Hester took to Vavasor from the first, in an external, meet-and-part sort of fashion. His bearing was so dignified, yet his manner so pleasing, that he brought out the best side of her nature. He roused none of that inclination to oppose, which poor, foolish Corney always roused in her. He could talk well about music and pictures and novels and plays. She not only let him talk freely, but was inclined to put a favourable interpretation on things that she did not agree with, trying to see humour where another might find cynicism. For Vavasor, being in his own eyes the model of an honourable and well-behaved gentleman, had of course only the world’s way of regarding and judging things. Had he been a man of fortune he would have given to charities with some freedom. But, his salary being very moderate, and his aunt just a little stingy as he thought, he would not have denied himself the smallest luxury for the highest betterment of a human soul. Instead of giving a poor woman in the street money for a pair of shoes, he would give her a half-worn pair of gloves while he was on his way to buy a new pair for himself.

It would have enlightened Hester a little to watch him for half an hour where he stood behind the counter of the bank. There he was the least courteous of proverbially discourteous bank-clerks, whose manners are about of the same breed with those of hotel-clerks in America. But he never forgot to take up his manners with his umbrella as he left the bank and resumed his airy, cheerful way of talking, which was more natural to him than his rudeness, and sparkled pleasantly against the more somber texture of Hester’s consciousness. She suspected he was not profound, but that was no reason for not being pleasant to him and allowing him to be pleasant to her. So by the time Vavasor had spent three evenings with the Raymounts at Burcliff, Hester and he were on an external intimacy, if there be such a relation.

On the last of these evenings, he heard Hester sing for the first time. He had not even known she cared for music. For Hester, who did not regard her faculty as an accomplishment but as a gift, treated it as a treasure to be hidden for the day of the Lord rather than a flag to be flown in a public procession. She was jealously shy over it, as a thing it would be profanity to show to any but loving eyes. To utter in song to any but the right persons would have for her been immodest.

Yet she did sing, and Vavasor was astonished, yet delighted, at what he heard. He was in the presence of a power! But all he knew of power was society related. It was not a spirit of might he recognized, for the opening of minds and the strengthening of hearts, but only an influence of pleasing for self-aggrandizement. The best thing in him was his love of music. He did not really believe in music—he did not really believe in anything except himself. He professed to adore it, and imagined he did, because his greatest pleasure lay in hearing his own verses well sung by a pretty girl who would nod and then try to steal a glance at the poet from under her eyelids as she sang.