is it?'
Again Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long scrutiny, as if she
were following some train of thought of her own, and barely attending
to the other's speech.
'I don't know,' she replied.
'Rupert, Rupert,' she sang mildly, calling him to her. He approached in
silence.
'Are little things more subtle than big things?' she asked, with the
odd grunt of laughter in her voice, as if she were making game of him
in the question.
'Dunno,' he said.
'I hate subtleties,' said Ursula.
Hermione looked at her slowly.
'Do you?' she said.
'I always think they are a sign of weakness,' said Ursula, up in arms,
as if her prestige were threatened.
Hermione took no notice. Suddenly her face puckered, her brow was knit
with thought, she seemed twisted in troublesome effort for utterance.
'Do you really think, Rupert,' she asked, as if Ursula were not
present, 'do you really think it is worth while? Do you really think
the children are better for being roused to consciousness?'
A dark flash went over his face, a silent fury. He was hollow-cheeked
and pale, almost unearthly. And the woman, with her serious,
conscience-harrowing question tortured him on the quick.
'They are not roused to consciousness,' he said. 'Consciousness comes
to them, willy-nilly.'
'But do you think they are better for having it quickened, stimulated?
Isn't it better that they should remain unconscious of the hazel, isn't
it better that they should see as a whole, without all this pulling to
pieces, all this knowledge?'
'Would you rather, for yourself, know or not know, that the little red
flowers are there, putting out for the pollen?' he asked harshly. His
voice was brutal, scornful, cruel.
Hermione remained with her face lifted up, abstracted. He hung silent
in irritation.
'I don't know,' she replied, balancing mildly. 'I don't know.'
'But knowing is everything to you, it is all your life,' he broke out.
She slowly looked at him.
'Is it?' she said.
'To know, that is your all, that is your life--you have only this, this
knowledge,' he cried. 'There is only one tree, there is only one fruit,
in your mouth.'
Again she was some time silent.
'Is there?' she said at last, with the same untouched calm. And then in
a tone of whimsical inquisitiveness: 'What fruit, Rupert?'
'The eternal apple,' he replied in exasperation, hating his own
metaphors.
'Yes,' she said. There was a look of exhaustion about her. For some
moments there was silence. Then, pulling herself together with a
convulsed movement, Hermione resumed, in a sing-song, casual voice:
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