ans," Rodney interposed. "I quite agree
that women have an immense advantage over us there. One misses a lot by
attempting to know things thoroughly."

"He knows Greek thoroughly," said Katharine. "But then he also knows a
good deal about painting, and a certain amount about music. He's very
cultivated--perhaps the most cultivated person I know."

"And poetry," Cassandra added.

"Yes, I was forgetting his play," Katharine remarked, and turning her
head as though she saw something that needed her attention in a far
corner of the room, she left them.

For a moment they stood silent, after what seemed a deliberate
introduction to each other, and Cassandra watched her crossing the room.

"Henry," she said next moment, "would say that a stage ought to be no
bigger than this drawing-room. He wants there to be singing and dancing
as well as acting--only all the opposite of Wagner--you understand?"

They sat down, and Katharine, turning when she reached the window, saw
William with his hand raised in gesticulation and his mouth open, as if
ready to speak the moment Cassandra ceased.

Katharine's duty, whether it was to pull a curtain or move a chair, was
either forgotten or discharged, but she continued to stand by the window
without doing anything. The elderly people were all grouped together
round the fire. They seemed an independent, middle-aged community busy
with its own concerns. They were telling stories very well and listening
to them very graciously. But for her there was no obvious employment.

"If anybody says anything, I shall say that I'm looking at the river,"
she thought, for in her slavery to her family traditions, she was ready
to pay for her transgression with some plausible falsehood. She pushed
aside the blind and looked at the river. But it was a dark night and the
water was barely visible. Cabs were passing, and couples were loitering
slowly along the road, keeping as close to the railings as possible,
though the trees had as yet no leaves to cast shadow upon their
embraces. Katharine, thus withdrawn, felt her loneliness. The evening
had been one of pain, offering her, minute after minute, plainer proof
that things would fall out as she had foreseen. She had faced tones,
gestures, glances; she knew, with her back to them, that William, even
now, was plunging deeper and deeper into the delight of unexpected
understanding with Cassandra. He had almost told her that he was finding
it infinitely better