ttempting blackmail. It is scarcely a pretty weapon
for a wife to use against her husband. My rule through life has been
never to pay the least attention to threats, and I can only repeat
what I said before: I do not give you and your sister leave to sleep at
Howards End."

Margaret loosed his hands. He went into the house, wiping first one and
then the other on his handkerchief. For a little she stood looking at
the Six Hills, tombs of warriors, breasts of the spring. Then she passed
out into what was now the evening.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Charles and Tibby met at Ducie Street, where the latter was staying.
Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the
English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them
understood. Charles saw in Helen the family foe. He had singled her out
as the most dangerous of the Schlegels, and, angry as he was, looked
forward to telling his wife how right he had been. His mind was made up
at once; the girl must be got out of the way before she disgraced them
farther. If occasion offered she might be married to a villain, or,
possibly, to a fool. But this was a concession to morality, it formed
no part of his main scheme. Honest and hearty was Charles's dislike, and
the past spread itself out very clearly before him; hatred is a skilful
compositor. As if they were heads in a note-book, he ran through all
the incidents of the Schlegels' campaign: the attempt to compromise his
brother, his mother's legacy, his father's marriage, the introduction
of the furniture, the unpacking of the same. He had not yet heard of the
request to sleep at Howards End; that was to be their master-stroke and
the opportunity for his. But he already felt that Howards End was the
objective, and, though he disliked the house, was determined to defend
it.

Tibby, on the other hand, had no opinions. He stood above the
conventions: his sister had a right to do what she thought right. It is
not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages
among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a
bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.
Unlike Charles, Tibby had money enough; his ancestors had earned it for
him, and if he shocked the people in one set of lodgings he had only to
move into another. His was the leisure without sympathy--an attitude as
fatal as the strenuous; a little cold culture may be raised on it, but
n