Page:Night and Day (1919).pdf/156

 “Is that one of the moderns whom you despise?” he asked, smiling at the carelessness of her gesture.

“Yes,” she replied. “I think even you would despise him.”

“Even I?” he repeated. “Why even I?”

“You said you liked modern things; I said I hated them.”

This was not a very accurate report of their conversation among the relics, perhaps, but Ralph was flattered to think that she remembered anything about it.

“Or did I confess that I hated all books?” she went on, seeing him look up with an air of inquiry. “I forget”

“Do you hate all books?” he asked.

“It would be absurd to say that I hate all books when I’ve only read ten, perhaps; but” Here she pulled herself up short.

“Well?”

“Yes, I do hate books,” she continued. “Why do you want to be for ever talking about your feelings? That’s what I can’t make out. And poetry’s all about feelings—novels are all about feelings.”

She cut a cake vigorously into slices, and providing a tray with bread and butter for Mrs. Hilbery, who was in her room with a cold, she rose to go upstairs.

Ralph held the door open for her, and then stood with clasped hands in the middle of the room. His eyes were bright, and, indeed, he scarcely knew whether they beheld dreams or realities. All down the street and on the doorstep, and while he mounted the stairs, his dream of Katharine possessed him; on the threshold of the room he had dismissed it, in order to prevent too painful a collision between what he dreamt of her and what she was. And in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of phantom eyes. He glanced about him with bewilderment