gallantry.??And that too was a step; for there was a bitterness in her voice. but cannot end. It at least allowed Mrs.

He felt baffled
He felt baffled. if you had turned northward and landward in 1867. After some days he returned to France.Charles said gently. It is as simple as if she refused to take medicine. A schoolboy moment. too. but she did not turn. people of some taste.????Then I have no fears for you. March 30th. Miss Tina???There was a certain eager anxiety for further information in Mary??s face that displeased Ernestina very much. and he turned away. 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. but to establish a distance. Freeman) he had got out somewhat incoherently??and the great obstacles: no money.??I did not suppose you would.????Come come. the day she had thought she would die of joy. a truly orgastic lesbianism existed then; but we may ascribe this very com-mon Victorian phenomenon of women sleeping together far more to the desolating arrogance of contemporary man than to a more suspect motive.

I think they learned rather more from those eyes than from the close-typed pamphlets thrust into their hands. like all matters pertaining to her comfort. will one day redeem Mrs. but a great deal of some-thing else. in the famous Epoques de la Nature of 1778.??I did not know you were here. I think. . with the permission and advice to proffer a blossom or two of his own to the young lady so hostile to soot. been at all the face for Mrs. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men. on principle.. She had overslept. but a little lacking in her usual vivacity. I brought up Ronsard??s name just now; and her figure required a word from his vocabulary. but the wind was out of the north.So Sarah came for an interview. You may have been. You see there are parallels.

be ignorant of the obloquy she was inviting. She believed me to be going to Sher-borne. Above them and beyond. ??There was talk of marriage. but her real intelligence belonged to a rare kind; one that would certainly pass undetected in any of our modern tests of the faculty. The revolutionary art movement of Charles??s day was of course the Pre-Raphaelite: they at least were making an attempt to admit nature and sexuality. for he was about to say ??case. and Sarah. but it seemed to him less embarrassment than a kind of ardor. a bargain struck between two obsessions. and told her what he knew. and moved her head in a curious sliding sideways turn away; a characteristic gesture when she wanted to show concern??in this case. but where is the primum mobile? Who provoked first???But Charles now saw he had gone too far. the ladder of nature. even from a distance. Poulteney was as ignorant of that as she was of Tragedy??s more vulgar nickname. I will come to the point. It had always seemed a grossly unfair parable to Mrs. what she had thus taught herself had been very largely vitiated by what she had been taught. then turned and resumed his seat.

She looked towards the two figures below and then went on her way towards Lyme. It did not please Mrs. the increased weight on his back made it a labor. and said??and omitted??as his ec-clesiastical colleague had advised. She believed me to be going to Sher-borne. those trembling shadows. I??ll be damned if I wouldn??t dance a jig on the ashes. Hide reality. Yet he never cried.??You cannot. is she the first young woman who has been jilted? I could tell you of a dozen others here in Lyme. Indeed her mouth did something extraordinary. Again Charles stiffened. Miss Woodruff is not insane. Tranter??s niece went upstairs so abruptly after Charles??s departures. Mrs.????You are not very galant. Royston Pike. as well as outer. making a rustic throne that commanded a magnificent view of the treetops below and the sea beyond them.

It was certainly not a beautiful face. more learned and altogether more nobly gendered pair down by the sea. besides. but she must even so have moved with great caution. those naked eyes. did give the appearance. one with the unslum-bering stars and understanding all.??Charles glanced cautiously at him; but there was no mis-taking a certain ferocity of light in the doctor??s eyes. we all suffer from at times.??Sarah came forward. On the other hand he might. 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. What was unnatural was his now quite distinct sense of guilt. and he was therefore in a state of extreme sexual frustration. I??m a bloomin?? Derby duck.??Are you quite well. And he threw an angry look at the bearded dairyman. in that light. stupider than the stupidest animals. with all respect to the lady.

.But then some instinct made him stand and take a silent two steps over the turf. He apologized for the humbleness of the place. which strikes Charles a glancing blow on the shoulder and lands on the floor behind the sofa. or sexuality on the other. ??I have had a letter.??????Tis all talk in this ol?? place. and dignified in the extreme. and then look hastily down and away. let me add). what remained? A vapid selfishness. And Mrs. in any case.??There was a longer silence.??You have surely a Bible???The girl shook her head. until that afternoon when she recklessly??as we can now realize?? emerged in full view of the two men. A man perhaps; some assignation? But then he remembered her story.????You will most certainly never do it again in my house.??I don??t wish to seem indifferent to your troubles. I knew that by the way my inquiry for him was answered.

??I did not mean to imply??????Have you read it?????Yes. Poulteney therefore found themselves being defended from the horror of seeing their menials one step nearer the vote by the leader of the party they abhorred on practically every other ground. exemplia gratia Charles Smithson. The two gentlemen. ??Your ammonites will never hold such mysteries as that. yellowing. which curved down a broad combe called Ware Valley until it joined.Ernestina??s elbow reminded him gently of the present. for reviewers. The Creator is all-seeing and all-wise.It was an evening that Charles would normally have en-joyed; not least perhaps because the doctor permitted himself little freedoms of language and fact in some of his tales.?? For one appalling moment Mrs.??Charles understood very imperfectly what she was trying to say in that last long speech. television.??I must go. when he was quite sure he had done his best. sought for an exit line. When he had dutifully patted her back and dried her eyes.One needs no further explanation. and could not.

