“Nothing.”
“I should like to see the picture you have formed of the man for whom you would care. I do not remember”—speaking slowly and dreamily—“ever to have seen a woman who would frame a loftier ideal.”
He unconsciously came nearer to her; his arm moved into hers, and she did not resist.
“What is the use of painting pictures when reality is unattainable?”
“Unattainable! Yes, just what I imagined: you paint something unattainable to ordinary mortality. It is strange that most men and women, even those who more or less in all they do strive after perfection, seem to be satisfied with so little when it comes to love and marriage. The same sculptor, who unweariedly refines day after day to put in marble the image which haunts him, forms no such image of a woman whom he seeks unceasingly, or, if he does, he descends on one of the first twenty he meets and thinks he adores her. There is some strong thwarting power which prevents his search after the best, and it is as if nature had said that we should not pick and choose. But the consequences are tremendous. I honour you for your aspirations.”
“You give me credit for a strength I do not possess, Mr. Cardew. I said ‘unattainable.’ That was all. I did not say how.”
They had come to a gate which led out of the field into the road, and they paused there. They leaned against the gate, and Mr. Cardew, although his arm was withdrawn from Catharine’s, had placed it upon the top rail so that she felt it. The pressure would not have moved an ounce weight; there were half a dozen thicknesses of wool and linen between the arm and her shoulder, but the encircling touch sent a quiver through every nerve in her and shook her like electricity. She stood gazing on the ground, digging up the blades of grass with her foot.
“Do you mean,” said Mr. Cardew, “that you have ever seen him, and that—”
The pressure behind her was a little more obvious; he bent his head nearer to hers, looked in her face, and she leaned back on the arm heavily. Suddenly, without a word, she put both her hands to her head, pushed aside her hair, and stood upright as a spear.
“Good-bye,” she said, with her eyes straight on his. Another second and she had passed through the gate, and was walking fast along the road homewards alone. She heard behind her the sound of wheels, and an open carriage overtook her. It was Dr. Turnbull’s, and of course he stopped.