Morelli looked at her. “There were gods once,” he said. “People were faithful in those days, and they saw clearly. Now the world is gloomy, because of the sin that it thinks that it has committed, or because pleasure has been acid to the taste. Then they came with their songs and flowers to the hill, and, with the sky at their head and the sea at their feet, they praised the God whom they knew. Now——” He stared fiercely in front of him. “Oh! these people!” he said.
She did not ask him any more. She could not understand what he had said, and she was afraid lest her questions should bring his fury back again. But the question was there; many new questions were there, and she was to spend her life in answering them.
So they had lunch whilst the two clouds divided into three and danced with white trailing garments across the sun; then again they were swans, and vanished with their necks proudly curved into space.
“Father,” said Janet, with an abstracted air, as though she was thinking of some one else, “Do you think Mr. Gale handsome?”
“Yes, dear,” he answered. “He’s young, very young, and that is worth all the looks in the world.”
“I think he is very handsome,” she said, staring in front of him.
“Yes, dear, I know you do.”
“You like him, father?”
“Of course.” Morelli smiled. “I like to see you together.”
“And Mr. Maradick, father? What do you think of him?”