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of space. The rooms are very big,’ she added hastily, ‘but you know what I mean. It takes you out of yourself, beyond all this.’ With a wave of her hand she seemed to indicate the landing, with its dark turkey carpet and indefinite oil paintings.
    ‘Yes, I suppose we do occasionally need taking out of ourselves,’ said Mr. Latimer thoughtfully, as if the idea had not occurred to him before.
    ‘I think you will find it so when you have lived here a bit,’ said Miss Morrow without elaboration.
    Mr. Latimer laughed. ‘Oh, well, if I find I want it as much as all that I can always go somewhere else,’ he said.
    ‘Yes, of course,’ said Miss Morrow in a disappointed tone. She felt as if she had offered him a precious possession and had it thrown back at her.
    They were standing in the room now.
    ‘This is the study and the bedroom leads out of it. I feel like a landlady doing all this,’ said Miss Morrow, anxious to make bright, normal conversation.
    ‘Well, it seems very comfortable,’ said Mr. Latimer, looking round at the reassuringly Victorian room with its good, solid furniture. He glanced approvingly at the hard, uninviting-looking sofa. Hardness and uninvitingness were, he felt, just those qualities which the sofa in the study of a bachelor clergyman should possess. No chance of amorous dalliance here. It was too narrow and slippery. He went over to the enormous roll-top desk. ‘I can see myself writing sermons here,’ he said. ‘The dark green walls are so restful. The curtains too’ — he touched their dull, stuffy folds — ‘so very soothing. What’s the tree growing outside the window? A monkey-puzzle?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Miss Morrow. ‘There’s one on the front lawn too. It shuts out the sun,’ she added in a faint voice. Surely it wasn’t natural that a good-looking young man should want to shut himself up in a prison, even if he was a clergyman? ‘The bedroom is through here,’ she said, opening a door. ‘I believe it has all the usual conveniences. Miss Doggett insisted that the largest washstand in the house should be put here. I don’t know why.’
    ‘There is supposed to be some connection between cleanliness and godliness,’ said Mr. Latimer, making a curately joke. ‘It’s certainly a magnificent piece of furniture. I think its presence is justified simply because of that.’
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Morrow. 
‘ “
A thing of beauty is a joy forever”. It reminds me of the altar of Randolph College chapel. So much marble and mahogany.’
    ‘What’s this engraving?’ said Mr. Latimer, going to the wall.
    ‘Oh, that’s one of the Bavarian lakes,’ explained Miss Morrow. ‘Miss Doggett has a whole set of them. This is the biggest.’
    ‘What a very dry-looking lake it is,’ said Mr. Latimer thoughtfully. ‘One can’t imagine that the water could ever be wet.’
    They both laughed. Mr. Latimer sat down by Miss Morrow on the bed. They were still laughing when Miss Doggett came in. The sound of their laughter was the first thing that she heard before the shameful sight met her eyes: the sight of Miss Morrow—painted like a harlot—sitting laughing on the bed with a handsome clergyman whom she had just met for the first time, the new curate whose welcome Miss Doggett had planned so carefully. It was too bad. Miss Doggett cast about in her mind for words strong enough to describe Miss Morrow’s perfidy and deceit, but could find none.
    It was certainly a bad beginning, and nobody was more conscious of this than Miss Morrow. But Mr. Latimer leapt up entirely without embarrassment. His natural, easy manners made the washstand, its rose-garlanded china and the large double bed seem no more out of place than the ordinary furniture of a North Oxford drawing-room. Miss Doggett, who had so far said nothing but a rather cold ‘Good evening’, was completely pacified by his profuse apologies for having arrived earlier than was expected. He very tactfully made no