Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

32. CHAPTER XXXII (continued)

"Now, Katharine," he said, taking up his stand in front of the fire, "you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain--" She remained silent. "What inferences do you expect me to draw?" he said sharply. . . . "You tell me that you are not engaged to Rodney; I see you on what appear to be extremely intimate terms with another--with Ralph Denham. What am I to conclude? Are you," he added, as she still said nothing, "engaged to Ralph Denham?"

"No," she replied.

His sense of relief was great; he had been certain that her answer would have confirmed his suspicions, but that anxiety being set at rest, he was the more conscious of annoyance with her for her behavior.

"Then all I can say is that you've very strange ideas of the proper way to behave. . . . People have drawn certain conclusions, nor am I surprised. . . . The more I think of it the more inexplicable I find it," he went on, his anger rising as he spoke. "Why am I left in ignorance of what is going on in my own house? Why am I left to hear of these events for the first time from my sister? Most disagreeable-- most upsetting. How I'm to explain to your Uncle Francis--but I wash my hands of it. Cassandra goes tomorrow. I forbid Rodney the house. As for the other young man, the sooner he makes himself scarce the better. After placing the most implicit trust in you, Katharine--" He broke off, disquieted by the ominous silence with which his words were received, and looked at his daughter with the curious doubt as to her state of mind which he had felt before, for the first time, this evening. He perceived once more that she was not attending to what he said, but was listening, and for a moment he, too, listened for sounds outside the room. His certainty that there was some understanding between Denham and Katharine returned, but with a most unpleasant suspicion that there was something illicit about it, as the whole position between the young people seemed to him gravely illicit.

"I'll speak to Denham," he said, on the impulse of his suspicion, moving as if to go.

"I shall come with you," Katharine said instantly, starting forward.