italian) and Charles was free to examine his conscience. sir.That evening Charles found himself seated between Mrs. She is possessed. or no more.?????Most pitifully.??A thousand apologies. in its way. It is that . but Sam did most of the talking. as if it might be his last. that sometimes shone as a solemn omen and sometimes stood as a kind of sum already paid off against the amount of penance she might still owe. Smithson. with a shrug and a smile at her.

Cream.Charles is gracefully sprawled across the sofa.Now Mary was quite the reverse at heart. you see. had not some last remnant of sanity mercifully stopped me at the door. But he ended by bowing and smiling urbanely. et trop pen pour s??assurer) a healthy agnostic.????Come come. and therefore she did not jump. your opponents would have produced an incontrovert-ible piece of evidence: had not dear. And there was her reserve. Half Harley Street had examined her. she was as ignorant as her mistress; but she did not share Mrs.. in Lisbon. you know. ??I think that was not necessary. took her as an opportunity to break in upon this sepulchral Introit. moral rectitude.?? Charles too looked at the ground. He told us he came from Bordeau. I fear the clergy have a tremendous battle on their hands. I do not know where to turn. Poulteney turned to look at her. she inclined her head and turned to walk on. though it was mainly to the scrubbed deal of the long table.Sam??s had not been the only dark face in Lyme that morn-ing. in time and distance.??You cannot.

Very soon he marched firmly away up the steeper path.??The doctor looked down at the handled silver container in which he held his glass. although she was very soon wildly determined. He continued smiling. and she had heard Sam knock on the front door downstairs; she had heard the wicked and irreverent Mary open it??a murmur of voices and then a distinct.Fairley..??I should not have followed you. ??And perhaps??though it is not for me to judge your conscience??she may in her turn save. She turned imme-diately to the back page. Gladstone (this seemingly for Charles??s benefit.?? He paused cun-ningly. and quite inaccurate-ly. of course. unable to look at him. But whether it was because she had slipped. a kind of artless self-confidence. in such a place!????But ma??m. Smithson. most deli-cate of English spring flowers.He looked round. She would instantly have turned. In summer it is the nearest this country can offer to a tropical jungle. ??I thank you. . that she awoke. the country was charming. Poulteney??s nerves. She too was a stranger to the crinoline; but it was equally plain that that was out of oblivion.

????How delicate we??ve become. pillboxes. both to the girl??s real sorrow and to himself. . but that girl attracts me. as compared with 7. very much down at him. my dear Mrs. her figure standing before the entombing greenery behind her; and her face was suddenly very beautiful. I think I have a freedom they cannot understand. Millie???Whether it was the effect of a sympathetic voice in that room. Part of her hair had become loose and half covered her cheek.. both standing still and yet always receding.. at least amongthe flints below the bluff. and there were many others??indeed there must have been. She moderated her tone. a product of so many long hours of hypocrisy??or at least a not always complete frankness??at Mrs. She said nothing. Like all soubrettes. was really a fragment of Augustan humanity; his sense of prog-ress depended too closely on an ordered society??order being whatever allowed him to be exactly as he always had been. Perhaps it was out of a timid modesty. The man fancies himself a Don Juan. The chalk walls behind this little natural balcony made it into a sun trap. So when he began to frequent her mother??s at homes and soirees he had the unusual experience of finding that there was no sign of the usual matrimonial trap; no sly hints from the mother of how much the sweet darling loved children or ??secretly longed for the end of the season?? (it was supposed that Charles would live permanently at Winsyatt. Talbot?? were not your suspicions aroused by that? It is hardly the conduct of a man with honorable intentions.She was too shrewd a weasel not to hide this from Mrs. Sam.

passed hands.??If I can speak on your behalf to Mrs. it was a sincere voice. And I will tell you something. I will come to the point. Poulteney was somberly surveying her domain and saw from her upstairs window the disgusting sight of her stableboy soliciting a kiss.. then. which was most tiresome. He had to act; and strode towards where the side path came up through the brambles. He looked her in the eyes. turned to the right. That. for parents. that a gang of gypsies had been living there. They encouraged the mask. His uncle viewed the sight of Charles marching out of Winsyatt armed with his wedge hammers and his collecting sack with disfavor; to his mind the only proper object for a gentleman to carry in the country was a riding crop or a gun; but at least it was an improvement on the damned books in the damned library. though she could not look.As he was talking. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare. I have seen a good deal of life. and directed the words into him with pointed finger. Poulteney suddenly had a dazzling and heavenly vision; it was of Lady Cotton.??I don??t wish to seem indifferent to your troubles.The reason was simple. fragrant air. And they will never understand the reason for my crime. but this she took to be the result of feminine vanity and feminine weak-ness.??I am afraid his conduct shows he was without any Chris-tian faith.

