WEBVTT

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Section twenty six. Since it was
a very hot night, and the paper

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boys went by with placards proclaiming in
huge red letters that there was a heat

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wave. Wicker chairs were placed on
the hotel steps, and there, sipping,

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smoking, detached gentlemen sat. Peter
Walsh sat there. One might fancy

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that day, the London day was
just beginning, Like a woman who had

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slipped off her print dress and white
apron to array herself in blue and pearls.

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The day changed, put off,
stuff took gauze, changed to an

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evening, and with the same sigh
of exhilaration that a woman breathes tumbling petticoats

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on the floor, it too shed
dust, heat color. The traffic thinned,

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motor cars tinkling darting succeeded the lumber
of vans, And here and there,

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among the thick foliage of the squares, an intense light hung. I

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resigned, the evening, seemed to
say, as it paled and faded above

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the battlements and prominences molded pointed of
her hotel, flat and block of shops.

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I fade. She was beginning I
disappear, But London would have none

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of it, and rushed her bayonets
into the sky, pinioned her, constrained

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her to partnership in her revelry,
for the great revolution of mister Willet's summer

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time had taken place since Peter Walsh's
last visit to England. The prolonged evening

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was new to him. It was
in spiriting rather, for as the young

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people went by with their dispatch boxes, awfully glad to be free, proud

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too, dumbly of stepping this famous
pavement, joy of a kind, cheap,

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tinsely if you like. But all
the same rapture flushed their faces.

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They dressed well too, pink stockings, pretty shoes. They would now have

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two hours at the pictures. It
sharpened, it refined them. The yellow

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blue evening light, and on the
leaves in the square shone lurid, livid.

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They looked as if dipped in sea
water, the foliage of a submerged

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city. He was astonished by.
The beauty was encouraging too, for where

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the returned Anglo Indians sat by rights, he knew crowds of them in the

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Oriental Club, biliously summing up the
ruin of the world. Here was he

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as young as ever, envying young
people their summer time and the rest of

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it, and more than suspecting from
the words of a girl, from a

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housemaid's laughter, intangible things you couldn't
lay your hands on, that shift in

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the whole pyramidal accumulation, which in
his youth had seemed immovable, on top

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of them, it had pressed,
weighed them down, the women, especially

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like those flowers Clarissa's aunt Helena,
used to press between sheets of gray blotting

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paper with a Lichray's Dictionary on top, sitting under the lamp after dinner.

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She was dead now he had heard
of her from Clarissa, losing the sight

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of one eye. It seemed so
fitting one of nature's masterpieces, that old

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miss Parry should turn to glass.
She would die like some bird in a

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frost, gripping her perch. She
belonged to a different age, but being

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so entire, so complete, would
always stand up on the horizon stone,

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white eminent, like a lighthouse,
marking some past stage. On this adventurous,

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long, long voyage, this interminable, he felt for a copper to

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buy a paper and read about Surrey
and Yorkshire. He had held out that

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copper millions of times. Surrey was
all out once more. This interminable life.

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But cricket was no mere game.
Cricket was important. He could never

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help reading about cricket. He read
the scores in the stop press. First,

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then how it was a hot day, Then about a murder case.

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Having done things millions of times enriched
them, though it might be said to

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take the surface off the past,
enriched and experience, and having cared for

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one or two people, and so
having acquired the power which the young lack

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of cutting short, doing what one
likes, not caring a rap what people

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say, and coming and going without
any very great expectations. He left his

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paper on the table and moved off, which, however, and he looked

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for his hat and coat, was
not altogether true of him, not tonight,

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for here he was starting to go
to a party at his age,

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with the belief upon him that he
was about to have an experience. But

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what beauty, anyhow, not the
crude beauty of the eye. It was

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not beauty, pure and simple Bedford
Place leading into Russell Square. It was

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straightness and emptiness, of course,
the symmetry of a corridor. But it

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was also windows lit up, a
piano, a gramophone, sounding a sense

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of pleasure, making hidden but now
and again emerging when through the uncurtained window,

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the window left open, one saw
parties sitting over tables, young people

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slowly circling, conversations between men and
women, maids idly looking out a strange

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comment theirs when work was done,
stockings drying on top ledges, a parrot,

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a few plants, absorbing, mysterious
of infinite richness this life. And

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in the large square were the cabs
shot and swerved so quick there were loitering

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couples dallying, embracing, shrunk up
under the shower of a tree that was

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moving, so silent, so absorbed, that one passed discreetly, timidly,

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as if in the presence of some
sacred ceremony to interrupt, which would have

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been impious, That was interesting,
and so on into the flare and glare.

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His light overcoat blew open. He
stepped with indescribable idiosyncrasy, leant a

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little forward, tripped with his hands
behind his back and his eyes still a

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little hawklike. He tripped through London
towards Westminster, observing was everybody dining out?

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Then doors were being opened here by
a footman to let issue A high

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stepping old dame in buckle shoes with
three purple ostrich feathers in her hair.

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Doors were being opened for ladies wrapped
like mummies, in shawls with bright flowers

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on them, Ladies with bare heads
and in respectable quarters with stucco pillars,

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through small front gardens, lightly swathed
with combs in their hair. Having run

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up to see the children, women
came. Men waited for them with their

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coats blowing open, and the motor
started. Everybody was going out. What

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with these doors being opened, and
the descent and the start, it seemed

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as if the whole of London were
embarking in little boats moored to the bank,

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tossing on the waters, as if
the whole place were floating off in

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carnival. And Whitehall was skated over, silver beaten as it was skated over

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by spiders, and there was a
sense of midges round the arc lamps.

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It was so hot that people stood
about talking. And here in Westminster was

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a retired judge presumably sitting four square
at his house door, dressed all in

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white, an Anglo Indian presumably.
And here a shindy of brawling women,

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drunken women. Here only a policeman
and looming houses high houses, domed houses,

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churches, parliaments, and the hoot
of a steamer on the river,

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a hollow, misty cry. But
it was her street. This Clarissa's cabs

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were rushing round the corner, like
water round the piers of a bridge,

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drawn together, It seemed to him
because they bore people going to her party,

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Clarissa's party. The cold stream of
visual impressions failed him now, as

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if the eye were a cup that
overflowed and let the rest run down its

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china walls unrecorded. The brain must
wake now, the body must contract.

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Now, entering the house, the
lighted house, where the door stood open,

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where the motor cars were standing,
and bright women descending, the soul

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must brave itself to endure. He
opened the big blade of his pocket knife.

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Lucy came running full tilt downstairs,
having just nipped into the drawing room

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to smooth a cover, to straighten
a chair, to pause a moment and

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feel. Whoever came in must think
how clean, how bright, how beautifully

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cared for. When they saw the
beautiful silver, the brass fire irons,

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the new chair covers, and the
curtains of yellow chintz. She appraised,

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each heard a roar of voices,
people already coming up from dinner. She

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must fly. The Prime minister was
coming, Agnes said, so, she

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had heard them say in the dining
room, she said, coming in with

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a tray of glasses. Did it
matter? Did it matter in the least

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one prime minister more or less?
It made no difference at this hour of

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the night to missus Walker. Among
the plates, saucepans, colanders, frying

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pounds, chicken in aspic ice cream
freezers, pared crusts of bread, lemons,

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soup tureens, and pudding basins,
which, however hard, they washed

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up in the sculleries, seemed to
be all on top of her on the

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kitchen table, on chairs, while
the fire blared and roared, the electric

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lights glared, and still supper had
to be laid. All she felt was

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one prime minister more or less made
not a scrap of difference to missus Walker.

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The ladies were going upstairs already,
said Lucy. The ladies were going

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up one by one, Missus Dollaway
walking last, and almost always sending back

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some message to the kitchen, My
love to missus Walker. That was it.

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One night. Next morning they would
go over the dishes, the soup.

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The salmon. The salmon Missus Walker
knew as usual underdone, for she

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always got nervous about the pudding and
left it to Jenny. So it happened

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the salmon was always underdone. But
some lady with fair hair and silver ornaments

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had said, Lucy said about the
entree, was it really made at home?

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But it was the salmon that bothered
missus Walker as she spun the plates

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round and round, and pulled in
dampers and pulled out dampers. And there

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came a burst of laughter from the
dining room, a voice speaking, then

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another burst of laughter, the gentlemen
enjoying themselves. When the ladies had gone,

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the toukay, said Lucy, running
in. Mister Dollaway had sent for

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the touquet from the Emperor Sellar's,
the Imperial Touquay. It was borne through

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the kitchen over her shoulder. Lucy
reported how Miss Elizabeth looked quite lovely.

