He stood over her, as if in readiness to seize the first sign of her assent. Precisely at that moment, owing, perhaps, to her vicissitudes of feeling, all sense of love left her, as in a moment a mist lifts from the earth. And when the mist departed a skeleton world and blankness alone remained—a terrible prospect for the eyes of the living to behold. He saw the look of terror in her face, and without understanding its origin, took her hand in his. With the sense of companionship returned a desire, like that of a child for shelter, to accept what he had to offer her—and at that moment it seemed that he offered her the only thing that could make it tolerable to live. She let him press his lips to her cheek, and leant her head upon his arm. It was the moment of his triumph. It was the only moment in which she belonged to him and was dependent upon his protection.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he murmured, ‘you accept me, Katharine. You love me.’
For a moment she remained silent. He then heard her murmur:
‘Cassandra loves you more than I do.’
‘Cassandra?’ he whispered.
‘She loves you,’ Katharine repeated. She raised herself and repeated the sentence yet a third time. ‘She loves you.’
William slowly raised himself. He believed instinctively what Katharine said, but what it meant to him he was unable to understand. Could Cassandra love him? Could she have told Katharine that she loved him? The desire to know the truth of this was urgent, unknown though the consequences might be. The thrill of excitement associated with the thought of Cassandra once more took possession of him. No longer was it the excitement of anticipation and ignorance; it was the excitement of something greater than a possibility, for now he knew her and had measure of the sympathy between them. But who could give him certainty? Could Katharine, Katharine who had lately lain in his arms, Katharine herself the most admired of women? He looked at her, with doubt, and with anxiety, but said nothing.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, interpreting his wish for assurance, ‘it’s true. I know what she feels for you.’
‘She loves me?’
Katharine nodded.
‘Ah, but who knows what I feel? How can I be sure of my feeling myself? Ten minutes ago I asked you to marry me. I still wish it—I don’t know what I wish—’
He clenched his hands and turned away. He suddenly faced her and demanded: ‘Tell me what you feel for Denham.’
‘For Ralph Denham?’ she asked. ‘Yes!’ she exclaimed, as if she had found the answer to some momentarily perplexing question. ‘You’re jealous of me, William; but you’re not in love with me. I’m jealous of you. Therefore, for both our sakes, I say, speak to Cassandra at once.’
He tried to compose himself. He walked up and down the room; he paused at the window and surveyed the flowers strewn upon the floor. Meanwhile his desire to have Katharine’s assurance confirmed became so insistent that he could no longer deny the overmastering strength of his feeling for Cassandra.
‘You’re right,’ he exclaimed, coming to a standstill and rapping his knuckles sharply upon a small table carrying one slender vase. ‘I love Cassandra.’
As he said this, the curtains hanging at the door of the little room parted, and Cassandra herself stepped forth.
‘I have overheard every word!’ she exclaimed.
A pause succeeded this announcement. Rodney made a step forward and said:
‘Then you know what I wish to ask you. Give me your answer—’
She put her hands before her face; she turned away and seemed to shrink from both of them.
‘What Katharine said,’ she murmured. ‘But,’ she added, raising her head with a look of fear from the kiss with which he greeted her admission, ‘how frightfully difficult it all is! Our feelings, I mean—yours and mine and Katharine’s. Katharine, tell me, are we doing right?’
‘Right—of course we’re doing right,’ William answered her, ‘if, after what you’ve heard, you can marry a man of such incomprehensible confusion, such deplorable—’
‘Don’t, William,’ Katharine interposed; ‘Cassandra has heard us; she can judge what we are; she knows better than we could tell her.’
But, still holding William’s hand, questions and desires welled up in Cassandra’s heart. Had she done wrong in listening? Why did Aunt Celia blame her? Did Katharine think her right? Above all, did William really love her, for ever and ever, better than any one?
‘I must be first with him, Katharine!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t share him even with you.’
