'I only say it because you ask me to, sweet-and-twenty. In truth I feel very comfortable, but I shall be far more sure of remaining so at Eastbourne than at the Pilkingtons'.'
'Eastbourne, you think?'
'Nay, as you please, Bell.'
'Yes, Eastbourne again.' She came to her father and took his hands. 'I'm tired, tired, tired of it all, dear; tired and weary unutterably! If ever we come to London again, let us tell nobody, and take quiet rooms in some shabby quarter, and go to the National Gallery, and to the marbles at the Museum, and all places where we are sure of never meeting a soul who belongs to the fashionable world. If we go to a concert, we'll sit in the gallery, among people who come because they really want to hear music—'
'Eheu! The stairs are portentous, Bell!'
'Never mind the stairs! Nay then, we won't go to public concerts at all, but I will play for you and myself, beginning when we like, and leaving off when we like, and using imagination—thank goodness, we both have some!—to make up for the defects. We'll go back to our books—oh! you have never left them; but I, poor sinner that I am—! Give me my Dante, and let me feel him between my hands! Where is Virgil?
Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge litus avarum.
Is it quoted right? Is it apropos?'
'Savonarola's word of fate.'
'Then mine too! How have you been so patient with me? A London season—and I still have Homer to read! Still have Sophocles for an unknown land! My father, I have gone far, very far, astray, and you did not so much as rebuke me.'