house was n't in the least like other London houses. It was half-way up Campden Hill, and had a little red door in the wall. If you opened the door, there was a garden, a real lawn, with velvety green turf and with trees at an agreeable distance from the windows. A bigger house in a row would have been considerably cheaper, but big houses in rows have an air of five meals a day, family prayers, and heavy balances in banks. Emily's house never reminded any one of an income or lent itself to the congregational use of prayer. You were quite safe as to meals,—the cook was French and excellent,—but they came upon you unawares, without the menace of a gong.
The house was full of flowers and light. There was very little furniture, and what there was, was unexpectedly comfortable. It would have been incredible if the house had not contained a good and beautiful woman. Strictly speaking, perhaps, Emily was not beautiful, but no one was ever strict in the appreciation of Emily; her goodness was undeniable. She was neither tall nor short, and it must be confessed once and for all that she was not slim. She paid eight guineas a pair for her stays, and was wise to do so. She had wonderfully fine hair, which managed never to appear brassy; her nose and her mouth were not good and never mattered.
But to whatever you attributed Emily's charm, it was there with all the force, and with none of the inconveniences, of an avalanche. Her radiance penetrated the house, which seemed like an advance-guard of Emily's; it hung about her clothes, which she bought with industry and inspiration once every year in Paris. They were the kind of clothes possible only to people who have command of a restrained taste and an extravagant expenditure.
Emily thought it a woman's duty to look as well as she could, and she did it thoroughly, as she did everything she thought was right. Human nature was her particular hobby; but it was noticeable that she generally preferred unhappy people, for whom much could be done, to happy people, who like to be left alone. The unhappy people who prefer to be left alone Emily had never had the misfortune to meet, or if she had, she had mercifully overlooked them. She had sufficient vitality to face the victims of an earthquake, but one could imagine her losing very quickly her interest in the earlier stages of the garden of Eden. When Emily was sympathetic, and she was almost always sympathetic, nothing could stop her, not even the object of her sympathy.
Falling in love had not stopped her; it had simply signaled to her as a mission the needs of less happy lovers. She would carry her personal happiness like a torch into dark places, and Geoffrey would carry his with her.
She took an enormous interest in Geoffrey's work; when he was n't carrying a torch she expected him to be a great artist. In the back of her mind (but Emily did not often visit the back of her mind) she felt that great artistic success and torches always came from very comfortable homes. She was a little hurt with Geoffrey for coming to her on the second evening of their engagement and saying that he wanted to be married at once. She felt that marriage had nothing to do with the first principles of their future life, and that he ought to have wanted to lay a triumph at her feet. The Salon prize was a triumph, but she felt, like Sir Thomas, that she would have preferred something more noticeable in London. Geoffrey told her that he had n't any principles and that he wanted to start living.
"I can't, you see," he explained, "live without you. I want you always, all the time, and now."
"I see, I see," Emily murmured, gazing with her benevolent eyes into the vista of a redeeming future. Geoffrey, speechless with satisfaction, watched her. It was wonderful to be going to marry a woman who "saw."
She was n't only all beauty; she was all wisdom, a kind of divine, omnipotent olive-branch spread out over angry floods of ordinary people to encourage them with the hope that one day the floods would subside and they would all cease to be ordinary. Geoffrey explained to her how she would help him with his family.
"You 'll put me right," he said with enthusiasm. "They 'll believe in me then, and if they believe in me, I think I can get on with them better. I tried foot-ball because I had a feeling that if I did well at footer I should understand more what they wanted me to be like at home. However, it did n't do any good. I might as well have read Shelley."
"Darling!" said Emily, with a warmth that involved a close embrace; but when this had finished, Emily did not go on with the discussion about marriage.