“Precisely! What do we know of this girl?”
“I am not going to discuss that,” Hilary said shortly.
For a moment the faces of the two brothers wore a hard, hostile look, as though the deep difference between their characters had at last got the better of their loyalty. They both seemed to recognise this, for they turned their heads away.
“I just wanted to remind you,” Stephen said, “though you know your own business best, of course.” And at Hilary's nod he thought:
'That's just exactly what he doesn't!'
He soon left, conscious of an unwonted awkwardness in his brother's presence. Hilary watched him out through the wicket gate, then sat down on the solitary garden bench.
Stephen's visit had merely awakened perverse desires in him. Strong sunlight was falling on that little London garden, disclosing its native shadowiness; streaks, and smudges such as Life smears over the faces of those who live too consciously. Hilary, beneath the acacia-tree not yet in bloom, marked an early butterfly flitting over the geraniums blossoming round an old sundial. Blackbirds were holding evensong; the late perfume of the lilac came stealing forth into air faintly smeeched with chimney smoke. There was brightness, but no glory, in that little garden; scent, but no strong air blown across golden lakes of buttercups, from seas of springing clover, or the wind-silver of young wheat; music, but no full choir of sound, no hum. Like the face and figure of its master, so was this little garden, whose sundial the sun seldom reached-refined, self-conscious, introspective, obviously a creature of the town. At that moment, however, Hilary was not looking quite himself; his face was flushed, his eyes angry, almost as if he had been a man of action.
The voice of Mr. Stone was still audible, fitfully quavering out into the air, and the old man himself could now and then be seen holding up his manuscript, his profile clear-cut against the darkness of the room. A sentence travelled out across the garden:
“'Amidst the tur-bu-lent dis-cov-eries of those days, which, like cross-currented and multibillowed seas, lapped and hollowed every rock '”
A motor-car dashing past drowned the rest, and when the voice rose again it was evidently dictating another paragraph.