“I like some things,” said Ursula. “I like Latin and French—and grammar.” He watched her, and all his being seemed attentive to her, then he shook his head. “I don’t,” he said. “They say all the brains of the army are in the Engineers. I think that’s why I joined them—to get the credit of other people’s brains.” He said this quizzically and with chagrin. And she became alert to him. It interested her. Whether he had brains or not, he was interesting. His directness attracted her, his independent motion. She was aware of the movement of his life over against hers. “I don’t think brains matter,” she said. “What does matter then?” came her Uncle Tom’s intimate, caressing, half-jeering voice. She turned to him. “It matters whether people have courage or not,” she said. “Courage for what?” asked her uncle. “For everything.” Tom Brangwen gave a sharp little laugh. The mother and father sat silent, with listening faces. Skrebensky waited. She was speaking for him. “Everything’s nothing,” laughed her uncle. She disliked him at that moment. “She doesn’t practice what she preaches,” said her father, stirring in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. “She has courage for mighty little.” But she would not answer. Skrebensky sat still, waiting. His face was irregular, almost ugly, flattish, with a rather thick nose. But his eyes were pellucid, strangely clear, his brown hair was soft and thick as silk, he had a slight moustache. His skin was fine, his figure slight, beautiful. Beside him, her Uncle Tom looked full-blown, her father seemed uncouth. Yet he reminded her of her father, only he was finer, and he seemed to be shining. And his face was almost ugly. He seemed simply acquiescent in the fact of his own being, as if he were beyond any change or question. He was himself. There was a sense of fatality about him that fascinated her. He made no effort to prove himself to other people. Let it be accepted for what it was, his own being. In its isolation it made no excuse or explanation for itself. So he seemed perfectly, even fatally established, he did not ask to be rendered before he could exist, before he could have relationship with another person. This attracted Ursula very much. She was so used to unsure people who took on a new being with every new influence. Her Uncle Tom was always more or less what the other person would have him. In consequence, one never knew the real Uncle Tom, only a fluid, unsatisfactory flux with a more or less consistent appearance. But, let Skrebensky do what he would, betray himself entirely, he betrayed himself always upon his own responsibility. He permitted no question about himself. He was irrevocable in his isolation. So Ursula thought him wonderful, he was so finely constituted, and so distinct, self-contained, self-supporting. This, she said to herself, was a gentleman, he had a nature like fate, the nature of an aristocrat.