Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

31. CHAPTER XXXI (continued)

A long pause followed. Ralph began a sentence, which he canceled with the word, "Nothing." Suddenly, together, at the same moment, they said good-bye. And yet, if the telephone had been miraculously connected with some higher atmosphere pungent with the scent of thyme and the savor of salt, Katharine could hardly have breathed in a keener sense of exhilaration. She ran downstairs on the crest of it. She was amazed to find herself already committed by William and Cassandra to marry the owner of the halting voice she had just heard on the telephone. The tendency of her spirit seemed to be in an altogether different direction; and of a different nature. She had only to look at Cassandra to see what the love that results in an engagement and marriage means. She considered for a moment, and then said: "If you don't want to tell people yourselves, I'll do it for you. I know William has feelings about these matters that make it very difficult for him to do anything."

"Because he's fearfully sensitive about other people's feelings," said Cassandra. "The idea that he could upset Aunt Maggie or Uncle Trevor would make him ill for weeks."

This interpretation of what she was used to call William's conventionality was new to Katharine. And yet she felt it now to be the true one.

"Yes, you're right," she said.

"And then he worships beauty. He wants life to be beautiful in every part of it. Have you ever noticed how exquisitely he finishes everything? Look at the address on that envelope. Every letter is perfect."

Whether this applied also to the sentiments expressed in the letter, Katharine was not so sure; but when William's solicitude was spent upon Cassandra it not only failed to irritate her, as it had done when she was the object of it, but appeared, as Cassandra said, the fruit of his love of beauty.

"Yes," she said, "he loves beauty."

"I hope we shall have a great many children," said Cassandra. "He loves children."