Transcribed from the 1915 Martin Secker edition , emailccx074@coventry.ac.uk
What determined the speech that startled him in the course of theirencounter scarcely matters, being probably but some words spoken byhimself quite without intention—spoken as they lingered and slowlymoved together after their renewal of acquaintance. He had beenconveyed by friends an hour or two before to the house at which shewas staying; the party of visitors at the other house, of whom he wasone, and thanks to whom it was his theory, as always, that he was lostin the crowd, had been invited over to luncheon. There had beenafter luncheon much dispersal, all in the interest of the original motive,a view of Weatherend itself and the fine things, intrinsic features,pictures, heirlooms, treasures of all the arts, that made the placealmost famous; and the great rooms were so numerous that guests couldwander at their will, hang back from the principal group and in caseswhere they took such matters with the last seriousness give themselvesup to mysterious appreciations and measurements. There were personsto be observed, singly or in couples, bending toward objects in out-of-the-waycorners with their hands on their knees and their heads nodding quiteas with the emphasis of an excited sense of smell. When they weretwo they either mingled their sounds of ecstasy or melted into silencesof even deeper import, so that there were aspects of the occasion thatgave it for Marcher much the air of the “look round,” previousto a sale highly advertised, that excites or quenches, as may be, thedream of acquisition. The dream of acquisition at Weatherend wouldhave had to be wild indeed, and John Marcher found himself, among suchsuggestions, disconcerted almost equally by the presence of those whoknew too much and by that of those who knew nothing. The greatrooms caused so much poetry and history to press upon him that he neededsome straying apart to feel in a proper relation with them, though thisimpulse was not, as happened, like the gloating of some of his companions,to be compared to the movements of a dog sniffing a cupboard. It had an issue promptly enough in a direction that was not to havebeen calculated.
It led, briefly, in the course of the October afternoon, to his closermeeting with May Bartram, whose face, a reminder, yet not quite a remembrance,as they sat much separated at a very long table, had begun merely bytroubling him rather pleasantly. It affected him as the sequelof something of which he had lost the beginning. He knew it, andfor the time quite welcomed it, as a continuation, but didn’tknow what it continued, which was an interest or an amusement the greateras he was also somehow aware—yet without a direct sign from her—thatthe young woman herself hadn’t lost the thread. She hadn’tlost it, but she wouldn’t give it back to him, he saw, withoutsome putting forth of his hand for it; and he not only saw that, butsaw several things more, things odd enough in the light of the factthat at the moment some accident of grouping brought them face to facehe was still merely fumbling with the idea that any contact betweenthem in the past would have had no importance. If it had had noimportance he scarcely knew why his actual impression of her shouldso seem to have so much; the answer to which, however, was that in sucha life as they all appeared to be leading for the moment one could buttake things as they came. He was satisfied, without in the leastbeing able to say why, that this young lady might roughly have rankedin the house as a poor relation; satisfied also that she was not thereon a brief visit, but was more or less a part of the establishment—almosta working, a remunerated part. Didn’t she enjoy at periodsa protectio