‘I shall never ask that,’ said Katharine. She moved a little away from where they sat and began half-consciously sorting her flowers.
‘But you’ve shared with me,’ Cassandra said. ‘Why can’t I share with you? Why am I so mean? I know why it is,’ she added. ‘We understand each other, William and I. You’ve never understood each other. You’re too different.’
‘I’ve never admired anybody more,’ William interposed.
‘It’s not that’—Cassandra tried to enlighten him—‘it’s understanding.’
‘Have I never understood you, Katharine? Have I been very selfish?’
‘Yes,’ Cassandra interposed. ‘You’ve asked her for sympathy, and she’s not sympathetic; you’ve wanted her to be practical, and she’s not practical. You’ve been selfish; you’ve been exacting—and so has Katharine—but it wasn’t anybody’s fault.’
Katharine had listened to this attempt at analysis with keen attention. Cassandra’s words seemed to rub the old blurred image of life and freshen it so marvellously that it looked new again. She turned to William.
‘It’s quite true,’ she said. ‘It was nobody’s fault.’
‘There are many things that he’ll always come to you for,’ Cassandra continued, still reading from her invisible book. ‘I accept that, Katharine. I shall never dispute it. I want to be generous as you’ve been generous. But being in love makes it more difficult for me.’
They were silent. At length William broke the silence.
‘One thing I beg of you both,’ he said, and the old nervousness of manner returned as he glanced at Katharine. ‘We will never discuss these matters again. It’s not that I’m timid and conventional, as you think, Katharine. It’s that it spoils things to discuss them; it unsettles people’s minds; and now we’re all so happy—’
Cassandra ratified this conclusion so far as she was concerned, and William, after receiving the exquisite pleasure of her glance, with its absolute affection and trust, looked anxiously at Katharine.
‘Yes, I’m happy,’ she assured him. And I agree. We will never talk about it again.’
‘Oh, Katharine, Katharine!’ Cassandra cried, holding out her arms while the tears ran down her cheeks.
CHAPTER XXX
THE DAY WAS so different from other days to three people in the house that the common routine of household life—the maid waiting at table, Mrs Hilbery writing a letter, the clock striking, and the door opening, and all the other signs of long-established civilization appeared suddenly to have no meaning save as they lulled Mr and Mrs Hilbery into the belief that nothing unusual had taken place. It chanced that Mrs Hilbery was depressed without visible cause, unless a certain crudeness verging upon coarseness in the temper of her favourite Elizabethans could be held responsible for the mood. At any rate, she had shut up ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ with a sigh, and wished to know, so she told Rodney at dinner, whether there wasn’t some young writer with a touch of the great spirit—somebody who made you believe that life was beautiful? She got little help from Rodney, and after singing her plaintive requiem for the death of poetry by herself, she charmed herself into good spirits again by remembering the existence of Mozart. She begged Cassandra to play to her, and when they went upstairs Cassandra opened the piano directly, and did her best to create an atmosphere of unmixed beauty. At the sound of the first notes Katharine and Rodney both felt an enormous sense of relief at the licence which the music gave them to loosen their hold upon the mechanism of behaviour. They lapsed into the depths of thought. Mrs Hilbery was soon spirited away into a perfectly congenial mood, that was half reverie and half slumber, half delicious melancholy and half pure bliss. Mr Hilbery alone attended. He was extremely musical, and made Cassandra aware that he listened to every note. She played her best, and won his approval. Leaning slightly forward in his chair, and turning his little green stone, he weighed the intention of her phrases approvingly, but stopped her suddenly to complain of a noise behind him. The window was unhasped. He signed to Rodney, who crossed the room immediately to put the matter right. He stayed a moment longer by the window than was, perhaps, necessary, and having done what was needed, drew his chair a little closer than before to Katharine’s side. The music went on. Under cover of some exquisite run of melody, he leant towards her and whispered something. She glanced at her father and mother, and a moment later left the room, almost unobserved, with Rodney.