e space of ten years or so; and his own condition urgently
required soothing and renovating at the hands of the classics. His house
was in a state of revolution; he had a vision of unpleasant encounters
on the staircase; his meals would be poisoned for days to come; was
literature itself a specific against such disagreeables? A note of
hollowness was in his voice as he read.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Considering that Mr. Hilbery lived in a house which was accurately
numbered in order with its fellows, and that he filled up forms, paid
rent, and had seven more years of tenancy to run, he had an excuse for
laying down laws for the conduct of those who lived in his house, and
this excuse, though profoundly inadequate, he found useful during the
interregnum of civilization with which he now found himself faced. In
obedience to those laws, Rodney disappeared; Cassandra was dispatched to
catch the eleven-thirty on Monday morning; Denham was seen no more; so
that only Katharine, the lawful occupant of the upper rooms, remained,
and Mr. Hilbery thought himself competent to see that she did nothing
further to compromise herself. As he bade her good morning next day
he was aware that he knew nothing of what she was thinking, but, as
he reflected with some bitterness, even this was an advance upon the
ignorance of the previous mornings. He went to his study, wrote, tore
up, and wrote again a letter to his wife, asking her to come back on
account of domestic difficulties which he specified at first, but in a
later draft more discreetly left unspecified. Even if she started the
very moment that she got it, he reflected, she would not be home till
Tuesday night, and he counted lugubriously the number of hours that he
would have to spend in a position of detestable authority alone with his
daughter.

What was she doing now, he wondered, as he addressed the envelope to his
wife. He could not control the telephone. He could not play the spy.
She might be making any arrangements she chose. Yet the thought did not
disturb him so much as the strange, unpleasant, illicit atmosphere of
the whole scene with the young people the night before. His sense of
discomfort was almost physical.

Had he known it, Katharine was far enough withdrawn, both physically
and spiritually, from the telephone. She sat in her room with the
dictionaries spreading their wide leaves on the table before her, and
all the pages which they had concealed for so many years