mpliments. He had a
conceit of himself, not as a man but as a clergyman, and she knew that
nothing pleased him so much as when people praised his "good-natured
humanity."

She saw him "play-acting," as she called it, that is, bringing forward
a succession of little tricks, a jolly laugh, an enthusiastic opinion,
a pretence of humility, a man-of-the-world air, all things not very bad
in themselves, but put on many years ago, subconsciously as an actor
puts on powder and paint. She saw that he was especially sensitive to
lay opinion, liked to be thought a good fellow by the laymen in the
place. To be popular she was afraid that he sometimes sacrificed his
dignity, his sincerity and his pride. But he was really saved in this
by his laziness. He was in fact too lazy to act energetically in his
pursuit of popularity, and the temptation to sink into the dirty old
chair in his study, smoke a pipe and go to sleep, hindered again and
again his ambition. He had, as so many clergymen have, a great deal of
the child in him, a remoteness from actual life, and a tremendous
ignorance of the rough-and-tumble brutality and indecency of things. It
had not been difficult for Grace, because of his laziness, his
childishness, and his harmless conceited good-nature to obtain a very
real dominion over him, and until now that dominion had never seriously
been threatened.

Now, however, new impulses were stirring in his soul. Maggie saw it,
Grace saw it, before the end of the summer the whole parish saw it. He
was uneasy, dissatisfied, suffering under strange moods whose motives
he concealed from all the world. In his sleep he cried Maggie's name
with a passion that was a new voice in him. When she awoke and heard it
she trembled, and then lay very still ...

And what a summer that was! To Maggie who had never, even in London,
mingled with crowds it was an incredible invasion. The invasion was
incredible, in the first place, because of the suddenness with which it
fell upon Skeaton. One day Maggie noticed that announcements were
pasted on to the Skeaton walls of the coming of a pierrot troupe ...
"The Mig-Mags." There was a gay picture of fine beautiful pierrettes
and fine stout pierrots all smiling together in a semi-circle. Then on
another hoarding it was announced that the Theatre Royal, Skeaton,
would shortly start its summer season, and would begin with that famous
musical comedy, "The Girl from Bobo's."

Then the Pier Theatre put for