“Where should I address a letter to Cassandra?” he asked her. It was obvious again that William had some meaning or other to-night, or was in some mood. “We’ve struck up a friendship,” he added.
“She’s at home, I think,” Katharine replied.
“They keep her too much at home,” said William. “Why don’t you ask her to stay with you, and let her hear a little good music? I’ll just finish what I was saying, if you don’t mind, because I’m particularly anxious that she should hear to-morrow.”
Katharine sank back in her chair, and Rodney took the paper on his knees, and went on with his sentence. “Style, you know, is what we tend to neglect—“; but he was far more conscious of Katharine’s eye upon him than of what he was saying about style. He knew that she was looking at him, but whether with irritation or indifference he could not guess.
In truth, she had fallen sufficiently into his trap to feel uncomfortably roused and disturbed and unable to proceed on the lines laid down for herself. This indifferent, if not hostile, attitude on William’s part made it impossible to break off without animosity, largely and completely. Infinitely preferable was Mary’s state, she thought, where there was a simple thing to do and one did it. In fact, she could not help supposing that some littleness of nature had a part in all the refinements, reserves, and subtleties of feeling for which her friends and family were so distinguished. For example, although she liked Cassandra well enough, her fantastic method of life struck her as purely frivolous; now it was socialism, now it was silkworms, now it was music—which last she supposed was the cause of William’s sudden interest in her. Never before had William wasted the minutes of her presence in writing his letters. With a curious sense of light opening where all, hitherto, had been opaque, it dawned upon her that, after all, possibly, yes, probably, nay, certainly, the devotion which she had almost wearily taken for granted existed in a much slighter degree than she had suspected, or existed no longer. She looked at him attentively as if this discovery of hers must show traces in his face. Never had she seen so much to respect in his appearance, so much that attracted her by its sensitiveness and intelligence, although she saw these qualities as if they were those one responds to, dumbly, in the face of a stranger. The head bent over the paper, thoughtful as usual, had now a composure which seemed somehow to place it at a distance, like a face seen talking to some one else behind glass.