“Would be what?” she asked in irritation.
He found the word.
“An impertinence.”
She shook his hand from hers almost angrily and walked away.
He knew then why he had come to Thrigsby. It was to make a clean cut with her. That achieved, there was nothing more in the grim city of his youth to keep him.
[VI
THE COMFORT OF RELIGION]
Quoi! Dieu me punirait éternellement de m’être livré à des passions qu’il m’a données?
THERE might be nothing to keep him, but yet he stayed five days longer. For one thing George’s children were amusing and a profitable study. They had discovered that they had only to lie to their parents to keep them quiet, and, as lying was expected of them, and made things comfortable, they saw no harm in it. For the rest they did as they pleased and amused themselves. Little George was the very spit of his grandfather and a great spinner of yarns. René told him one morning to ask his mother if he could go out with him. Off trotted the boy, to return in a moment with a detailed account of the conversation he had had. It transpired subsequently that Elsie was out at the time. René told her. She said: