When Catherine read this she laughed outright. The absurdity, the sublime ridiculousness of the thing tickled her. She knew now beyond all doubt that it was George Trant. For this note had “George Trant” written all over it. Only he could have devised something so inanely clever and at the same time so incredibly stupid.
The fact of its being posted only three hours after their interview of the evening before was enough to convince her. He must have gone home direct, written it (he had a typewriter at home, she knew), and gone up to London, W., immediately to catch the eleven o’clock post. She pondered on his choice of London, W. Probably he thought a London postmark would be least likely to give a clue. E.C., the most common, would suggest Leadenhall Street, so he chose W. That, probably, was his line of argument.
It was not a bad joke, she agreed. Yet if he acted upon it she could conceive herself getting angry....
§ 5
Her opinion of George went up somewhat after the receipt of this letter. She was immensely struck by its absurdity, yet she had to admit that in addition to being a joke it was quite a clever joke. For several weeks she did not mention the affair, and he too avoided all reference to it. Then she began again to be annoyed at his silence. Besides, she was immensely curious to know what his attitude would be. The full flavour of the joke had yet to be tasted.
An incident—trivial in itself—lowered her opinion of him incalculably.
She had gone for her usual weekly lesson from Verreker. It was springtime, and “Claremont” was being painted, both inside and out. The music-room in which she took her lessons was crowded with furniture from other rooms, and for the first time she saw the evidences of Verreker’s labours apart from the world of music. Large book-cases had been dumped anyhow against the walls, and tables littered with papers filled up the usually spacious centre of the room. The piano had been pulled into a corner. She had several minutes to wait, and spent the time perusing the titles on his bookshelves. There was a fairly large collection of modern novels, including most of the works of Wells, Bennett, Conrad, Hardy, Chesterton and others; complete sets of the works of Shaw and Ibsen, most of the plays of Galsworthy, Granville Barker and Henry Arthur Jones; and some hundreds of miscellaneous French novels. A complete bookcase was occupied by works on economics and economic history—she read the names of Cunningham, Ashley, Maitland, Vinogradoff, Seebohm and Money. Then there was a shelf entirely devoted to Government Blue-Book publications, Reports of Commissions, quarterly and monthly reviews, loose-leaf binders full to bursting with documents, and such like. It was a very impressive array. She was conscious of her own extreme ignorance. Scarcely anything that was here had she read. She was not particularly fond of reading....
On the table near his desk she saw a yellow-backed copy of Ibsen’s Ghosts....
One result of their frequent bickering was that their conversation had acquired a good deal of familiarity....
“Rather a muddle,” he commented, as she was preparing to go after the lesson. He waved a hand comprehensively round the room.