FORE:He hovered on the doorstep, rubbing his hands together and looking timidly up at the stars as though half expecting to see a sign. "It distressed me at first," he resumed, "because he was such an odd-looking person, and the whole experience was really on the humorous side. I wanted to laugh at him,[Pg 130] and it made me feel so disgraceful. But I'm quite sure he was a manifestation of something, perhaps an apotheosis."On this particular Sunday morning, he had not gone to Cathedral service at all, but after his wife and Alice had set forth in the victoria to St Thomass, had walked out westwards along the road from The Cedars, to where half a mile away the last house was left behind and the billowing downs rolled away in open sea out of sight of the land of houses. In the main it was the sense of spring with its intimate stirrings that called him out, and the adventure was a remarkable one, for it was years since he had failed to attend Sunday morning service. But to-day he sought no stern omnipotent Presence, which his religion told him must be invoked among arches and altars: he{231} sought maybe the same, under the guise of a smiling face, in windy temples. It was not that he consciously sought it: as far as any formulated expression went, he would have said that he chose to go for a walk in the country, and would attend Cathedral service in the evening as usual. But as he walked he wondered whether Norah would come to The Cedars that morning to work in his library. He had not the slightest intention, however reserved and veiled from himself, of going back there to see; he meant to walk until his wife and daughter would certainly be back from church again, though probably this was among the last two or three mornings that Norah would come to The Cedars at all, for the catalogue was on the point of completion.
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FORE:The pearl-pendant gently wagged at Mrs Keelin{181}gs throat: Mrs Fysons comment gently stirred in her head. She would have said this was clever too, this introduction of Miss Properts name without waiting for his wife to mention it. Clever or not, it served its immediate purpose, for she gave him news of Alice.
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