icle--that his impression put straight into
his mind. He would write about the heavy horrors that could still
flourish, that lifted their undiminished heads, in an age so proud of
its short way with false gods; and it would be funny if what he should
have got from Mrs. Lowder were to prove, after all, but a small amount
of copy. Yet the great thing, really the dark thing, was that, even
while he thought of the quick column he might add up, he felt it less
easy to laugh at the heavy horrors than to quail before them. He
couldn't describe and dismiss them collectively, call them either
Mid-Victorian or Early; not being at all sure they were rangeable under
one rubric. It was only manifest they were splendid and were
furthermore conclusively British. They constituted an order and they
abounded in rare material--precious woods, metals, stuffs, stones. He
had never dreamed of anything so fringed and scalloped, so buttoned and
corded, drawn everywhere so tight, and curled everywhere so thick. He
had never dreamed of so much gilt and glass, so much satin and plush,
so much rosewood and marble and malachite. But it was, above all, the
solid forms, the wasted finish, the misguided cost, the general
attestation of morality and money, a good conscience and a big balance.
These things finally represented for him a portentous negation of his
own world of thought--of which, for that matter, in the presence of
them, he became as for the first time hopelessly aware. They revealed
it to him by their merciless difference. His interview with Aunt Maud,
none the less, took by no means the turn he had expected. Passionate
though her nature, no doubt Mrs. Lowder, on this occasion, neither
threatened nor appealed. Her arms of aggression, her weapons of
defence, were presumably close at hand, but she left them untouched and
unmentioned, and was in fact so bland that he properly perceived only
afterwards how adroit she had been. He properly perceived something
else as well, which complicated his case; he shouldn't have known what
to call it if he hadn't called it her really imprudent good-nature. Her
blandness, in other words, was not mere policy--he wasn't dangerous
enough for policy; it was the result, he could see, of her fairly
liking him a little. From the moment she did that she herself became
more interesting; and who knew what might happen should he take to
liking _her?_ Well, it was a risk he naturally must face. She fought
him, at any