t Potterism, said Gideon grimly. Gideon's grandparents had been
massacred in an Odessa pogrom; his father had been taken at the age of
five to England by an aunt, become naturalised, taken the name of Sidney,
married an Englishwoman, and achieved success and wealth as a banker. His
son Arthur was one of the most brilliant men of his year at Oxford,
regarded Russians, Jews, and British with cynical dislike, and had, on
turning twenty-one, reverted to his family name in its English form,
finding it a Potterish act on his father's part to have become Sidney.
Few of his friends remembered to call him by his new name, and his
parents ignored it, but to wear it gave him a grim satisfaction.

Such was Arthur Gideon, a lean-faced, black-eyed man, biting his nails
like Fagin when he got excited.

The other man, besides Johnny Potter, was the Honourable Laurence Juke, a
Radical of moderately aristocratic lineage, a clever writer and actor,
who had just taken deacon's orders. Juke had a look at once languid and
amused, a well-shaped, smooth brown head, blunt features, the
introspective, wide-set eyes of the mystic, and the sweet, flexible voice
of the actor (his mother had, in fact, been a well-known actress of the
eighties).

The two women were Jane Potter and Katherine Varick. Katherine Varick had
frosty blue eyes, a pale, square-jawed, slightly cynical face, a first in
Natural Science, and a chemical research fellowship.

In those happy days it was easy to stay in places, even by the sea, and
they stayed first at the fishing village of Mevagissey. Gideon was the
only one who never forgot that they were to make observations and write a
book. He came of a more hard-working race than the others did. Often the
others merely fished, boated, bathed, and walked, and forgot the object
of their tour. But Gideon, though he too did these things, did them, so
to speak, notebook in hand. He was out to find and analyse Potterism, so
much of it as lay hid in the rocky Cornish coves and the grave Cornish
people. Katherine Varick was the only member of the party who knew that
he was also seeking and finding it in the hidden souls of his
fellow-seekers.

2

They would meet in the evening with the various contributions to the
subject which they had gathered during the day. The Urban District
Council, said Johnny, wanted to pull down the village street and build an
esplanade to attract visitors; all the villagers seemed pleased. That was