Yet Richard, also, was curiously without intimate friends. He was taken too much for granted. People found him uniformly pleasant, but colourless and unexciting—a trifle dull. He never became involved in the little intrigues and antagonisms of House politics, and so appeared rather aloof. He was often appealed to, at the end of some heated discussion during which he had sat listening in placid silence, with an affectionate, faintly condescending tone: “Well, Uncle—and what do you think about it?” It was as if they were addressing an old favourite dog.

To Edward alone did Richard Vernon seem more than merely likeable. To Edward, Richard was a hero and a great man. In Richard’s presence he felt genuine humility. Richard’s strength and calm made him conscious of his own weakness. He envied his friend as he envied nobody else. Richard had no need to give proofs of his courage, to assert the strength of his will. He was sure of himself—therefore he did not have to fight and boast. He was brave—unnecessary for him to climb the chapel roof or swim the river in his clothes to win a shilling bet.

Never had Edward felt this more strongly than at the Hall, where he had often been invited to spend a week or two of the holidays. The Hall seemed the perfect background for Richard. The ordered quietness of the Vernons’ life impressed Edward like a work of art. He was spellbound by the aged silence of the house, the garden and the woods. This, he felt, was the only place where he could have lived for ever, untormented by his restlessness and his ambitions.

And Mary, he had to admit, was all, or nearly all, that Richard’s sister should be. It was only a pity that she’d been born a girl.

“But you’ll be able to marry her, that’s one thing”—had been a standard joke of Richard’s, made always in Mary’s presence.

Mary didn’t seem embarrassed. She’d only laughed and said:

“Perhaps Edward won’t have me.”

How strange all that joking seemed now. Strange, almost prophetic. Well, it wasn’t he who had deserted Mary, at any rate.

Edward hated to remember all that business. It had shaken, as nothing else could have shaken, his faith in Richard. It had come near to destroying it. He would never be able to understand how Richard could have behaved as he had. One could only dismiss it as pure cowardice—Richard’s single act of cowardice—and blame Lily for everything.