He did not speak again. In complete silence they retraced their steps
and at the gate of Nelson Lodge he left her. In the little high-walled
garden she stood still. This had been a wonderful experience. She felt
uplifted, better than herself, yet she could not resist speculating on
her probable feelings if another than Charles Batty, if, for instance,
Francis Sales, had poured that rhapsody into the night.
Book III: Rose and Henrietta
1
Early one October afternoon, Rose Mallett rode to Sales Hall. She went
through a world of brown and gold and blue, but she was hardly
conscious of beauty, and the air, which was soft, yet keen, and
exciting to her horse, had no inspiriting effect on her. She felt old,
incased in a sort of mental weariness which was like armour against
emotion. She knew that the spirit of the country, at once gentle and
wild, furtive and bold, was trying to reach her in every scent and
sound: in the smell of earth, of fruit, of burning wood; in the noise
of her horse's feet as he cantered on the grassy side of the road, in
the fall of a leaf, the call of a bird or a human voice become
significant in distance; but she remained unmoved.
This was, she thought, like being dead yet conscious of all that
happened, but the dead have the excuse of death and she had none; she
was merely tired of her mode of life. It seemed to her that in her
thirty-one years the sum of her achievement was looking beautiful and
being loved by Francis Sales: she put it in that way, but immediately
corrected herself unwillingly.
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