e misery of the unending swamps. And she was proud because
his outlook was so clear, because he bore his responsibilities so
easily, because his plans were so vast. She looked at him. He was
standing by her side, and his eyes were upon her. She felt the colour
rise to her cheeks, she knew not why, and in embarrassment looked down.

By some chance they missed Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley. Neither was
sorry. When they left the cathedral and started for home, they spoke for
a while of indifferent things. It seemed that Alec's tongue was
loosened, and he was glad of it. Lucy knew instinctively that he had
never talked to anyone as he talked to her, and she was curiously
flattered.

But it seemed to both of them that the conversation could not proceed on
the strenuous level on which it had been during the walk into
Tercanbury, and they fell upon a gay discussion of their common
acquaintance. Alec was a man of strong passions, hating fools fiercely,
and he had a sardonic manner of gibing at persons he despised, which
caused Lucy much amusement.

He described interviews with the great ones of the land in a broadly
comic spirit; and, when telling an amusing story, he had a way of
assuming a Scottish drawl that added vastly to its humour.

Presently they began to speak of books. Being strictly limited as to
number, he was obliged to choose for his expeditions works which could
stand reading an indefinite number of times.

'I'm like a convict,' he said. 'I know Shakespeare by heart, and I've
read Boswell's _Johnson_ till I think you couldn't quote a line which I
couldn't cap with the next.'

But Lucy was surprised to hear that he read the Greek classics with
enthusiasm. She had vaguely imagined that people recognised their
splendour, but did not read them unless they were dons or
schoolmasters, and it was strange to find anyone for whom they were
living works. To Alec they were a deliberate inspiration. They
strengthened his purpose and helped him to see life from the heroic
point of view. He was not a man who cared much for music or for
painting; his whole aesthetic desires were centred in the Greek poets and
the historians. To him Thucydides was a true support, and he felt in
himself something of the spirit which had animated the great Athenian.
His blood ran faster as he spoke of him, and his cheeks flushed. He felt
that one who lived constantly in such company could do nothing base. But
he found all he needed, put toget