Over the Hills and Far Away 



" Don't you believe a word of it. It's no good. 

 There's no money in it. Higher education's the 

 thing." 



She is the unwomanly woman, who crops up, 

 as here, in such unexpected places : a Newnhamite, 

 a Fabian, a lady-actuary : she looks for tendencies 

 rather than deeds, even in herself : with the appal- 

 ling result that she invariably judges and condemns 

 the deeds of others. To her the cult of gardens is 

 sentimental and old-fashioned, like Mozart's music 

 and the Florentine pictures : and she has those 

 safely advanced professions which are never likely 

 to be called into practice. She has a reputation, 

 and her chief safeguard lies in hammering into 

 Jane — who believes anything, if it is said often 

 enough — that I and people like me who feed on 

 the colour and charm and vividness of life, are 

 out of date, which is much worse than being 

 immoral. 



I regard Elisabeth as dangerous to Jane : Elisa- 

 beth regards my influence on Jane as dangerous to 

 herself : and, as for Jane — no one will ever know 

 what she thinks of either of us. 



There's a queer little drama to have cropped 

 up in a digression ! 



Having set out upon it, we must go the longest 

 way round — we three and the dogs — and if Elisa- 



107 



