she would be."

"In what way?"

Conversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing
up and down the terrace.

"I could as easily tell you what tune she'll play next. There was
simply the sense that she had found wings, and meant to use them.
I can show you a beautiful picture in my Italian diary: Miss
Honeychurch as a kite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture
number two: the string breaks."

The sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards,
when he viewed things artistically. At the time he had given
surreptitious tugs to the string himself.

"But the string never broke?"

"No. I mightn't have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should
certainly have heard Miss Bartlett fall."

"It has broken now," said the young man in low, vibrating tones.

Immediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous,
contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst.
He cursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a
star and that Lucy was soaring up to reach him?

"Broken? What do you mean?"