Virginia Woolf: Night and Day

26. CHAPTER XXVI (continued)

"I lost my temper, Katharine; I shouldn't have said what I did."

"The whole thing's foolish," said Katharine, peremptorily. "That's what I say. It's not worth it." She spoke with unnecessary vehemence, but it was not directed against Mary Datchet. Their animosity had completely disappeared, and upon both of them a cloud of difficulty and darkness rested, obscuring the future, in which they had both to find a way.

"No, no, it's not worth it," Katharine repeated. "Suppose, as you say, it's out of the question--this friendship; he falls in love with me. I don't want that. Still," she added, "I believe you exaggerate; love's not everything; marriage itself is only one of the things--" They had reached the main thoroughfare, and stood looking at the omnibuses and passers-by, who seemed, for the moment, to illustrate what Katharine had said of the diversity of human interests. For both of them it had become one of those moments of extreme detachment, when it seems unnecessary ever again to shoulder the burden of happiness and self-assertive existence. Their neighbors were welcome to their possessions.

"I don't lay down any rules,"' said Mary, recovering herself first, as they turned after a long pause of this description. "All I say is that you should know what you're about--for certain; but," she added, "I expect you do."

At the same time she was profoundly perplexed, not only by what she knew of the arrangements for Katharine's marriage, but by the impression which she had of her, there on her arm, dark and inscrutable.

They walked back again and reached the steps which led up to Mary's flat. Here they stopped and paused for a moment, saying nothing.

"You must go in," said Katharine, rousing herself. "He's waiting all this time to go on with his reading." She glanced up at the lighted window near the top of the house, and they both looked at it and waited for a moment. A flight of semicircular steps ran up to the hall, and Mary slowly mounted the first two or three, and paused, looking down upon Katharine.