He said no more till they were back in the garden; then he proposed that they should sit down on the seat by the river.
"My mother used to sit here often," he said. "She always loved to see the sun go down from the garden. She didn't read or do anything; she just sat watching."
"Thinking?" Cecily suggested.
"Well, hardly. Letting thoughts happen if they wanted to, perhaps. She was always rather—rather passive about things, you know. They took hold of her if—well, as I say, if they wanted to." He turned to her quickly as he asked, "Are you at all like that?"
"I believe I'm only just beginning to find out that I'm anything or like anything. And, anyhow, I'm quite different from what I was yesterday."
"From yesterday?"
"Yes. Just by coming here, I think."
"That's what I mean! Things do take hold of you then?"
"This place does apparently," she answered laughing, as she leaned back on the seat, throwing her arm behind her and resting her head on it. She caught him looking at her again with marked and almost startled intensity. He was rather strange with his alternations of apparent forgetfulness and this embarrassing scrutiny.