Stella herself looked like the white flower of some teeming hot-house, for a change had come over her that seemed terribly symbolical. Never did anyone look so pale. And yet unexpected as it might seem, but still was most natural, the first impulse to set us free came from your grandfather; it came and went again. On a walk perhaps he would suddenly brush aside all our curiously conventional relationships, and show us for a minute an inspiriting vision of free life, bathed in an impersonal light. There were numbers of things to be learnt, books to be read, and success and happiness were to be attained there without disloyalty. Indeed it seemed possible at these moments, to continue the old life but in a more significant way, using as he told us, our sorrow to quicken the feeling that remained. But such exaltations doubtless depended for their endurance upon a closer relationship than age made possible. We were too young, and for sympathy that required less effort, he had to turn to others, whose difference of blood and temperament, made it harder for them to recognize as we did – by glimpses – his most urgent need. Beautiful was he at such moments; simple and eager as a child; and exquisitely alive to all affection; exquisitely tender. We would have helped him then if we could, given him all we had, and felt it little beside his need – but the moment passed.

It was exhilarating at times to peer above our immature world, and fancy that the actual conflict of recognized human beings had already begun for us. In truth the change which declared itself when we were once more settled in London and gone about our tasks, was partly invigorating; for we tried to prove ourselves equal companions for Stella and our lives were much quickened by the chivalrous devotion she roused in us. It was chivalrous because she was too remote for real companionship, so that there was always a kind of chance in one’s offering; perhaps she would not perceive it; perhaps she would kindle rapture by a sudden recognition; her distance made such close moments exquisitely sweet. But alas, no such humble friendship however romantic, could give her the sense that we completely shared her thoughts; the nature of them made it hard for anyone to understand; and her sorrow was very lonely. Perhaps one would come into a room unexpectedly, and surprise her in tears, and, to one’s miserable confusion, she would hide them instantly, and speak ordinary words, as though she did not imagine that one could understand her suffering.

And this, as I think, was the time when your mother first came somewhat tentatively upon the scene, her age being then almost seventeen. Her qualities of honesty and wisdom were precisely those that Stella was then most inclined to appreciate, both because she was often bewildered by the eccentric storms in which your grandfather indulged, ascribed by her too simply to the greatness of his intellect, and also because she found in Vanessa both in nature and in person something like a reflection of her mother. Vanessa too might be treated almost as a confidante, the single person who did not need any kind of sacrifice to be made for her. And Stella felt also, no doubt, that curiously intimate pride which a woman feels when she sees womanly virtues beautifully expressed by another, the torch still worthily carried; and the pride was very tender in this case and mixed with much of a maternal joy. I do not know how far I shall be guilty of over-ingenuity if I discover another, though an unspoken, cause for the growth of natural sympathy with Vanessa. For two or three years now the one suitor who stood out above other suitors and was greatly liked by your grandmother and tolerated by Stella herself was John Waller Hills. He was then a lean, rather threadbare young man, who seemed to force his way by sheer determination and solid integrity; suggesting the figure of some tenacious wire-haired terrier, in whose obstinacy and strength of jaw there seemed, at a time when all the fates were against him, something honourable, which appealed to one’s half humorous sense of sport as even pathetic. He would come, Sunday after Sunday, and sit his hour out, worrying his speech as a terrier a bone; but sticking doggedly to the word, until at last he got it pronounced. His method was the same always. He knew what he wanted, and unless there occurred a sudden bursting of his stout skull and soft illimitable prospects opened on each side, which was incredible, there was little doubt that he would come by it – except indeed in this very instance. For, with so much that everyone could respect, and find admirable in his relations with others, there was yet very little that anyone seemed called on to love at first hand. It was natural to be indebted to him, for faithful services rendered over a score of years, and to requite him by a perpetual seat at the fireside, or a cover laid for him on Sundays, or the title of uncle to some one else’s children. But to disregard all these oblique services, and meet him face to face, as one capable of the supreme gift of all, needed as Stella found, prolonged consideration and repeated rejection. He satisfied so many requirements, but the sum of all he gave did not need love to reward it. After her mother’s death however, Stella became far less exacting, as indeed she lost interest in her fate, and had no contrast to oppose to it; Jack was persistent as ever, almost a natural if secondary part of oneself. No doubt he had a system plainly marked in front of him, arranged on paper in his little room in Ebury Street, and was simply following it out in detail. But that even had a kind of fascination for one so prone now to consider herself merely as the atmosphere that enclosed solid bodies.