In the few days of their acquaintance Arthur and Susie had arrived at terms of pleasant familiarity.  Susie, from her superior standpoint of an unmarried woman no longer young, used him with the good-natured banter which she affected.  To her, he was a foolish young thing in love, and she marvelled that even the cleverest man in that condition could behave like a perfect idiot.  But Margaret knew that, if her friend chaffed him, it was because she completely approved of him.  As their intimacy increased, Susie learnt to appreciate his solid character.  She admired his capacity in dealing with matters that were in his province, and the simplicity with which he left alone those of which he was ignorant.  There was no pose in him.  She was touched also by an ingenuous candour which gave a persuasive charm to his abruptness.  And, though she set a plain woman’s value on good looks, his appearance, rough hewn like a statue in porphyry, pleased her singularly.  It was an index of his character.  The look of him gave you the whole man, strong yet gentle, honest and simple, neither very imaginative nor very brilliant, but immensely reliable and trustworthy to the bottom of his soul.  He was seated now with Margaret’s terrier on his knees, stroking its ears, and Susie, looking at him, wondered with a little pang why no man like that had even cared for her.  It was evident that he would make a perfect companion, and his love, once won, was of the sort that did not alter.

Dr Porhoet came in and sat down with the modest quietness which was one of his charms.  He was not a great talker and loved most to listen in silence to the chatter of young people.  The dog jumped down from Arthur’s knee, went up to the doctor, and rubbed itself in friendly fashion against his legs.  They began to talk in the soft light and had forgotten almost that another guest was expected.  Margaret hoped fervently that he would not come.  She had never looked more lovely than on this afternoon, and she busied herself with the preparations for tea with a housewifely grace that added a peculiar delicacy to her comeliness.  The dignity which encompassed the perfection of her beauty was delightfully softened, so that you were reminded of those sweet domestic saints who lighten here and there the passionate records of the Golden Book.

‘C’est tellement intime ici,’ smiled Dr Porhoet, breaking into French in the impossibility of expressing in English the exact feeling which that scene gave him.

It might have been a picture by some master of genre.  It seemed hardly by chance that the colours arranged themselves in such agreeable tones, or that the lines of the wall and the seated persons achieved such a graceful decoration.  The atmosphere was extraordinarily peaceful.