“Henry,” she said, “I wonder whether—”
“Right, mother,” he called back to her. “I must—” the rest of his sentence was swallowed by distance. She turned and looked after him, then walked through the long passages to her room. She entered it, closed the door, and stood by her dressing-room staring in front of her. There was complete, intense silence here, and all the things lay about the room, as though waiting for her to address them.
“George, Millie, Henry, Katherine ... Millie didn’t want to go ... Katherine....”
On her table was a list of articles, the week’s washing—her own list.
Handkerchiefs—12.
Stockings—8 pairs.
She looked at it without seeing it, then with a sudden, vindictive, passionate movement tore it in half, and then those halves into smaller pieces, tore the smaller pieces into little shreds of paper that fluttered in the air and then fell on to the floor at her feet.
CHAPTER III
LIFE AND HENRY
Philip was entirely happy during the first days of his engagement—so happy that he assured himself that he had never before known what happiness was. When, however, this glorious state had continued for four or five weeks he was aware that that most sensitive and unreliable of his spiritual possessions, his conscience, was being attacked. He was aware that there was something that he ought to do, something that he did not want to do—he was aware that he must tell Katherine about Anna and his life with her. Now when he had said to Mr. Trenchard that his life was free of all complications and that there was nothing in it that need be hidden from the world, he was, quite honestly, convinced that that was so. His life with Anna was entirely at an end: he had done her no wrong, she owed him no grudge, he did not know that he had ever taken any especial pains in Moscow to hide his relations with her, and he did not believe that anyone there thought the worse of him for them. He had come to England with that chapter closed, eager to begin another. His only thought of Anna when he had proposed to Katherine was that this was exactly what she had intended him to do—that she would be pleased if she knew. His conscience was always at rest when he thought that everyone liked him....