CHAPTER I It was a Sunday evening in October , and in common with many other young ladies of her class , Katharine Hilbery was pouring out tea .
Perhaps a fifth part of her mind was thus occupied , and the remaining parts leapt over the little barrier of day which interposed between Monday morning and this rather subdued moment , and played with the things one does voluntarily and normally in the daylight .
But although she was silent , she was evidently mistress of a situation which was familiar enough to her , and inclined to let it take its way for the six hundredth time , perhaps , without bringing into play any of her unoccupied faculties .
A single glance was enough to show that Mrs. Hilbery was so rich in the gifts which make tea-parties of elderly distinguished people successful , that she scarcely needed any help from her daughter , provided that the tiresome business of teacups and bread and butter was discharged for her .
Considering that the little party had been seated round the tea-table for less than twenty minutes , the animation observable on their faces , and the amount of sound they were producing collectively , were very creditable to the hostess .
It suddenly came into Katharine ’s mind that if some one opened the door at this moment he would think that they were enjoying themselves ; he would think , “ What an extremely nice house to come into ! ”
and instinctively she laughed , and said something to increase the noise , for the credit of the house presumably , since she herself had not been feeling exhilarated .
At the very same moment , rather to her amusement , the door was flung open , and a young man entered the room .
Katharine , as she shook hands with him , asked him , in her own mind , “ Now , do you think we ’re enjoying ourselves enormously ? ”
... “ Mr. Denham , mother , ” she said aloud , for she saw that her mother had forgotten his name .
That fact was perceptible to Mr. Denham also , and increased the awkwardness which inevitably attends the entrance of a stranger into a room full of people much at their ease , and all launched upon sentences .
At the same time , it seemed to Mr. Denham as if a thousand softly padded doors had closed between him and the street outside .
A fine mist , the etherealized essence of the fog , hung visibly in the wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room , all silver where the candles were grouped on the tea-table , and ruddy again in the firelight .
With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head , and his body still tingling with his quick walk along the streets and in and out of traffic and foot-passengers , this drawing-room seemed very remote and still ; and the faces of the elderly people were mellowed , at some distance from each other , and had a bloom on them owing to the fact that the air in the drawing-room was thickened by blue grains of mist .
Mr. Denham had come in as Mr. Fortescue , the eminent novelist , reached the middle of a very long sentence .
He kept this suspended while the newcomer sat down , and Mrs. Hilbery deftly joined the severed parts by leaning towards him and remarking : “ Now , what would you do if you were married to an engineer , and had to live in Manchester , Mr. Denham ? ”
“ Surely she could learn Persian , ” broke in a thin , elderly gentleman .
“ Is there no retired schoolmaster or man of letters in Manchester with whom she could read Persian ? ”
“ A cousin of ours has married and gone to live in Manchester , ” Katharine explained .
Mr. Denham muttered something , which was indeed all that was required of him , and the novelist went on where he had left off .
Privately , Mr. Denham cursed himself very sharply for having exchanged the freedom of the street for this sophisticated drawing-room , where , among other disagreeables , he certainly would not appear at his best .
He glanced round him , and saw that , save for Katharine , they were all over forty , the only consolation being that Mr. Fortescue was a considerable celebrity , so that to-morrow one might be glad to have met him .
“ Have you ever been to Manchester ? ”
he asked Katharine .
“ Never , ” she replied .
“ Why do you object to it , then ? ”
Katharine stirred her tea , and seemed to speculate , so Denham thought , upon the duty of filling somebody else ’s cup , but she was really wondering how she was going to keep this strange young man in harmony with the rest .
She observed that he was compressing his teacup , so that there was danger lest the thin china might cave inwards .
She could see that he was nervous ; one would expect a bony young man with his face slightly reddened by the wind , and his hair not altogether smooth , to be nervous in such a party .
Further , he probably disliked this kind of thing , and had come out of curiosity , or because her father had invited him -- anyhow , he would not be easily combined with the rest .
“ I should think there would be no one to talk to in Manchester , ” she replied at random .
Mr. Fortescue had been observing her for a moment or two , as novelists are inclined to observe , and at this remark he smiled , and made it the text for a little further speculation .
“ In spite of a slight tendency to exaggeration , Katharine decidedly hits the mark , ” he said , and lying back in his chair , with his opaque contemplative eyes fixed on the ceiling , and the tips of his fingers pressed together , he depicted , first the horrors of the streets of Manchester , and then the bare , immense moors on the outskirts of the town , and then the scrubby little house in which the girl would live , and then the professors and the miserable young students devoted to the more strenuous works of our younger dramatists , who would visit her , and how her appearance would change by degrees , and how she would fly to London , and how Katharine would have to lead her about , as one leads an eager dog on a chain , past rows of clamorous butchers ’ shops , poor dear creature .
