“Whom,” she asked, casting her eyes upon the revolving clouds, clasping her hands as she knelt on the windowsill, and looking the very image of appealing womanhood as she did so, “can I lean upon?” Her words formed themselves, her hands clasped themselves, involuntarily, just as her pen had written of its own accord. It was not Orlando who spoke, but the spirit of the age. But whichever it was, nobody answered it. The rooks were tumbling pell-mell among the violet clouds of autumn. The rain had stopped at last and there was an iridescence in the sky which tempted her to put on her plumed hat and her little stringed shoes and stroll out before dinner.

“Everyone is mated except myself,” she mused, as she trailed disconsolately across the courtyard. There were the rooks; Canute and Pippin even⁠—transitory as their alliances were, still each this evening seemed to have a partner. “Whereas I, who am mistress of it all,” Orlando thought, glancing as she passed at the innumerable emblazoned windows of the hall, “am single, am mateless, am alone.”