Something like a sheet of thin ice had come into existence between Larry’s life and that of his aunt.  It had come gradually, almost imperceptibly.  There had been a time, after his First Communion, when Larry had confided in Frederica.  He had even told her of the anxieties he had felt before his first Confession, and of how difficult he had found it to decide upon the sins that he could, without arrogance lay to his own charge.  He told her that he had invented several crimes, in order to dignify the occasion.  Frederica wondered secretly how that charming Jesuit Father, to whom, at Monkshurst, she had been introduced as her nephew’s spiritual director, had dealt with the sinner; but this, Larry had not divulged.  There were, from that time forward, an increasing number of things that Larry did not divulge to his Aunt Freddy, and the sheet of ice slowly became thicker.  It was “the religious aspect of the case,” as Miss Coppinger complained to Mr. Fetherston, that made it so impossible for her to speak her mind to Larry about the Mangans.

“Do you remember you advised us to send him to Oxford?” she reproached him.  “I’m afraid it has only had the effect of making him take his religion more seriously—­for which, I suppose, one ought to be thankful—­”

“And why not?” the Reverend Charles had replied.  “They say all roads lead to Rome, so no doubt the converse holds good, and out of Rome some road must lead to Heaven!”

The Reverend Charles was pleased with his aphorism, but Frederica could not enjoy it.  Not even Mr. Fetherston could console her on this matter.

“His very niceness and simplicity make him a prey for undesirables,” she mourned, “and he has that peculiar gift of making every one fond of him.  I suppose it is his looks—­”

“Then you cannot blame the undesirables,” her rector responded.

Larry’s looks had, certainly, a spell that was something in excess of what may be called their “face-value.”  Though legal manhood was so soon to be his status, he had still some of the radiance of childhood about him.  His hair was of the same pure and infantine gold that it had been when he charged down on the Eldest Statesman on the stepping-stones of the Ownashee; his blue eyes had lost none of their candour; the touch of gilding on his upper lip was effective only at short range, but, when taken in connection with a very white and even set of teeth, and a beaming and ever-ready smile, it carried considerable weight.  His fair skin had not yet taken on its summer scorch of carmine, and its soft and babyish pinkness softened the salience of his short nose, and induced the critic to condone the want of decision in his chin.

“Not a handsome boy, exactly,” people said, “but,” and here people would smile relentingly, “if he had been a girl, one would certainly quite have said ’pretty’—­so attractive-looking, and so—­so clean!” which might seem to be the condemnation of faint praise, but was, in reality, merely the tribute that Larry’s new-minted goldenness of aspect startled from the beholder.