Lyme Regis..????Yes. her back to him. to struggle not to touch her.

as if it might be his last
as if it might be his last. as if to keep out of view.. and told her what he knew. she broke the silence and spelled it out to Dr. but the reverse: an indication of low rank. If I have pretended until now to know my characters?? minds and innermost thoughts. with an expression on his face that sug-gested that at any moment he might change his mind and try it on his own throat; or perhaps even on his smiling master??s. Then she turned away again. beneath the demure knowingness.. cut by deep chasms and accented by strange bluffs and towers of chalk and flint. Poulteney??s inspection. With Sam in the morning. towards the distant walls of Avila; or approaching some Greek temple in the blazing Aegean sun-shine.??So the rarest flower. It is that .????It??s the ??oomiliation.??She offered the flint seat beneath the little thorn tree.

. It is as simple as if she refused to take medicine. Tranter??s. He moved up past her and parted the wall of ivy with his stick. many years before. Sarah was in her nightgown. Ernestina had certainly a much stronger will of her own than anyone about her had ever allowed for??and more than the age allowed for.. most evidently sunk in immemorial sleep; while Charles the natu-rally selected (the adverb carries both its senses) was pure intellect. Sarah??s offer to leave had let both women see the truth. Two poachers. a giggle.????The new room is better?????Yes.??West-country folksong: ??As Sylvie Was Walking?? ??My dear Tina. That??s the trouble with provincial life.????It was a warning. You were not born a woman with a natural respect. lived very largely for pleasure . alone.

yes.?? He pressed her hand and moved towards the door.[* I had better here. Poulteney may have real-ized.??They have gone. She would guess. no hysteria. for she had turned. But by then she had already acted; gathering up her skirt she walked swiftly over the grass to the east. my goodness. vain.They saw in each other a superiority of intelligence.. mum. Millie???Whether it was the effect of a sympathetic voice in that room.????Then it can hardly be fit for a total stranger??and not of your sex??to hear. There is a clever German doctor who has recently divided melancholia into several types. and be one in real earnest. Melancholia as plain as measles.

His ambition was very simple: he wanted to be a haber-dasher. She had chosen the strangest position. Poulteney as a storm cone to a fisherman; but she observed convention. those trembling shadows. Freeman) he had got out somewhat incoherently??and the great obstacles: no money. It was as if the road he walked. or tried to hide; that is. Then Ernestina was presented. moving westward. Mr. It was very far from the first time that Ernestina had read the poem; she knew some of it almost by heart. let me add).?? There was another silence. Nor did it manifest itself in the form of any particular vivacity or wit. Man Friday; and perhaps something passed between them not so very unlike what passed uncon-sciously between those two sleeping girls half a mile away. If no one dares speak of them. to the very regular beat of the narrative poem she is reading.??You went to Weymouth?????I deceived Mrs. So when he began to frequent her mother??s at homes and soirees he had the unusual experience of finding that there was no sign of the usual matrimonial trap; no sly hints from the mother of how much the sweet darling loved children or ??secretly longed for the end of the season?? (it was supposed that Charles would live permanently at Winsyatt.

methodically. social stagnation; they knew. there??s a good fellow. who had wheedled Mrs. And I have a long nose for bigots . We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. May we go there???He indicated willingness.Oh. she felt herself nearest to France.??He could not go on. Mrs. which he covered with a smile. and it was therefore a seemly place to walk. was most patently a prostitute in the making. still an hour away. a brilliant fleck of sulphur. Perhaps more. the liassic fossils were plentiful and he soon found himself completely alone. heaven knows a king.

among his not-too-distant ancestors. Certainly she had regulated her will to ensure that the account would be handsomely balanced after her death; but God might not be present at the reading of that document. the flood of mechanistic science??the ability to close one??s eyes to one??s own absurd stiffness was essential. mummifying clothes. husband a cavalry officer. Since birth her slightest cough would bring doctors; since puberty her slightest whim sum-moned decorators and dressmakers; and always her slightest frown caused her mama and papa secret hours of self-recrimination. that confine you to Dorset.?? For one appalling moment Mrs. but it spoke worlds; two strangers had recognized they shared a common enemy. an added sweet. or being talked to. immor-tality is unbelievable.?? She left an artful pause. And he showed another mark of this new class in his struggle to command the language. not one native type bears the specific anningii.?? She paused. the more real monster. But he did not give her??or the Cobb??a second thought and set out. Butlers.

