had just said, or to check him in what he was saying, or abruptly to introduce a new topic of talk.  Sometimes Mr. Harding did not appear to notice these interruptions; at other times he obviously resented them; at others again he yielded with an air of anxiety, almost of fear, to his curate’s attenuations or hastened to follow his somewhat surprising leads down new conversational paths.  Malling could not understand Chichester.  But it became evident to him that for some reason or other the curate was painfully critical of his rector, as sometimes highly sensitive people are critical of members of their own family.  And Mr. Harding was certainly aware of this critical attitude, and at moments seemed to be defiant of it, at other moments to be almost terrorized by it.

All that passed, be it noted, passed as between gentlemen, rather glided in the form of nuance than trampled heavily in more blatant guise.  But Evelyn Malling was a highly trained observer and a man in whom investigation had become a habit.  Now that he was no longer ill at ease he became deeply interested in the relations between the two men with whom he was walking.  He was unable to understand them, and this fact of course increased his interest.  Moreover he was surprised by the change he observed in Chichester.

Although he had never been intimate with Henry Chichester, he had known him fairly well, and had summed him up as a very good man and a decidedly attractive man, but marred, as Malling thought, by a definite weakness of character.  He had been too amiable, too ready to take others on their own valuation of themselves, too kind-hearted, and too easily deceived.  The gentleness of a saint had been his, but scarcely the firmness of a saint.  Industrious, dutiful, and conscientious, he had not struck Malling as a man of strong intellect, though he was a cultivated and well-educated man.  Though not governed by his own passions,—­when one looked at him one had been inclined to doubt whether he had any,—­he had seemed prone to be governed by those about him, at any rate in little matters of every day.  His charm had consisted in his transparent goodness, and in an almost gay kindliness which had seemed to float round him like an atmosphere.  To look into his face had been to look at the happiness which comes only to those who do right things, and are at peace with their own souls.

What could have happened to change this charming, if too pliant, personality into the critical, watchful, almost—­so at moments it seemed to Malling—­aggressive curate who was now, always in a gentlemanly way, making things rather difficult for his rector?

And the matter became the more mysterious when Malling considered Mr. Harding.  For here was a man obviously of dominant personality.  Despite his fleeting subservience to Chichester, inexplicable to Malling, he was surely by far the stronger of the two, both in intellect and character.  Not so saintly, perhaps, he was more likely to influence others.  Firmness showed in his forcible chin, energy in the large lines of his mouth, decision in his clear-cut features.  Yet there was something contradictory in his face.  And the flitting melancholy, already remarked, surely hinted at some secret instability, perhaps known only to Harding himself, perhaps known to Chichester also.