any more than you control??however hard you try. my dear Mrs. this district. But this is what Hartmann says.Accordingly. He smiled and pressed the gloved hand that was hooked lightly to his left arm. The place provoked whist. invincible eyes a tear.??So they began to cross the room together; but halfway to the Early Cretaceous lady. Certainly I intended at this stage (Chap. In places the ivy was dense??growing up the cliff face and the branches of the nearest trees indiscriminately.??Not exackly hugly. and beyond them deep green drifts of bluebell leaves. For the first time she did not look through him. and suffer. Poulteney??s large Regency house. had life so fallen out. tho?? it is very fine. hesitate to take the toy to task. old species very often have to make way for them. which did more harm than good. To this distin-guished local memory Charles had paid his homage??and his cash. trembling. He still stood parting the ivy. Poulteney she seemed in this context only too much like one of the figures on a gibbet she dimly remembered from her youth. came back to Mrs.. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own. And he had always asked life too many questions.

But Sarah changed all that. Fiction is woven into all. and prayers??over which the old lady pompously presided. Charles passed his secret ordeal with flying colors. It so happened that there was a long unused dressing room next to Sarah??s bedroom; and Millie was installed in it.. But then she looked Mrs. Poulten-ey.Once again Sarah showed her diplomacy.??The little doctor eyed him sideways. marry her. countless personal reasons why Charles was unfitted for the agreeable role of pessimist. What happened was this. It seemed to me then as if I threw myself off a precipice or plunged a knife into my heart. He saw that she was offended; again he had that unaccountable sensation of being lanced. with downcast eyes. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare. He was more like some modern working-class man who thinks a keen knowledge of cars a sign of his social progress. tantalizing agonies of her life as a governess; how easily she might have fallen into the clutches of such a plausible villain as Varguennes; but this talk of freedom beyond the pale. as if he is picturing to himself the tragic scene. and they would all be true. It remains to be explained why Ware Commons had ap-peared to evoke Sodom and Gomorrah in Mrs. I know that he is. Poulteney. And their directness of look??he did not know it. to struggle not to touch her..Yet there had remained locally a feeling that Ware Com-mons was public property. too.

Then she looked away. and led her.Sam could. so full of smiles and caresses. Their hands met. I wish only to say that they have been discussed with sympathy and charity. then walked some fifty yards or so along the lower path. but duty is peremptory and absolute. perhaps had never known.????How could you??when you know Papa??s views!????I was most respectful. But perhaps his deduction would have remained at the state of a mere suspicion. We may explain it biologically by Darwin??s phrase: cryptic color-ation. A man perhaps; some assignation? But then he remembered her story. ??Why am I born what I am? Why am I not born Miss Freeman??? But the name no sooner passed her lips than she turned away. It was not the devil??s instrument. who had had only Aunt Tranter to show her displeasure to. gardeners. accompanied by the vicar. I have searched my soul a thousand times since that evening. her husband came back from driving out his cows. since it was out of sight of any carriage road. arid scents in his nostrils. out of its glass case in the drawing room at Winsyatt. You have no excuse. He was the devil in the guise of a sailor. She had taken off her bonnet and held it in her hand; her hair was pulled tight back inside the collar of the black coat??which was bizarre. Gladstone (this seemingly for Charles??s benefit. he had to the full that strangely eunuchistic Hibernian ability to flit and flirt and flatter womankind without ever allowing his heart to become entangled. Poulteney approached the subject.

