________________________________________________
_ Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few
hundred feet down the southern slope, at the springing of one of
the great buttresses that supported the hill. On either side of
it was a shallow ravine, filled with ferns and pine-trees, and
down the ravine on the left ran the highway into the Weald.
Whenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these
noble dispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of
them, Windy Corner,--he laughed. The situation was so glorious,
the house so commonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr.
Honeychurch had affected the cube, because it gave him the most
accommodation for his money, and the only addition made by his
widow had been a small turret, shaped like a rhinoceros' horn,
where she could sit in wet weather and watch the carts going up
and down the road. So impertinent--and yet the house "did," for
it was the home of people who loved their surroundings honestly.
Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive
architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously,
yet all these suggested the accidental, the temporary; while
Windy Corner seemed as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature's own
creation. One might laugh at the house, but one never shuddered.
Mr. Beebe was bicycling over this Monday afternoon with a piece
of gossip. He had heard from the Miss Alans. These admirable
ladies, since they could not go to Cissie Villa, had changed
their plans. They were going to Greece instead.
"Since Florence did my poor sister so much good," wrote Miss
Catharine, "we do not see why we should not try Athens this
winter. Of course, Athens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered
her special digestive bread; but, after all, we can take that
with us, and it is only getting first into a steamer and then
into a train. But is there an English Church?" And the letter
went on to say: "I do not expect we shall go any further than
Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable pension at
Constantinople, we should be so grateful."
Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe
greeted Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of
it, and some of its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though
she was hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so
unevenly--oh, that cerise frock yesterday at church!--she must
see some beauty in life, or she could not play the piano as she
did. He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and
know far less than other artists what they want and what they
are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that
their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been
understood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been
illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was
only riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to
observe whether Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the
desire of two old ladies to visit Athens.
A carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he
caught sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and
stopped abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must
be the horse, who always expected people to walk up the hill in
case they tired him. The door opened obediently, and two men
emerged, whom Mr. Beebe recognized as Cecil and Freddy. They were
an odd couple to go driving; but he saw a trunk beside the
coachman's legs. Cecil, who wore a bowler, must be going away,
while Freddy (a cap)--was seeing him to the station. They walked
rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the summit while the
carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road.
They shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak.
"So you're off for a minute, Mr. Vyse?" he asked.
Cecil said, "Yes," while Freddy edged away.
"I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those
friends of Miss Honeychurch. He quoted from it. "Isn't it
wonderful? Isn't it romance? most certainly they will go to
Constantinople. They are taken in a snare that cannot fail. They
will end by going round the world."
Cecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be
amused and interested.
"Isn't Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people;
you do nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is
dead, while the Miss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of
propriety against the terrible thing. 'A really comfortable
pension at Constantinople!' So they call it out of decency, but
in their hearts they want a pension with magic windows opening on
the foam of perilous seas in fairyland forlorn! No ordinary view
will content the Miss Alans. They want the Pension Keats."
"I'm awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe," said Freddy, "but
have you any matches?"
"I have," said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe's notice
that he spoke to the boy more kindly.
"You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?"
"Never."
"Then you don't see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven't
been to Greece myself, and don't mean to go, and I can't imagine
any of my friends going. It is altogether too big for our little
lot. Don't you think so? Italy is just about as much as we can
manage. Italy is heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish--I am
not sure which, and in either case absolutely out of our suburban
focus. All right, Freddy--I am not being clever, upon my word I
am not--I took the idea from another fellow; and give me those
matches when you've done with them." He lit a cigarette, and went
on talking to the two young men. "I was saying, if our poor
little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be Italian.
Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
for me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But
not the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and
here comes the victoria."
"You're quite right," said Cecil. "Greece is not for our little
lot"; and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman,
whom he trusted not to be pulling one's leg, really. And before
they had gone a dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back
for Vyse's match-box, which had not been returned. As he took it,
he said: "I'm so glad you only talked about books. Cecil's hard
hit. Lucy won't marry him. If you'd gone on about her, as you did
about them, he might have broken down."
"But when--"
"Late last night. I must go."
"Perhaps they won't want me down there."
"No--go on. Good-bye."
"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the
saddle of his bicycle approvingly, "It was the one foolish thing
she ever did. Oh, what a glorious riddance!" And, after a little
thought, he negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of
heart. The house was again as it ought to be--cut off forever
from Cecil's pretentious world.
He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden.
In the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He
hesitated a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There
he found a mournful company. It was a blustering day, and the
wind had taken and broken the dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who
looked cross, was tying them up, while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably
dressed, impeded her with offers of assistance. At a little
distance stood Minnie and the "garden-child," a minute
importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass.
"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything
is! Look at my scarlet pompons, and the wind blowing your skirts
about, and the ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and
then the carriage having to go out, when I had counted on having
Powell, who--give every one their due--does tie up dahlias
properly."
Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered.
"How do you do?" said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as
though conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by
the autumn gales.
"Here, Lennie, the bass," cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The
garden-child, who did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the
path with horror. Minnie slipped to her uncle and whispered that
every one was very disagreeable to-day, and that it was not her
fault if dahlia-strings would tear longways instead of across.
"Come for a walk with me," he told her. "You have worried them as
much as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in
aimlessly. I shall take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I
may."
"Oh, must you? Yes do.--Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte,
when both my hands are full already--I'm perfectly certain that
the orange cactus will go before I can get to it."
Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss
Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity.
"Yes, Charlotte, I don't want you--do go; there's nothing to stop
about for, either in the house or out of it."
Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when
she had exasperated every one, except Minnie, by a refusal, she
turned round and exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they
walked up the garden, the orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe's
last vision was of the garden-child clasping it like a lover, his
dark head buried in a wealth of blossom.
"It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers," he remarked.
"It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in
a moment," enunciated Miss Bartlett.
"Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or
will she come with us?"
"I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own
pursuits."
"They're angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for
breakfast," whispered Minnie, "and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse
has gone, and Freddy won't play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur,
the house is not AT ALL what it was yesterday."
"Don't be a prig," said her Uncle Arthur. "Go and put on your
boots."
He stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still
attentively pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he
entered.
"How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to
tea at the Beehive. Would you come too?"
"I don't think I will, thank you."
"No, I didn't suppose you would care to much."
Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords.
"How delicate those Sonatas are!" said Mr. Beebe, though at the
bottom of his heart, he thought them silly little things.
Lucy passed into Schumann.
"Miss Honeychurch!"
"Yes."
"I met them on the hill. Your brother told me."
"Oh he did?" She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had
thought that she would like him to be told.
"I needn't say that it will go no further."
"Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you," said Lucy, playing a
note for each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note.
"If you'll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that
you have done the right thing."
"So I hoped other people would think, but they don't seem to."
"I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise."
"So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully."
"I am very sorry for that," said Mr. Beebe with feeling.
Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly
as much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It
was really a ruse of Lucy's to justify her despondency--a ruse of
which she was not herself conscious, for she was marching in the
armies of darkness.
"And Freddy minds."
"Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I
gathered that he disliked the engagement, and felt it might
separate him from you."
"Boys are so odd."
Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the
floor. Tea at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change
of apparel. Mr. Beebe saw that Lucy--very properly--did not wish
to discuss her action, so after a sincere expression of sympathy,
he said, "I have had an absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was
really what brought me over. I thought it might amuse you all."
"How delightful!" said Lucy, in a dull voice.
For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter.
After a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted
him with "Going abroad? When do they start?"
"Next week, I gather."
"Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?"
"No, he didn't."
"Because I do hope he won't go gossiping."
So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always
complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed
in a high voice, "Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How
perfectly splendid of them to go abroad!"
"I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down
the Illyrian coast!"
She laughed heartily. "Oh, delightful! I wish they'd take me."
"Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George
Emerson is right. He says that 'Italy is only an euphuism for
Fate.'"
"Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to
Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn't it?"
Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely,
and that the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, "with Delphi,
perhaps, if the roads are safe." But this made no difference to
her enthusiasm. She had always longed to go to Greece even more,
it seemed. He saw, to his surprise, that she was apparently
serious.
"I didn't realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such
friends, after Cissie Villa."
"Oh, that's nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa's nothing to me; I
would give anything to go with them."
"Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely
been home three months."
"She MUST spare me!" cried Lucy, in growing excitement. "I simply
MUST go away. I have to." She ran her fingers hysterically
through her hair. "Don't you see that I HAVE to go away? I didn't
realize at the time--and of course I want to see Constantinople
so particularly."
"You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you
feel--"
"Yes, yes. I knew you'd understand."
Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss
Honeychurch repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently
taken up the dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then
it struck him that her family itself might be annoying. He hinted
this to her, and she accepted the hint eagerly.
"Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to
the idea and everything has calmed down."
"I am afraid it has been a bothersome business," he said gently.
"No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only--I had better
tell you the whole truth, since you have heard a little--it was
that he is so masterful. I found that he wouldn't let me go my
own way. He would improve me in places where I can't be improved.
Cecil won't let a woman decide for herself--in fact, he daren't.
What nonsense I do talk! but that is the kind of thing."
"It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is
what I gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize
and agree most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me
make one little criticism: Is it worth while rushing off to
Greece?"
"But I must go somewhere!" she cried. "I have been worrying all
the morning, and here comes the very thing." She struck her knees
with clenched fists, and repeated: "I must! And the time I shall
have with mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring.
