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.

After dinner the Canon talked to Jevons about his novel. (He had retired
into his library all afternoon in order to finish it.) He asked him why
he had chosen an ugly subject when he might have found a beautiful one?

And Jevons was more pensive than eve