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She couldn't take her eyes off her
in her pink dress, wearing the necklace

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mister Dollaway had given her. Jenny
must remember the dog, Miss Elizabeth's fox

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terrier, which, since it bit, had to be shut up, and

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might Elizabeth thought wants something. Jenny
must remember the dog. But Jenny was

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not going upstairs with all those people
about. There was a motor at the

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door. Already, there was a
ring at the bell, and the gentlemen

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still in the dining room drinking toquay. There they were going upstairs. That

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was the first to come. And
now they would come faster and faster,

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so that Missus Parkinson, hired for
parties, would leave the hall door ajar,

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and the hall would be full of
gentlemen waiting. They stood waiting,

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sleeking down their hair, while the
ladies took their cloaks off in the room

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along the passage where Missus Barnett helped
them. Old Ellen Barnett, who had

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been with the family forty years and
came every summer to help the ladies,

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and remembered mothers when they were girls, And though very unassuming, did shake

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hands, said milady very respectfully,
yet had a humorous way with her looking

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at the young ladies, and ever
so tactfully helping Lady Lovejoy, who had

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some trouble with her underbodice. And
they could not help feeling Lady Lovejoy and

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miss Alice that some little privilege in
the matter of brush and comb was awarded

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them. Having known Missus Barnett thirty
years, m Lady Missus Barnett supplied her

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young ladies did not use to rouge, said Lady Lovejoy when they stayed at

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Burton in the old days. And
miss Alice didn't need rouge, said Missus

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Barnet, looking at her fondly.
There Missus Barnett would sit in the cloak

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room, patting down the firs,
smoothing out the Spanish shawls, tidying the

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dressing table, and knowing perfectly well
in spite of the furs and embroideries,

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which were nice, ladies which were
not the dear old body, said Lady

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Lovejoy, mounting the stairs Clarissa's old
nurse, and then Lady Lovejoy stiffened.

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Lady and miss Lovejoy. She said
to mister Wilkins, hired for parties.

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He had an admirable manner as he
bent and straightened himself, bent and straightened

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himself, and announced with perfect impartiality, Lady and miss Lovejoy, Sir John,

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and Lady Needham, Miss Weld,
Mister Walsh, his manner was admirable.

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His family life must be irreproachable,
except that it seemed impossible that a

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being with greenish lips and shaven cheeks
could ever have blundered into the nuisance of

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children. How delightful to see you, said Clarissa. She said it to

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everyone, how delightful to see you. She was at her worst, effusive,

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insincere. It was a great mistake
to have come. He should have

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stayed at home and read his book, thought Peter Walsh. Should have gone

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to a music hall. He should
have stayed at home, for he knew

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no one. Oh dear, it
was going to be a failure, a

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complete failure. Clarissa felt it in
her bones. As dear old Lord Lexham

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stood there apologizing for his wife,
who had caught cold at the Buckingham Palace

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garden party. She could see Peter
out of the tail of her eye,

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criticizing her there in that corner.
Why, after all did she do these

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things? Why seek pinnacles and stand
drenched in fire? Might it consume her

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anyhow? Burn her to cinders?
Better? Anything better? Brandish one's torch

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and hurl it to earth, and
taper and dwindle away like some Ellie Henderson.

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It was extraordinary how Peter put her
into these states just by coming and

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standing in a corner. He made
her see herself exaggerate. It was idiotic.

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But why did he come then merely
to criticize? Why always take?

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Never give? Why not? Risk's
one little point of view? There He

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was wandering off and she must speak
to him, but she would not get

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the chance. Life was that humiliation
renunciation? What Lord Lexham was saying was

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that his wife would not wear her
furs at the garden party, because my

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dear you ladies are all alike,
Lady Lexam, being seventy five, at

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least it was delicious how they petted
each other, that old couple. She

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did like old Lord Lexam. She
did think it mattered her party, and

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it made her feel quite sick to
know that it was all going wrong,

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all falling flat. Anything, any
explosion, any horror was better than people

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wandering aimlessly, standing in a bunch
at a corner like Ellie Henderson, not

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even caring to hold themselves upright.
End of section twenty six, read by

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Hannah Dormer, London, twenty fourth
of October twenty twenty one