beginning.

So we had planned for four days together in the country, four days of
May, with a delicious sense of delight and secret joy and warm
heart-beatings.

I had dined at her house last night when all the final details had
been arranged in a palm-shaded corner by the piano, our conversation
covered by the chatter of the other guests. No one knew of our plan,
it was a dear secret between us, but it would not have mattered very
much if others had known that we were going into the country. I was
always supposed to be able to look after Viola, and everybody assumed
that it was only a question of time when we should marry each other.
We had grown up together, we were obviously very much attached to each
other, and we were cousins. And with that amazing inconsistency that
is the chief feature of the British public, while it would be shocked
at the idea of your marrying your sister, it always loves the idea of
your marrying your cousin, the person who in all the world is most
like your sister.

However, all we as hapless individuals of this idiotic community have
to do is to secretly evade its ridiculous conventions when they don't
suit us, and to make the most of them when they do.

And as I was more anxious to marry Viola than about anything else in
the world, I welcomed the convention that assigned her to me and made
the most of it.

For all that, we kept the matter of our four days to ourselves and
planned out its details with careful secrecy.