“ Oh , Mr. Fortescue , ” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery , as he finished , “ I had just written to say how I envied her !
I was thinking of the big gardens and the dear old ladies in mittens , who read nothing but the “ Spectator , ” and snuff the candles .
Have they ALL disappeared ?
I told her she would find the nice things of London without the horrid streets that depress one so . ”
“ There is the University , ” said the thin gentleman , who had previously insisted upon the existence of people knowing Persian .
“ I know there are moors there , because I read about them in a book the other day , ” said Katharine .
“ I am grieved and amazed at the ignorance of my family , ” Mr. Hilbery remarked .
He was an elderly man , with a pair of oval , hazel eyes which were rather bright for his time of life , and relieved the heaviness of his face .
He played constantly with a little green stone attached to his watch-chain , thus displaying long and very sensitive fingers , and had a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body , so that he seemed to be providing himself incessantly with food for amusement and reflection with the least possible expenditure of energy .
One might suppose that he had passed the time of life when his ambitions were personal , or that he had gratified them as far as he was likely to do , and now employed his considerable acuteness rather to observe and reflect than to attain any result .
Katharine , so Denham decided , while Mr. Fortescue built up another rounded structure of words , had a likeness to each of her parents , but these elements were rather oddly blended .
She had the quick , impulsive movements of her mother , the lips parting often to speak , and closing again ; and the dark oval eyes of her father brimming with light upon a basis of sadness , or , since she was too young to have acquired a sorrowful point of view , one might say that the basis was not sadness so much as a spirit given to contemplation and self-control .
Judging by her hair , her coloring , and the shape of her features , she was striking , if not actually beautiful .
Decision and composure stamped her , a combination of qualities that produced a very marked character , and one that was not calculated to put a young man , who scarcely knew her , at his ease .
For the rest , she was tall ; her dress was of some quiet color , with old yellow-tinted lace for ornament , to which the spark of an ancient jewel gave its one red gleam .
Denham noticed that , although silent , she kept sufficient control of the situation to answer immediately her mother appealed to her for help , and yet it was obvious to him that she attended only with the surface skin of her mind .
It struck him that her position at the tea-table , among all these elderly people , was not without its difficulties , and he checked his inclination to find her , or her attitude , generally antipathetic to him .
The talk had passed over Manchester , after dealing with it very generously .
“ Would it be the Battle of Trafalgar or the Spanish Armada , Katharine ? ”
her mother demanded .
“ Trafalgar , mother . ”
“ Trafalgar , of course !
How stupid of me !
Another cup of tea , with a thin slice of lemon in it , and then , dear Mr. Fortescue , please explain my absurd little puzzle .
One ca n’t help believing gentlemen with Roman noses , even if one meets them in omnibuses . ”
Mr. Hilbery here interposed so far as Denham was concerned , and talked a great deal of sense about the solicitors ’ profession , and the changes which he had seen in his lifetime .
Indeed , Denham properly fell to his lot , owing to the fact that an article by Denham upon some legal matter , published by Mr. Hilbery in his Review , had brought them acquainted .
But when a moment later Mrs. Sutton Bailey was announced , he turned to her , and Mr. Denham found himself sitting silent , rejecting possible things to say , beside Katharine , who was silent too .
Being much about the same age and both under thirty , they were prohibited from the use of a great many convenient phrases which launch conversation into smooth waters .
They were further silenced by Katharine ’s rather malicious determination not to help this young man , in whose upright and resolute bearing she detected something hostile to her surroundings , by any of the usual feminine amenities .
They therefore sat silent , Denham controlling his desire to say something abrupt and explosive , which should shock her into life .
But Mrs. Hilbery was immediately sensitive to any silence in the drawing-room , as of a dumb note in a sonorous scale , and leaning across the table she observed , in the curiously tentative detached manner which always gave her phrases the likeness of butterflies flaunting from one sunny spot to another , “ D’you know , Mr. Denham , you remind me so much of dear Mr. Ruskin ... .
Is it his tie , Katharine , or his hair , or the way he sits in his chair ?
Do tell me , Mr. Denham , are you an admirer of Ruskin ?
Some one , the other day , said to me , ‘ Oh , no , we do n’t read Ruskin , Mrs. Hilbery . ’
What DO you read , I wonder ?
-- for you ca n’t spend all your time going up in aeroplanes and burrowing into the bowels of the earth . ”