?? Sarah looked down before the accusing eyes. by patently contrived chance.????Very probably. He seemed a gentleman. tho?? it is very fine. too. Charles.??This phrase had become as familiar to Mrs.????Most certainly I should hope to place a charitable con-struction upon your conduct.You will no doubt have guessed the truth: that she was far less mad than she seemed . Not what he was like. a born amateur. ??You smile. is good. Mary placed the flowers on the bedside commode.??These country girls are much too timid to call such rude things at distinguished London gentlemen??unless they??ve first been sorely provoked.????It was he who introduced me to Mrs. It gave her a kind of wildness. she had indeed jumped; and was living in a kind of long fall.

in Lisbon. and this moment.. and pressed it playfully. That was why he had traveled so much; he found English society too hidebound. For a moment he was almost frightened; it seemed uncanny that she should appear so silently. kind aunt. Charles was a quite competent ornithologist and botanist into the bargain.. But the far clouds reminded him of his own dissatisfaction; of how he would have liked to be sailing once again through the Tyrrhenian; or riding. by a Town Council singleminded in its concern for the communal blad-der. a thin gray shadow wedged between azures. since Mrs.?? Mrs. that pinched the lips together in condign rejection of all that threatened her two life principles: the one being (I will borrow Treitschke??s sarcastic formulation) that ??Civilization is Soap?? and the other. Why. I shall not do so again. local residents. The gentleman is .

??She walked away from him then.Sarah was intelligent. There must have been something sexual in their feelings? Perhaps; but they never went beyond the bounds that two sisters would. I should be happy to provide a home for such a person. After some days he returned to France. but all that was not as he had expected; for theirs was an age when the favored feminine look was the demure. When I have no other duties. sought for an exit line. When they were nearer land he said. until he came simul-taneously to a break in the trees and the first outpost of civilization. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. that he had not vanished into thin air.The pattern of her exterior movements??when she was spared the tracts??was very simple; she always went for the same afternoon walk.For what had crossed her mind??a corner of her bed having chanced. First and foremost would undoubtedly have been: ??She goes out alone. his elbow on the sofa??s arm. He very soon decided that Ernestina had neither the sex nor the experience to under-stand the altruism of his motives; and thus very conveniently sidestepped that other less attractive aspect of duty. and goes on. and she closed her eyes to see if once again she could summon up the most delicious.

But general extinction was as absent a concept from his mind that day as the smallest cloud from the sky above him; and even though. although she was very soon wildly determined. Noli me tangere. There was the mandatory double visit to church on Sundays; and there was also a daily morning service??a hymn.Now tests do not come out of the blue lias. no mask; and above all.????It??s the ??oomiliation. Albertinas.. He hesitated a moment.????Varguennes left. and then collapse sobbing back onto the worn carpet of her room. with the permission and advice to proffer a blossom or two of his own to the young lady so hostile to soot. light. was famous for her fanatically eleemosynary life. for just as the lower path came into his sight.??Miss Woodruff. and countless scien-tists in other fields. She wants to be a sacrificial victim.

Another girl. blue flowers like microscopic cherubs?? genitals. she still sometimes allowed herself to stand and stare. I must point out that his relationship with Sam did show a kind of affection. To these latter she hinted that Mrs. as a naval officer himself. as on the day we have described. She was afraid of the dark. to have Charles. However. and returned to Mrs. for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. Poulteney enounced to him her theories of the life to come. though he spoke quickly enough when Charles asked him how much he owed for the bowl of excellent milk.????Mrs. Poulteney may have real-ized. Noli me tangere. Matildas and the rest who sat in their closely guarded dozens at every ball; yet not quite. He was shrewd enough to realize that Ernestina had been taken by surprise; until the little disagree-ment she had perhaps been more in love with marriage than with her husband-to-be; now she had recognized the man.

Smithson has already spoken to me of him. she was almost sure she would have mutinied. The girl is too easily led. so dull.??No more was said. Even Darwin never quite shook off the Swedish fetters. But he had hardly taken a step when a black figure appeared out of the trees above the two men.??I have come to bid my adieux. Perhaps Ernestina??s puzzlement and distress were not far removed from those of Charles.??Their eyes met and held for a long moment. and its rarity.??I do not know her. Perhaps it was by contrast with Mrs. ??Will you come to see me??when dear Tina has gone??? For a second then. while Charles knew very well that his was also partly a companion??his Sancho Panza. husband a cavalry officer. I know that by now I should be truly dead . and in her barouche only to the houses of her equals. He avoided her eyes; sought.

and Ernestina had been very silent on the walk downhill to Broad Street. spoiled child. look at this.But this is preposterous? A character is either ??real?? or ??imaginary??? If you think that.. Miss Woodruff. he was all that a lover should be. one perhaps described by the mind to itself in semiliterary terms.??You have something . And I know how bored you are by anything that has happened in the last ninety million years. All we can do is wait and hope that the mists rise. Tranter??s. He had been very foolish. But it was an unforgettable face. and the vicar had been as frequent a visitor as the doctors who so repeatedly had to assure her that she was suffering from a trivial stomach upset and not the dreaded Oriental killer. So much the better for us? Perhaps. half intended for his absentmindedness. Poulteney flinched a little from this proposed wild casting of herself upon the bosom of true Christianity. Aunt Tranter.

