The Canon kissed Val and Flora each on the forehead and laid his hand for an instant upon either head with a murmur that was evidently an habitual nightly blessing.
Then he went into his study with Lucilla, and Adrian and Quentillian sat in the smoking-room making desultory conversation that bore not the slightest resemblance to the wise, deep talks of the Canon’s forecastings.
The forecastings of the Canon, in fact, like those of many other dominating personalities, were scrupulously carried out in his presence, and thankfully allowed to lapse in his absence.
As of old, it was only Lucilla who was completely at ease in her father’s company, and Quentillian presently came to the conclusion that her silence, her unemotional acquiescences, denoted a mind that was merely a reflection of his.
Flora, remote, gentle, preoccupied with her music, gave him the odd illusion of being slightly withdrawn from them all.
Only in Valeria were to be discerned suppressed, but unmistakable, flashes of rebellion, and with Valeria, Quentillian, as usual scrutinizing his own impressions under a microscope, presently suspected himself of falling quietly in love.
In common with most young men of his day, Quentillian considered himself to have outlived passion. In effect, the absorbing episode of his young manhood was in fact over, and Val, ingenuous and beautiful, was provocative of the normal reaction.
One night she joined Adrian and Quentillian in the smoking-room, after the Canon’s usual disappearance into his study.
With a look half-frightened and half-mischievous, she lit a cigarette.
Adrian laughed.