Now did you ever hear of anything more kind?... He had actually bothered his head ... but that, you see, was the sort of person Justin was.... She had always known, of course, that he was not as other men, but—wasn’t it kind?... She was almost reverently amazed at the extraordinary, the unparallelled benevolence of this unique Justin. She did not know how she was to thank him, because, when you tried, he always jerked away from you like a pony. And yet it was indispensable to her peace of mind that he should be most gratefully thanked. Thanked, and at the same time convinced, beyond any possibility of argument, that she could not go back to Paris, that she could not be an artist, that she did not care about painting and that Oliver—but it is not necessary for me to tell you all that Laura refrained from saying about Oliver. Indeed I have not the capacity. She was something of a specialist in adjectives. But she contrived, in the latter end, to settle things to her satisfaction. Looking back she hardly knew how she had done it; for a young man, generously in love with his own scheme for benefiting his neighbour, is apt to be obstinate. Perhaps the fact that she was arguing, though neither of them knew it, not with him but with her own puzzled and protesting self, had something to do with her success. She was bound to convince herself. She said—oh, she said that she had no real talent. She said that Justin must realize by now what an exaggerated, unreliable—er—dear, Oliver was. She said, with a sigh, that she only wished he were right; but that she had watched herself for two years now— She said that she had given up the idea altogether. She said that her eyes weren’t very strong. She said that she was homesick. She said that all that, however, did not lessen his kindness, that she hadn’t believed anybody could be so kind, that it was quite impossible to thank him properly: and then stopped, because she really did find it impossible. She was perfectly sincere in every word she said, and not once, not once did she remember the good offices of the directresses and Monsieur La Motte. There remained Oliver. She must set herself to the danaïd task of bottling-up Oliver. She felt it to be a hopeless business. Convincing Justin was like battering down a wall, laborious, but it could be done; but convincing Oliver was like wrestling with running water. He did not resist you, he simply slipped through your fingers. He had good manners: he waited courteously while you expressed yourself; but he never listened. Just as his eyes moved incessantly while he talked to you, so you felt that his mind was, all the time, eagerly working at what he meant to go on saying when you had done. It was easier to send a boat up a torrent than to lodge a thought of your own in that fluent, brimming soul.