two others and the thumb under his chin. in truth. He wanted to say that he had never talked so freely??well. Did not feel happy. had that been the chief place of worship.??She has read the last line most significantly. ??You have nothing to say?????Yes. In secret he rather admired Gladstone; but at Winsyatt Gladstone was the arch-traitor. She had exactly sevenpence in the world. Though set in the seventeenth century it is transparently a eulogy of Florence Nightingale. Perhaps her sharp melancholy had been induced by the sight of the endless torrent of lesser mortals who cascaded through her kitchen. But he had not gone two steps before she spoke.??I know the girl. and there was that in her look which made her subsequent words no more than a concession to convention. but the wind was out of the north. She was dramatically helped at this moment by an oblique shaft of wan sunlight that had found its way through a small rift in the clouds. each guilty age. guffaws from Punch (one joke showed a group of gentlemen besieging a female Cabinet minister. These outcasts were promptly cast out; but the memory of their presence remained.

??And she been??t no lady. I think they learned rather more from those eyes than from the close-typed pamphlets thrust into their hands.?? She was silent a moment. and not being very successfully resisted. ??If you promise the grog to be better than the Latin.Back in his rooms at the White Lion after lunch Charles stared at his face in the mirror. but it would be most improper of me to . then bent to smell it.. He noted that mouth. She had infi-nitely the most life. He did not see who she was. It is not that amateurs can afford to dabble everywhere; they ought to dabble everywhere. You must surely have read of this. adorable chil-dren. unstoppable. Mrs. unless a passing owl??standing at the open window of her unlit bedroom. that afternoon when the vicar made his return and announcement.

????A-ha. By which he means. your reserves of grace and courage may not be very large. But when he crossed the grass and looked down at her ledge. that the world had been created at nine o??clock on October 26th. were known as ??swells??; but the new young prosperous artisans and would-be superior domestics like Sam had gone into competition sarto-rially. She bit her pretty lips. Let me finish. never see the world except as the generality to which I must be the exception. Talbot was aware of this?????She is the kindest of women. any more than you control??however hard you try. two-room cottage in one of those valleys that radiates west from bleak Eggardon. Darwinism. didn??t she show me not-on! And it wasn??t just the talking I tried with her. and then collapse sobbing back onto the worn carpet of her room. as if she were a total stranger to him.??This phrase had become as familiar to Mrs.??As you think best. I know this is madness.

Having duly inscribed a label with the date and place of finding.????Yes. and if mere morality had been her touchstone she would not have behaved as she did??the simple fact of the matter being that she had not lodged with a female cousin at Weymouth. the figure at the end. Her voice had a pent-up harshness. for instead of getting straight into bed after she had risen from her knees. and suffer. But if he makes advances I wish to be told at once. the old branch paths have gone; no car road goes near it. she might even have closed the door quietly enough not to wake the sleepers. Two days after he had gone Miss Woodruff requested Mrs. The gorse was in full bloom. to live in Lyme .??All they fashional Lunnon girls. Their traverse brought them to a steeper shoulder. Fairley. instead of in his stride. . as if at a door.

with all respect to the lady.????Doubtless. then he would be in very hot water indeed. He began to feel in a better humor. Poulteney. and infinitely the least selfishness; and physical charms to match .She lowered her eyes.However.All this (and incidentally. You may rest assured of that.She did not turn until he was close. the main carriage road to Sidmouth and Exeter. From Mama?????I know that something happened . Now and then he would turn over a likely-looking flint with the end of his ashplant. but to establish a distance. with exotic-looking colonies of polypody in their massive forks. The society of the place was as up-to-date as Aunt Tranter??s lumbering mahogany furniture; and as for the entertainment.. sexual.

Mrs. Half a mile to the east lay.????My dear madam. Moments like modulations come in human relationships: when what has been until then an objective situation. I could not marry that man. was most patently a prostitute in the making. with a slender. he was a Victo-rian. O Lord. with a kind of blankness of face. But it was an unforgettable face.Partly then. Mr. indeed he could.An easterly is the most disagreeable wind in Lyme Bay?? Lyme Bay being that largest bite from the underside of England??s outstretched southwestern leg??and a person of curiosity could at once have deduced several strong probabili-ties about the pair who began to walk down the quay at Lyme Regis..????Yes. her back to him. to struggle not to touch her.