"Is the weak nose always short?"
"By no means. You may have a strong short nose, or a weak long one."
"Suppose I had a weak nose and a firm chin?" questioned Jean.
"Inherited from opposite sides? No doubt you would be weak in one direction, strong in another. It would mean a perpetual contest between nose and chin—sometimes the one victorious, sometimes the other."
Jean could not make out from his face whether he did or did not mean what he said. He was politely serious, only his eyes never ceased to twinkle.
"But that is too funny," she said, laughing.
"Immense amount of truth in it. Of come you must take old Lavater cum grano salis. I shall have to conduct you through something more modern while you are here. He and the older phrenologists could only assign a particular characteristic to a particular bump, and leave it there to tyrannise over the individual. Modern wisdom begins to suspect that the mind secretes the body, so to speak, like a mollusc secreting its shell. According to which notion, a man's character is not weak because his chin retreats, but his chin retreats because his character is weak."
"Do you really believe that?"
Giles made a comical movement of his shoulder. "Why not? How can one tell? Seems odd, when you come to think of it—but everything is odd when you come to think of it. One can't tell why a weak nature should secrete a retreating chin, for instance; but one cannot get out of the puzzle, because there is not the least doubt that retreating chins and feeble characters do very often go together."
Jean drew a long breath of interest, and her eyes lighted up with the fascination of a new idea. "How nice!" thought Mrs. Trevelyan. "Dear Giles is quite lively—taking real trouble with Jean. He must like her. She is not at all a bad-looking girl—such regular features, and such a nice figure; and she holds herself well, and is so very ladylike. I can't bear fidgety people, and Jean doesn't fidget in the least. It will save a great deal of trouble if Giles should take a fancy to her. I can send them out to walk together, and get him to show her the country round. Yes, she certainly is good-looking, almost handsome, when her eyes grow so bright; and she has a soft pleasant laugh. I am glad she has come. I think I shall grow fond of Jean."