His imaginative purpose, as it defined itself more and more clearly in his mind, during his solitary return through the evening light, seemed to imply an attempted reproduction of those aspects of the human drama, in such a place as this, which carried upon their surface the air of things that could not happen otherwise, and which, in their large inevitableness, over-brimmed and over-flowed all traditional distinctions. He would have liked to have given, in this way, to the figures of Gladys and her mother, something of the superb non-moral “insouciance,” springing, like the movements of animals and the fragrance of plants, out of the bosom of an earth innocent of both introspection and renunciation, which one observes in the forms of Attic sculpture, or in the creations of Venetian colourists. Below the high ornamental wall of Nevilton garden he paused a moment before entering the little postern-gate, to admire the indescribable greenness and luxuriousness of the heavy grass devoted in this place, not to hay-makers but to cattle. There was a sort of poetry, he humorously told himself, even about the great black heaps of cow-dung which alternated here with the golden clumps of drowsy buttercups. They also,--why not?--might be brought into the kind of picture he visioned, just as Veronese brought his mongrels and curs to the very feet of the Saviour! Dangelis lifted his eyes, to where, through a gap in the leafy uplands, the more distant hills were visible. He could make out clearly, in the rich purple light, the long curving lines of the Corton downs, as they melted, little by little, in a floating lake of aerial blue-grey vapour, the exhalation of the great valley’s day-long breathing. He could even mark, at the end of the Corton range--and the sight of it gave him a thrilling sense of the invincible continuity of life in these regions--the famous tree-crested circle of Cadbury Camp, the authentic site of the Arthurian Camelot. What a lodging this Nevilton was, to pass one’s days in, to work in, and to love and dream! What enchantments were all around him! What memories! What dumb voices! CHAPTER VIII THE MYTHOLOGY OF SACRIFICE June, in Nevilton, that summer, seemed debarred by some strange interdiction from regaining its normal dampness and rainy discomfort. It continued unnaturally hot and dry--so dry, that though the hay-harvest was still in full session, the farmers were growing seriously anxious and impatient for the long-delayed showers. It had been, as we have already noted, an unusual season. Not only were there so many blue-bells lingering in the shadowy places in the woods, but among the later flowers there were curious over-lappings. The little milk-wort blossoms, for instance, on Leo’s Hill, were overtaken, before they perished, by premature out-croppings of yellow trefoil and purple thyme.