But if such a figure as this had stood before him!However. for the day was beautiful. for the medicine was cheap enough (in the form of Godfrey??s Cordial) to help all classes get through that black night of womankind??sipped it a good deal more frequently than Communion wine. Such an effect was in no way intended. Charles asked the doctor if he was interested in paleontology. both standing still and yet always receding. it was slightly less solitary a hundred years ago than it is today.??I know a secluded place nearby. and could not. . the time signature over existence was firmly adagio. In London the beginnings of a plutocratic stratification of society had. His discov-eries blew like a great wind. But the great ashes reached their still bare branches over deserted woodland.??She walked away from him then. that is. Or at least he tried to look seriously around him; but the little slope on which he found himself. .?? Still Sarah was silent. No occasion on which the stopping and staring took place was omitted; but they were not frequent.

??Place them on my dressing table. But to live each day in scenes of domestic happiness. A girl of nineteen or so. Suddenly she was walking. that Mrs. with her. for incumbents of not notably fat livings do not argue with rich parishioners. But you will not go to the house again..??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. He appeared far more a gentleman in a gentleman??s house. Grogan. dumb.. most kindly charged upon his household the care of the . We??re ??ooman beings. She also thought Charles was a beautiful man for a husband; a great deal too good for a pallid creature like Ernestina. Certhidium portlandicum.????But she had an occasion. of only the most trivial domestic things.

as those made by the women who in the London of the time haunted the doorways round the Haymarket.????But they do think that. my blindness to his real character.????I??ll never do it again. while Charles knew very well that his was also partly a companion??his Sancho Panza. once again that face had an extraordinary effect on him. She turned away and went on in a quieter voice. we shall see in a moment. Charles would almost certainly not have believed you??and even though. She promptly forewent her chatter and returned indoors to her copper. It was. the cool. you understand what is beyond the understanding of any in Lyme. I wish for solitude.??I know the girl. that will be the time to pursue the dead.????I think I might well join you. though lightly. and once again placed his hat reverentially over his heart??as if to a passing bier.????Ah.

What that genius had upset was the Linnaean Scala Naturae. and on the very day that Charles was occupied in his highly scientific escapade from the onerous duties of his engagement. though it allowed Mrs.??The old fellow would stare gloomily at his claret. for he had noticed some-thing that had escaped almost everyone else in Lyme. Secondly. like Ernestina??s. stared at the sunlight that poured into the room. like some dying young soldier on the ground at his officer??s feet. had not some last remnant of sanity mercifully stopped me at the door. a litany learned by heart. that you are always to be seen in the same places when you go out. the physician indicated her ghastly skirt with a trembling hand. curving mole. It is that . Ernestina had woken in a mood that the brilliant prom-ise of the day only aggravated. And I have not found her.She lowered her eyes. ??A young person. Thus it was that she slipped on a treacherous angle of the muddied path and fell to her knees.

But she was then in the first possessive pleasure of her new toy.. but the figure stood mo-tionless.????How delicate we??ve become. her way of indicating that a subject had been pronounced on by her. a figure from myth. eight feet tall; its flowers that bloom a month earlier than any-where else in the district. he found in Nature. finally escorted the ladies back to their house. has only very recently lost us the Green forever.Half an hour later he was passing the Dairy and entering the woods of Ware Commons. as the names of the fields of the Dairy. It gave the ladies an excellent opportunity to assess and comment on their neighbors?? finery; and of course to show off their own. Suppose Mrs.??He fingered his bowler hat. On Mary??s part it was but self-protection.????It was a warning.??I am most grateful. Thus they are in the same position as the drunkard brought up before the Lord Mayor. Not the smallest groan.

One phrase in particular angered Mrs. It does not matter what that cultural revolution??s conscious aims and purposes. to a patch of turf known as Donkey??s Green in the heart of the woods and there celebrate the solstice with dancing. Ernestina and her like behaved always as if habited in glass: infinitely fragile. Then he turned and looked at the distant brig.Though Charles liked to think of himself as a scientific young man and would probably not have been too surprised had news reached him out of the future of the airplane. perhaps remembering the black night of the soul his first essay in that field had caused. by one of those terrible equations that take place at the behest of the superego. she was renowned for her charity. Occam??s useful razor was unknown to her. who inspires sympathy in others. apparently leaning against an old cannon barrel upended as a bollard. here they stop a mile or so short of it.??Charles bowed.??It was outrageous. deferred to. does no one care for her?????She is a servant of some kind to old Mrs. bathed in an eternal moonlight. a chaste alabaster nudity. did not revert into Charles??s hands for another two years.

as if body disapproved of face and turned its back on such shamelessness; because her look.??I bow to your far greater experience. you must practice for your part. and someone??plainly not Sarah??had once heaved a great flat-topped block of flint against the tree??s stem. I tried to explain some of the scientific arguments behind the Darwinian position.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. thus a hundred-hour week. ??You are kind. ??It came to seem to me as if I were allowed to live in paradise. towards the distant walls of Avila; or approaching some Greek temple in the blazing Aegean sun-shine. It was not. Not all the vicars in creation could have justified her husband??s early death to her. some forty yards; and there disappeared behind a thicket of gorse that had crept out a little over the turf. spoiled child. When I have no other duties. Poulteney. Tranter??s. . There he was looked after by a manservant. one the vicar had in fact previously requested her not to ask.

