The White Peacock

d air. I showed him into the dark drawing-room, and left him. Ordinarily he would have wandered to the stairs, and sat the

h before she came downstairs. Then she also assumed the grand air and bowed to him with a beautiful bow. He was somewhat taken aback and h

eness of the geraniums. So she smiled at him as she pinned them into the bosom of her dress, saying: "They are very fine, are t

ll allow m

st to-day," l

!" he r

ttie wore the geraniums all day-till evening. She brought Alice Gall home

nal yellow sunbeam would slant through the thick roof of leaves and cling passionately to the orange clusters of mountain-ash berries. The trees were silent, drawing together to sleep. Only

heard a murmur from among the trees, from the lover's seat, where a great tree had fallen and re

back against a profusion of the little wild geraniums that decorated the dead bough so delicately. The man's clothing was good, but slovenly and neglected. His face was pale and worn with sickness and dissipation. As he slept, his grey beard wagged, and his loose unlovely

t of what he said. It was very unpleasant. I wondered how we should end it. Suddenly through the gloom of the twilight-haunted woods came the scream of a

to have nice dre

n looking at us sa

ho are

ited for him to move. He

. I do, I do." He sighed heavily. Then he a

e out of your way surely.

to clear ou

ion. "I don't mind your dreaming. B

u be going th

I replied w

" he queried, eyeing

more dignity, wondering

watched it curiously as we walked with the old man along the path to the gate. We went with him into the open road. When we reached the clear sky where the light from the we

right?" I asked,

ight-good-

lights of a vehicle on the high-road: after a while

s he?" said Ge

d I, "it's made me

up the end of the exclamat

the women. They were sitting in the window sea

ed the sun go down-it set splendidly-look-the rim of t

your Taurus

tily, and-turning to him, "Y

you like,"

lice, with an admirable father, and a mother who loved her husband passionately, was wild and lawless on the surface, but at heart very upright and amenable. My mother and she were fast friends, and Lettie had a good deal

the same to m

you'd answer," he

d rather have a tack in my shoe than

to walk," was Lettie's reply-"b

Lettie, whom she often

" she said to me, "did so

understanding her malicious f

I should have

n,"-and she tipped me un

atter with you? Georgy-say something

ures, the ornaments, and everything in the room; Lettie got up to settle some flowers on the mantel-piece, and he scrutinised her closely. She was dressed in some blue foulard stuff, with lace at the throat, and lace cuffs to the elbow. She was t

ile mother called

ie to him, "take

eeling ver

o, and flushed under his tan, afraid of her round a

uld have. He hesitated, looked at the strange dishes and said he woul

fashion. He was not sure. He could not analyse the flavours, he felt confused

said he. "I

"How can you say so wh

ng with Flint, and he gave us fat bacon and bits of lettuce soaked in

weet as a nut, no vinegar about our lettuce." George la

he said, with p

e. "Our Georgie believes me

r moods. When she was angry she played tender fragments of Tscha?kowsky, when she was miserable, Mozart. Now she played Handel in a manner that suggested the plains of heaven in the long notes, and in the little trills as if she were waltzing up the ladder of Jacob's dream like the damsels in Blake's pictures. I often told her she flattered herself scandalously through the piano; but generally she pretended not to understand me, and occasionally she surpri

red of musi

plied, shak

salad?" she asked wit

ndsome; his features were too often in a heavy repose; but when he looked

broke off in the midst of one sentimental plaint, and left the piano, dropping into a low chair by the fire. There she sat and

," she said to him quietly. Th

repeated, leaning back in her

ht so," he rep

she said,

ng to recall his pr

ed hearti

e grow

" he

she repeated,

I was never bo

a very decent man. A mere man daren't be a boy for fear of tumbl

still to think about

she asked suddenly, bein

n anything,

warm hearth and a la

nd biting his lips at the taste of this humiliation.

ng out of the room. He felt he was nearer her.

pretty stro

g in your compli

er to see if sh

ou could say of me, i

, unwilling to co

-she kneeled before the fire. "Some look at my hair, some watch the rise and fall of my breathing, some look at my neck, and a fe

is fingers; she w

She talked to him of each picture, insisting on hearing his opinion. Sometimes

ns came and contradicted me as you do, wouldn

know,"

o," she replied.

ou ask me th

gan to

estion. I think you might

he said, smil

think you're perfect, but you

ady to depart. "He's so blooming slow! Great whizz! Who wants fell

rned enough," repli

ing Georgy?" asked Alice with inn

s you ask?" he repl

ople needed any indigestion mix

see--"

e. Absence makes the heart grow fonder-Georgy-of someone else. Farewell.

icist. He liked Copley, Fielding, Cattermole and Birket Foster; he could see nothi

us even when we work menially. I do know and I can speak. If I hoed in the fields beside you--" This was a very new idea for him

t merely happens anywhere. Oh, but you make me feel as if I'd like to make you suffer. If you'd ever been sick; if you'd ever been born into a home where there was something oppressed you, and you couldn't understand; if ever you'd believed, or even doubted, you might have been a man by now. You never grow up, like bulbs which spend all summer getting fat and fleshy, but never wakening the germ of a flower. As for me, the flower is born

d who feels the tale but does not understand the words. She, looking away fro

amiable of you to listen to me-there isn't

he, "why do

us go back to our muttons, we're gazin

casually, till George sud

ce Griffinha

ly flushing. She remembered her

g at her with glowing eyes, his teeth showi

d, dropping her

half afraid-and passion

when the barbarian comes out

you like it

meet, and by the time the poppies redden the field, she'll hang in

eaves of the book, an

his eyes glowing, "i

ad, don't!" she

d, "I don't know whether I sh

g voice, and stroking his cheek with her finger, "Y

r the new sensation of heavy, unappeased fire in his breast, and

just how to play t

her, but failed. He shrank, l

sked with vib

de and vivid with a declaration that made her shrink back as if flame ha

ture before?" she said,

yes and shran

er seen it be

she said. "It is

again. It was a torture to each of them to look thus nakedly at the other, a dazzled, shrinking pain that they forced themselves to undergo for a moment, that th

verpool, the picture,

self-conscious. He forced himself to reply, "I

very good on

st steal another keen moment: "Are you admiring my strength?" she asked. Her pose was fine. With her head thrown back, the roundness of her throat ran finely down to the bosom which swelled above the pile of books held by her straight

of the weird tone of this great actress, and her raillery and mockery came out in little wild waves. She laughed at him, and at herself, and at men in general, and at love in particular. Whatever he said to her, she answered in the same

ed at last. "We must be mad sometimes

understand," he

! And will you really go? They will think

s dancing with a smile as he ventured up

ting it. "Now that is worse th

ed, and they smil

hey waited in suspense for s

her again, his eyes flickering. Then he took her hand. She pressed his fingers, holding them a litt

clinging a little tighter to his fingers befo

you?" she aske

d softly, as if his thumb wer

, and, with a blind movement, h