ceased moving. His daughter was no longer sobbing. Suddenly her lips
seared his forehead.

Trembling from that desperate caress, he raised his fingers to the spot
and looked round.

She was gone.

CHAPTER XXXIII

HILARY DEALS WITH THE SITUATION

To understand the conduct of Hilary and Bianca at what "Westminister"
would have called this "crisax," not only their feelings as sentient
human beings, but their matrimonial philosophy, must be taken into
account. By education and environment they belonged to a section of
society which had "in those days" abandoned the more old-fashioned views
of marriage. Such as composed this section, finding themselves in
opposition, not only to the orthodox proprietary creed, but even to their
own legal rights, had been driven to an attitude of almost blatant
freedom. Like all folk in opposition, they were bound, as a simple
matter of principle, to disagree with those in power, to view with a
contemptuous resentment that majority which said, "I believe the thing is
mine, and mine it shall remain"--a majority which by force of numbers
made this creed the law. Unable legally to, be other than the
proprietors of wife or husband, as the case might be, they were obliged,
even in the most happy unions, to be very careful not to become disgusted
with their own position. Their legal status was, as it were, a goad,
spurring them on to show their horror of it. They were like children sent
to school with trousers that barely reached their knees, aware that they
could neither reduce their stature to the proportions of their breeches
nor make their breeches grow. They were furnishing an instance of that
immemorial "change of form to form" to which Mr. Stone had given the name
of Life. In a past age thinkers and dreamers and "artistic pigs"
rejecting the forms they found, had given unconscious shape to this
marriage law, which, after they had become the wind, had formed itself
out of their exiled pictures and thoughts and dreams. And now this
particular law in turn was the dried rind, devoid of pips or speculation;
and the thinkers and dreamers and "artistic pigs" were again rejecting
it, and again themselves in exile.

This exiled faith, this honour amongst thieves, animated a little
conversation between Hilary and Bianca on the Tuesday following the night
when Mr. Stone sat on his bed to watch the rising moon.

Quietly Bianca said: "I think I shall be going away for a time."