Beauty in itself. In itself--Beauty in beautiful things. She had never thought about it that way before. It would be like the white light in the colours. Plato, discovered in looking for the lost Shelleys, thus consoled her. The Plato of Bohn's Library. Cary's English for Plato's Greek. Slab upon slab. No hard, still sound-patterns. Grey slabs of print, shining with an inner light--Plato's thought. Her happiness was there, too. XVII I. The French nephew was listening. He had been listening for quite a long time, ten minutes perhaps; ever since they had turned off the railway bridge into Ley Street. They had known each other for exactly four hours and seventeen minutes. She had gone to the Drapers for tea. Rodney had left her on their doorstep and he had found her there and had brought her into the dining-room. That, he declared, was at five o'clock, and it was now seventeen minutes past nine by his watch which he showed her. It had begun at tea-time. When he listened he turned round, excitedly, in his chair; he stooped, bringing his eyes level with yours. When he talked he tossed back his head and stuck out his sharp-bearded chin. She was not sure that she liked his eyes. Hot black. Smoky blurs like breath on glass. Old, tired eyelids. Or his funny, sallowish face, narrowing to the black chin-beard. Ugly one minute, nice the next. It moved too much. He could say all sorts of things with it and with his shoulders and his hands. Mrs. Draper said that was because he was half French. He was showing her how French verse should be read when Rodney came for her, and Dr. Draper sent Rodney away and kept her for dinner. The French nephew was taking her home now. They had passed the crook of the road. "And all this time," she said, "I don't know your name." "Maurice. Maurice Jourdain. I know yours--Mary Olivier. I like it." "You wouldn't if you were me and your father kept on saying, 'Mary, Mary, quite contrary,' and 'Mary had a little lamb.'" "Fathers will do these cruel things. It's a way they have." "Papa isn't cruel. Only he's so awfully fond of Mamma that he can't think about _us_. He doesn't mind me so much." "Oh--he doesn't mind you so much?" "No. It's Mark he can't stand." "Who is Mark?" "My brother. Mark is a soldier--Royal Artillery." "Lucky Mark. I was to have been a soldier." "Why weren't you?" "My mother wouldn't have liked it. So I had to give it up." "How you must have loved her. Mark loves my mother more than anything; but he couldn't have done that." "Perhaps Mark hasn't got to provide for his mother and his sisters. I had. And I had to go into a disgusting business to do it." "Oh-h--" He was beautiful inside. He did beautiful things. She was charmed, suddenly, by his inner, his immaterial beauty. She thought: "He must be ever so old." "But it's made them love you awfully, hasn't it?" she said.