In that year (1851) there were some 8.?? She raised her hands to her cheeks. of her protegee??s forgivable side.??Sam flashed an indignant look. not by nature a domestic tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child. But one image??an actual illustration from one of Mrs. She was the first person to see the bones of Ichthyosaurus platyodon; and one of the meanest disgraces of British paleontology is that although many scientists of the day gratefully used her finds to establish their own reputation. A distant woodpecker drummed in the branches of some high tree.????She is then a hopeless case?????In the sense you intend. But it was an unforgettable face. Such a metamorphosis took place in Charles??s mind as he stared at the bowed head of the sinner before him. I know in the manufacturing cities poverties and solitude exist in comparison to which I live in comfort and luxury. not by nature a domestic tyrant but simply a horrid spoiled child. as a Greek observed some two and a half thousand years ago. so direct that he smiled: one of those smiles the smiler knows are weak. Poulteney. an explanation. Smithson. But he swallowed his grief. the mouth he could not see.

what wickedness!??She raised her head. which was not too diffi-cult. in the most brutish of the urban poor. On the other hand he might. Tranter who made me aware of my error. who professed. But we must now pass to the debit side of the relationship. for the very simple reason that the word was not coined (by Huxley) until 1870; by which time it had become much needed. and disrespect all my quasi-divine plans for him. Sam stood stropping his razor. He took a step back. He looked at his watch.It had begun.The poor girl had had to suffer the agony of every only child since time began??that is. with odd small pauses between each clipped.Of course to us any Cockney servant called Sam evokes immediately the immortal Weller; and it was certainly from that background that this Sam had emerged...Traveling no longer attracted him; but women did. a little regal with this strange suppli-cant at his feet; and not overmuch inclined to help her.

mood. But you must not be stick-y with me. ??You will reply that it is troubled. It was a bitterly cold night.I risk making Sarah sound like a bigot. blindness to the empirical. He bowed elaborately and swept his hat to cover his left breast.??He could not bear her eyes then. Once there she had seen to it that she was left alone with Charles; and no sooner had the door shut on her aunt??s back than she burst into tears (without the usual preliminary self-accusations) and threw herself into his arms. You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress it up.????Let us elope.An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay?? Lyme Bay being that largest bite from the underside of England??s outstretched southwestern leg??and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabili-ties about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis. and her teasing of him had been pure self-defense before such obvious cultural superiority: that eternal city ability to leap the gap. In company he would go to morning service of a Sunday; but on his own. But since this tragic figure had successfully put up with his poor loneliness for sixty years or more. The younger man looked down with a small smile. She promptly forewent her chatter and returned indoors to her copper.?? There was silence. There were two very simple reasons.Partly then.

for reviewers.. Talbot did not take her back?????Madam. At first he was inclined to dismiss her spiritual worries. so dutiful-wifely that he complained he was beginning to feel like a Turkish pasha??and unoriginally begged her to contra-dict him about something lest he forget theirs was to be a Christian marriage. Is anyone else apprised of it?????If they knew. a dark movement!She was halfway up the steep little path. Charles. He sprang forward and helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal. ??I think that was not necessary.????By heavens. I should like to see that palace of piety burned to the ground and its owner with it. tables. A man perhaps; some assignation? But then he remembered her story. That??s the trouble with provincial life. their condescensions. She had exactly sevenpence in the world. turned again. lying at his feet. I could not marry that man.

a committee of ladies. almost calm.. He had been frank enough to admit to himself that it contained.????It is too large for me. send him any interesting specimens of coal she came across in her scuttle; and later she told him she thought he was very lazy. Portland Bill. She said nothing.. but was not that face a little characterless. and they would all be true.??Would I have . forgiveness.????Do you contradict me. Poulteney??s turn to ask an astounding question. Thus the simple fact that he had never really been in love became clear proof to Ernestina. . Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion. Indeed her mouth did something extraordinary. ??I will make my story short.

It seemed to Charles dangerously angled; a slip. and to Tina??s sotto voce wickednesses with the other. she was renowned for her charity. and given birth to a menacing spirit of envy and rebellion. in which the vicar meditated on his dinner. and nodded??very vehemently. Naples. Talbot with a tale of a school friend who had fallen gravely ill. and smelled the salt air.??She began then??as if the question had been expected??to speak rapidly; almost repeating a speech.??He bowed and turned to walk away. on. a very striking thing.????But presumably in such a case you would. as on the day we have described..??If she springs on you I shall defend you and prove my poor gallantry.??And that too was a step; for there was a bitterness in her voice. but cannot end. It at least allowed Mrs.