Mrs. Oliver changed the subject. These seemed to her what women in her district would have called strange goings on. She commented on them to the Dean, who, more tolerant, said, “One must allow some licence to genius, I suppose.” Perhaps: but the question was, how much. Genius might alter manners--(for the worse, Mrs. Oliver thought)--but it shouldn’t be allowed to alter morals. “Anyhow,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I am rather troubled that Eddy should be so intimate with these people.” “Eddy is a steady-headed boy,” said the Dean. “He knows where to draw the line.” Which is what parents often think of their children, with how little warrant! Drawing the line was precisely the art which, Arnold complained, Eddy had not learnt at all. Jane and Arnold stayed three days more at the Deanery. Jane drew details of the Cathedral and studies of Daphne. The Dean thought, as he had often thought before, that artists were interesting, child-like, but rather baffling people, incredibly innocent, or else incredibly apt to accept moral evil with indifference; also that, though, he feared, quite outside the Church, and what he considered to be pagan in outlook, she displayed, like poor Wilson Gavin, a very delicate appreciation of ecclesiastical architecture and religious art. Mrs. Oliver thought her more unconventional and lacking in knowledge of the world than any girl had a right to be. Daphne and the Bellairs family thought her a harmless crank, who took off her hat in the road. The Bellairs’ supposed she must Want a Vote, till she announced her indifference on that subject, which disgusted Daphne, an ardent and potentially militant suffragist, and disappointed her mother, a calm but earnest member of the National Union for Women’s Suffrage, who went to meetings Daphne was not allowed at. Jane--perhaps it was because of the queer sexlessness which was part of her charm, perhaps because of being an artist, and other-worldly--seemed to care little for women’s rights or women’s wrongs. Mrs. Oliver noted that her social conscience was unawakened, and thought her selfish. Artists were perhaps like that--wrapped up in their own joy of the lovely world, so that they never turned and looked into the shadows. Eddy, a keen suffragist himself, said it was because Jane had never lived among the very poor. “She should use her power of vision,” said the Dean. “She’s got plenty.” “She’s one-windowed,” Eddy explained. “She only looks out on to the beautiful things; she has a blank wall between her and the ugly.” “In plain words, a selfish young woman,” said Mrs. Oliver, but to herself. So much for Jane. Arnold was more severely condemned. The more they all saw of him, the less they liked him, and the more supercilious he grew. Even at times he stopped remembering it was a Deanery, though he really tried to do this. But the atmosphere did annoy him.