He said, “Well—­he might be worse.  He might be much, much worse.  He’s a clever chap.  Where does he get it all from?”

But I noticed that the next day he shut himself up in his library all morning, was silent at lunch, and never emerged properly till dinner-time.  Mrs. Thesiger also fought shy of her son-in-law.

Norah and Victoria took him by turns that day.  I noticed that he got on very well with Norah.  She knocked balls over the net for him all morning.  (He couldn’t play, but professed a great eagerness to learn.) In the afternoon Victoria took him to look at the Cathedral and the old quarters of the town.  In the evening, after dinner, we all sat out in the garden.  Canon and Mrs. Thesiger soon left us; Victoria followed them; and Viola and Norah and Jevons and I sat on till long after dark.

Viola and Norah, I remember, sat close together on the long seat under the elm tree.  Jevons was on the other side of Viola.  I sat on a cushion at her feet.

The night had a rhythm in it.  Stillness and peace.  The Cathedral chimes.  Stillness and peace again.  And there was a smell of cut lawn grass with dew on it from the ground, and of roses from the borders, and of lichen and moss and crumbling mortar from the walls.  Sometimes these smells pierced the peace like sound; and sometimes they gathered close and wrapped us like warmth.

Then Jevons spoke.

“All this,” he said, “is very beautiful.  Very beautiful indeed.”

And Viola sighed.

“Yes, Yes,” she said.  “I suppose it is beautiful.”

“You know it is,” he said.

“I know all right.  But I don’t think I can see it as you do.  I’ve been shut up in it so long.  It’s all this that you’ve taken me out of.”

“It’s all this,” he said, “that’s made you what you are.”

“It isn’t.  This isn’t really me.  It’s just Them.  I’m what I’ve made myself.  I’m what you’ve made me.  I’m uglier than they are.  I’m uglier than anything here, but I’m much, much more alive.”

“You surely don’t suggest,” said Jevons, “that I’ve made you uglier?”

“You’ve made me stronger and cleverer and bigger—­ever so much bigger than I was.”

“Much better in every way,” I said, “than your youngest sister here, hasn’t he?”

“Poor little Norah!  I didn’t mean that—­you beast—­Furny!—­Of course I didn’t.  Jimmy—­what did I mean?”

He said nothing.  But I heard an inarticulate murmur, and I saw that in the darkness his arm went round her and drew her closer.

And that, God forgive him, was his heaviest score up till now.

In two days he had absorbed the Canterbury atmosphere.  He was in it.  In it as I wasn’t and couldn’t be.

And the next day Canon and Mrs. Thesiger took him in hand by turns.  The Canon showed him the town all over again all morning.  And in the afternoon Mrs. Thesiger showed him the Cathedral all over again; and took him with her to the service.  And all dinner-time Jevons was very pensive and subdued.