You all think much too highly of me. I wish you weren't so kind."
At this moment Miss Bartlett entered, and her nervousness
increased. "I must get away, ever so far. I must know my own mind
and where I want to go."
"Come along; tea, tea, tea," said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his
guests out of the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he
forgot his hat. When he returned for it he heard, to his relief
and surprise, the tinkling of a Mozart Sonata.
"She is playing again," he said to Miss Bartlett.
"Lucy can always play," was the acid reply.
"One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is
evidently much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know
all about it. The marriage was so near that it must have been a
hard struggle before she could wind herself up to speak."
Miss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a
discussion. He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it
to himself at Florence, "she might yet reveal depths of
strangeness, if not of meaning." But she was so unsympathetic
that she must be reliable. He assumed that much, and he had no
hesitation in discussing Lucy with her. Minnie was fortunately
collecting ferns.
She opened the discussion with: "We had much better let the
matter drop."
"I wonder."
"It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip
in Summer Street. It would be DEATH to gossip about Mr. Vyse's
dismissal at the present moment."
Mr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong word--surely too
strong. There was no question of tragedy. He said: "Of course,
Miss Honeychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and
when she chooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would
not mind."
"I know," said Miss Bartlett civilly. "Yet Freddy ought not to
have told even you. One cannot be too careful."
"Quite so."
"I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering
friend, and--"
"Exactly." He was used to these nervous old maids and to the
exaggerated importance that they attach to words. A rector lives
in a web of petty secrets, and confidences and warnings, and the
wiser he is the less he will regard them. He will change the
subject, as did Mr. Beebe, saying cheerfully: "Have you heard
from any Bertolini people lately? I believe you keep up with Miss
Lavish. It is odd how we of that pension, who seemed such a
fortuitous collection, have been working into one another's
lives. Two, three, four, six of us--no, eight; I had forgotten
the Emersons--have kept more or less in touch. We must really
give the Signora a testimonial."
And, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the
hill in a silence which was only broken by the rector naming some
fern. On the summit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since
he stood there last hour, giving to the land a tragic greatness
that is rare in Surrey. Grey clouds were charging across tissues
of white, which stretched and shredded and tore slowly, until
through their final layers there gleamed a hint of the
disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The wind roared, the
trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for those vast
operations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking,
broken, and it is a sense of the fit rather than of the
supernatural that equips such crises with the salvos of angelic
artillery. Mr. Beebe's eyes rested on Windy Corner, where Lucy
sat, practising Mozart. No smile came to his lips, and, changing
the subject again, he said: "We shan't have rain, but we shall
have darkness, so let us hurry on. The darkness last night was
appalling."
They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o'clock. That
amiable hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the
unwise do dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years
seek a pleasant sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably.
Mr. Beebe saw that Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and
that Minnie would be dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division
of forces. They would hand the child her food through the window.
Thus he was incidentally enabled to discuss the fortunes of Lucy.
"I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett," he said, "and, unless you
very much object, I would like to reopen that discussion." She
bowed. "Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about
that; I am absolutely certain that it is to your cousin's credit.
She has acted loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle
modesty to say that we think too highly of her. But the future.
Seriously, what do you think of this Greek plan?" He pulled out
the letter again. "I don't know whether you overheard, but she
wants to join the Miss Alans in their mad career. It's all--I
can't explain--it's wrong."
Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to
hesitate, and then read it again.
"I can't see the point of it myself."
To his astonishment, she replied: "There I cannot agree with you.
In it I spy Lucy's salvation."
"Really. Now, why?"
"She wanted to leave Windy Corner."
"I know--but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so--I was going to
say--selfish."
"It is natural, surely--after such painful scenes--that she should
desire a change."
Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect
misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: "So she says herself, and since
another lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially
convinced. Perhaps she must have a change. I have no sisters or--
and I don't understand these things. But why need she go as far
as Greece?"
"You may well ask that," replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently
interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. "Why
Greece? (What is it, Minnie dear--jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells?
Oh, Mr. Beebe! I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview
with dear Lucy this morning. I cannot help her. I will say no
more. Perhaps I have already said too much. I am not to talk. I
wanted her to spend six months with me at Tunbridge Wells, and
she refused."
Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.
"But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get
on Lucy's nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave
Florence, and when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome,
and all the time I felt that I was spending her mother's
money--."
"Let us keep to the future, though," interrupted Mr. Beebe. "I
want your advice."
"Very well," said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was
new to him, though familiar to Lucy. "I for one will help her to
go to Greece. Will you?"
Mr. Beebe considered.
"It is absolutely necessary," she continued, lowering her veil
and whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that
surprised him. "I know--I know." The darkness was coming on, and
he felt that this odd woman really did know. "She must not stop
here a moment, and we must keep quiet till she goes. I trust that
the servants know nothing. Afterwards--but I may have said too
much already. Only, Lucy and I are helpless against Mrs.
Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed. Otherwise--"
"Otherwise--?"
"Otherwise," she repeated as if the word held finality.
"Yes, I will help her," said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm.
"Come, let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up."
Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign--a
beehive trimmed evenly with bees--creaked in the wind outside as
she thanked him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the
situation; but then, he did not desire to understand it, nor to
jump to the conclusion of "another man" that would have attracted
a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss Bartlett knew of some
vague influence from which the girl desired to be delivered, and
which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its very
vagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in
celibacy, so reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his
tolerance and culture, now came to the surface and expanded like
some delicate flower. "They that marry do well, but they that
refrain do better." So ran his belief, and he never heard that an
engagement was broken off but with a slight feeling of pleasure.
In the case of Lucy, the feeling was intensified through dislike
of Cecil; and he was willing to go further--to place her out of
danger until she could confirm her resolution of virginity. The
feeling was very subtle and quite undogmatic, and he never
imparted it to any other of the characters in this entanglement.
Yet it existed, and it alone explains his action subsequently,
and his influence on the action of others. The compact that he
made with Miss Bartlett in the tavern, was to help not only Lucy,
but religion also.
They hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed
on indifferent topics: the Emersons' need of a housekeeper;
servants; Italian servants; novels about Italy; novels with a
purpose; could literature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered.
In the garden, Mrs. Honeychurch, now helped by Freddy, still
wrestled with the lives of her flowers.
"It gets too dark," she said hopelesly. "This comes of putting
off. We might have known the weather would break up soon; and now
Lucy wants to go to Greece. I don't know what the world's coming
to."
"Mrs. Honeychurch," he said, "go to Greece she must. Come up to
the house and let's talk it over. Do you, in the first place,
mind her breaking with Vyse?"
"Mr. Beebe, I'm thankful--simply thankful."
"So am I," said Freddy.
"Good. Now come up to the house."
They conferred in the dining-room for half an hour.
Lucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was
expensive and dramatic--both qualities that her mother loathed.
Nor would Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested
with Mr. Beebe. By his tact and common sense, and by his
influence as a clergyman--for a clergyman who was not a fool
influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly--he bent her to their
purpose, "I don't see why Greece is necessary," she said; "but as
you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I can't
understand. Lucy! Let's tell her. Lucy!"
"She is playing the piano," Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door,
and heard the words of a song:
"Look not thou on beauty's charming."
"I didn't know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too."
"Sit thou still when kings are arming,
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens--"
"It's a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!"
"What's that?" called Lucy, stopping short.
"All right, dear," said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into
the drawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: "I
am sorry I was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of
the dahlias."
Rather a hard voice said: "Thank you, mother; that doesn't matter
a bit."
"And you are right, too--Greece will be all right; you can go if
the Miss Alans will have you."
"Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!"
Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands
over the keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness.
Her mother bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing,
reclined on the floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe
between his lips. Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe,
who loved the art of the past, was reminded of a favourite theme,
the Santa Conversazione, in which people who care for one another
are painted chatting together about noble things--a theme neither
sensual nor sensational, and therefore ignored by the art of
to-day. Why should Lucy want either to marry or to travel when she
had such friends at home?
"Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,
Speak not when the people listens,"
she continued.
"Here's Mr. Beebe."
"Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways."
"It's a beautiful song and a wise one," said he. "Go on."
"It isn't very good," she said listlessly. "I forget why--harmony
or something."
"I suspected it was unscholarly. It's so beautiful."
"The tune's right enough," said Freddy, "but the words are rotten.
Why throw up the sponge?"
"How stupidly you talk!" said his sister. The Santa Conversazione
was broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should
talk about Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he
said good-bye.
Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his
usual felicity of phrase, said: "This has been a day and a half."
"Stop thine ear against the singer--"
"Wait a minute; she is finishing."
"From the red gold keep thy finger;
Vacant heart and hand and eye
Easy live and quiet die."
"I love weather like this," said Freddy.
Mr. Beebe passed into it.
The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he
had helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so
big a change in a girl's life. If here and there he was
dissatisfied or puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the
better part.
"Vacant heart and hand and eye--"
Perhaps the song stated "the better part" rather too strongly. He
half fancied that the soaring accompaniment--which he did not lose
in the shout of the gale--really agreed with Freddy, and was
gently criticizing the words that it adorned:
"Vacant heart and hand and eye
Easy live and quiet die."
However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him--
now as a beacon in the roaring tides of darkness. _
Read next: Part II: Chapter XIX - Lying to Mr. Emerson
Read previous: Part II: Chapter XVII - Lying to Cecil
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