Then, almost as if it were a tedious duty, he harked back to Concha’s perversion: “Yes, it’s a bad business for you all about Miss Concha.”
“Life absorbs everything—in time,” said Teresa, half to herself.
“What do you mean exactly by that, Miss Lane?”
“It’s difficult to explain ... but I feel a sort of transubstantiation always going on ... sin and mistakes and sorrows and joy slowly, inevitably, turned into the bread that is life, and it’s no use worrying and struggling and trying to prevent everything but fine flour from going in ... all’s grist that comes to the mill.”
He looked at her intently for a few seconds: “Don’t you believe in the teaching of the Church, Miss Lane?”
“Does it ... does it matter about believing?”
“Well ... I haven’t quite made up my mind.”
Suddenly from the garden came Concha’s voice singing:
I’m so _jolly_ glad to meet you! I’m so _jolly_ glad you’re glad!
Then one of the French-windows burst open, and in she came, all blown by March winds, a bunch of early daffodils in her hand, and, behind her, ’Snice, his paws caked with mud.
She made Teresa think of the exquisite conceit in which Herrick describes a wind-blown maiden:
She lookt as she’d been got with child By young Favonius.
“Hallo! When did you arrive? It was such a divine morning I had to go for a walk. You poor creature—you do look thin. Oh dear, I _must_ have a cigarette.”
Her unnecessary heartiness probably concealed a little embarrassment; as to him—he was perfectly calm, grave, and friendly.
Then Dick came in: “Hallo! How are you, Munroe? So sorry I wasn’t about when you arrived—had to go down to the village to see the parson. We’ll have to fatten you up while you’re here—shan’t we, Concha? I don’t know whether we can rise to _haggis_, but we’ll do our best.”
Teresa felt a strange sensation of relief; here it was back again—old, foolish, meaningless, Merry England. She realised that, during the last half hour, she had been in another world—it was not exactly life; and she remembered that sense of almost frightening incongruity when she had first heard of David’s vocation.
Soon it was real spring: the trees became covered with golden buds, with pale green tassels; the orchard was a mass of white blossom; the view became streaked with the startling greenness of young wheat; and the long grass of the wild acre beyond the orchard was penetrated with jonquils, and daffodils, and narcissi, boldly pouting their corollas at birds and insects and men. While very soon every one grew so accustomed to the singing of the birds that one almost ceased to _hear_ it—it had entered the domain of vision, and become a stippled background to the _velatura_ of trees and leaves and flowers.