over from his house to post a
letter in the village on the green, and I do not know how he contrived to
infuse into so simple an act that subtle taint of advertisement. There
was no necessity for him to post his own letters, he could easily have
sent a servant. But I do believe he couldn't bear to miss the opportunity
of being seen. When he passed the Vicarage, the Vicar and his wife and
daughters were generally in their garden, and they turned to look at his
passing, and he was exquisitely conscious of them. The villagers came out
on to their doorsteps to look at him, and he was conscious of the
villagers. The geese followed him in a long line across the common and
stretched out their necks after him, and he was conscious of the geese.
He enjoyed the publicity they gave him, and he said so.

And I began to wonder whether the funny frankness that had so disarmed us
was really as funny as it looked (the idea of disarmament, you see, was
serious), whether he didn't say these things because he knew we saw him
as he really was; because he saw himself as he really was, and couldn't
bear it; because there was no escape for him unless he could make believe
that he was in fun when he really wasn't.

I do believe there was a time (any time before his Tudor period) when he
_was_ in fun, pure fun; and even through the Tudor period his enjoyment
of himself was innocent. But as I walked home with him across his moor
that evening it was borne in upon me that Jimmy's innocence was gone.
Living in the country had killed it. I had never perceived so definite a
taint of vulgarity in him before.

You would have thought it would have been all the other way, that living
in the country would have made altogether for simplicity and purity. I
believe that quite honestly he had thought it would, that he had come
into the country to be purified and simplified, and to put himself right
with Viola for ever. And the horrid irony of it was that the country
didn't do any of these things to him; it complicated him, it saturated
him with that taint I've mentioned, and instead of putting him right it
showed him up. Quite horribly and cruelly it showed him up. I do not
think there was a single weakness or a single secret meanness that he had
that didn't suddenly rise up and stand out on the background of
Amershott.

All through that summer there, quite frankly, I detested Jevons. I
believe that Norah came near detesting him, that she felt something ve