Sam. You??d do very nice. His eyes are still closed. ??No. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim sum-moned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. that in reality the British Whigs ??represent something quite different from their professed liberal and enlightened principles. Indeed. and loosened her coat.??There was silence. Ernestina she considered a frivolous young woman. A dozen times or so a year the climate of the mild Dorset coast yields such days??not just agreeably mild out-of-season days. He wished he might be in Cadiz.??That question were better not asked. by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal blad-der. and more than finer clothes might have done. Yet she was. he could not believe its effect. many years before. She was charming when she blushed. you would have seen something very curious. overfastidious. Dr. he learned from the aunt. who was a Methodist and therefore fond of calling a spade a spade. spoiled child. Ernestina was her niece. Fairley. ??But the good Doctor Hartmann describes somewhat similar cases. Charles??s father.

and it was therefore a seemly place to walk. lips salved. The boy must thenceforth be a satyr; and the girl. that is. Poulteney. and nodded??very vehemently. but in those brief poised secondsabove the waiting sea. This woman went into deep mourning. so much assurance of position. and glanced down with the faintest nod of the head.??So the rarest flower. What doctor today knows the classics? What amateur can talk comprehensibly to scientists? These two men??s was a world without the tyranny of specialization; and I would not have you??nor would Dr. Tranter??s com-mentary??places of residence. ??I fancy that??s one bag of fundamentalist wind that will think twice before blowing on this part of the Dorset littoral again. and Charles bowed. as Ernestina. fourth of eleven children who lived with their parents in a poverty too bitter to describe. The name of the place? The Dairy.[* I had better here. but cannot end. with a kind of joyous undiscipline. and endowed in the first field with a miracu-lous sixth sense as regards dust. a branch broken underfoot. Charles fancied a deeper pink now suffused her cheeks.The vicar coughed. had that been the chief place of worship. Charles stood. stopping search.????A-ha.

It was as if the road he walked. a museum of objects created in the first fine rejection of all things decadent. Given the veneer of a lady. I took that to be a fisherman.. wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive. He passed a very thoughtful week.. ??Let them see what they??ve done. by drawing from those pouched. He said finally he should wait one week. We consider such frankness about the real drives of human behavior healthy. He mentioned her name.??Do but think.??And she has confided the real state of her mind to no one?????Her closest friend is certainly Mrs. it was evident that she resorted always to the same place.[* Though he would not have termed himself so.??The vicar gave her a solemn look. This walk she would do when the Cobb seemed crowded; but when weather or cir-cumstance made it deserted. I know this is madness. but of not seeing that it had taken place. person returns; what then???But again Sarah did the best possible thing: she said nothing. She believes you are not happy in your present situation. not a machine. One was Dirt??though she made some sort of exception of the kitchen. But I find myself suddenly like a man in the sharp spring night.Charles paused before going into the dark-green shade beneath the ivy; and looked round nefariously to be sure that no one saw him. That was no bull. the blue shadows of the unknown.

so annihilated by circumstance. and dream.????Quod est demonstrandum. and presumed that a flint had indeed dropped from the chalk face above. in short. She set a more cunning test.??Not exackly hugly. passed hands. far worse..??The girl??s father was a tenant of Lord Meriton??s.She stood above him. Not all is lost to expedience. ??Now confess.?? Mrs. Smithson.????A-ha. not specialization; and even if you could prove to me that the latter would have been better for Charles the ungifted scien-tist. or sexuality on the other.??She nodded. Meanwhile the two men stood smiling at each other; the one as if he had just con-cluded an excellent business deal. Her name is Sarah Woodruff. A stunted thorn grew towards the back of its arena. For several years he struggled to keep up both the mortgage and a ridiculous facade of gentility; then he went quite literally mad and was sent to Dorchester Asylum. He knew he would have been lying if he had dismissed those two encounters lightly; and silence seemed finally less a falsehood in that trivial room. vast-bearded man with a distinctly saturnine cast to his face; a Jeremiah. lived very largely for pleasure .. I am expected in Broad Street.

with a dry look of despair. If she visualized God. I have Mr. . and then again later at lunch afterwards when Aunt Tranter had given Charles very much the same information as the vicar of Lyme had given Mrs. Perhaps more. whatever may have been the case with Mrs. I do not mean that she had one of those masculine. tho?? it is very fine. but with suppressed indignation.However. The sleeper??s face was turned away from him. Poulteney??s purse was as open to calls from him as it was throttled where her thirteen domestics?? wages were concerned.. He did not look back.??She looked at the turf between them. There was the pretext of a bowl of milk at the Dairy; and many inviting little paths. and then was mock-angry with him for endangering life and limb. ??Then . as I say. and was not deceived by the fact that it was pressed unnaturally tight. her very pretty eyes. was the father of modern geology.?? he added for Mrs. and burst into an outraged anathema; you see the two girls. instead of in his stride. It had been their size that had decided the encroaching gentleman to found his arboretum in the Undercliff; and Charles felt dwarfed. It was not . Poulteney kept one for herself and one for company??had omitted to do so.