One of the curates, fresh from Cambridge, saw her and took notice. He was very youthful and very enthusiastic; secretly ritualist, he dabbled in music, and indulged in unseemly bickerings with the organist and choirmaster. He wanted the choir to sing like the choir at King’s College, Cambridge. He would have liked to deliver a Latin grace at the annual boys’ outing to Hainault Forest. In most of these things the Rev. Archibald Pettigrew exerted a restraining influence upon him. But in Catherine the young enthusiast thought he saw a kindred spirit. This young woman, so quiet, so demure, so earnest and pious in her religious observances, was she not destined to be his helper and confidante? He lent her tracts and showed her some candlesticks he had purchased in Paternoster Row. And frequently he came to Cubitt Lane and produced an overwhelming impression on Mrs. Lazenby by giving her a visiting card inscribed with: The Rev. Elkin Broodbank, St. Luke’s Vicarage, Bockley. And Catherine was unspeakably charmed and flattered by his attentions. But she was not impressed by his personality. He had none.... CHAPTER XXIII ONCE AGAIN § 1 ON the Monday morning exactly a week before the August Bank Holiday, Catherine unpacked the morning’s music with a quiet satisfaction that knew no bounds. She was by this time a changed woman. No longer impetuous and hasty, no longer fiery and passionate, no longer a creature of mood and fancy: she was quiet, restrained, dignified almost to the point of arrogance, immensely reliable, and becoming a little shrewd. She had earned the reputation of being an expert saleswoman. There was scarcely a piece of music, or a song, or an orchestral setting which she did not know of: she was a mine of recondite information about violin obligatos and harp accompaniments and so forth. Even Mr. Hobbs, who had hitherto passed as a paragon, acknowledged in her a superior. His mind was merely a memorized and remarkably accurate music catalogue: hers was full of scraps of another world, scraps that raised her above her fellows. Never, even in her greatest days, had her superiority seemed so incontestable as now. Never had she been so quietly proud, so serenely confident that the deference accorded her was no more than her due.