"That will make you happy," George said. He said it a little wryly, being no horseman.
"Yes," agreed Bee with a faint smile for the wryness. "It is good that Latchetts should go to a real lover."
"You rate Simon as a poor lover?"
"Not poor. Indifferent, perhaps. To Simon horses are a means of providing excitement. Of enhancing his prestige. A medium for trade; for profitable dickering. I doubt if it goes further than that. For horses as-people, if you know what I mean, he has little feeling. Their sicknesses bore him. Eleanor will stay up for nights on end with a horse that is ill, sharing the nursing fifty-fifty with Gregg. The only time Simon loses sleep is when a horse he wants to ride, or jump, or hunt, has a 'leg'."
"Poor Simon," the Rector said reflectively. "Not the temperament to make a successful fight against jealousy. A very destructive emotion indeed, jealousy."
Before Bee could answer, Nancy appeared.
"Bee! How nice," she said. "Were you at Evensong, and did you see the latest contingent from our local school for scandalisers? Two adolescents who are 'studying the prevalent English superstitions': to wit, the Church of England. A boy, very hairy for fourteen, it seemed to me; and a girl with eleven combs keeping up her not very abundant wisps. What would you say a passion for combs was an indication of? A sense of insecurity?"
"Beatrice has come with a very wonderful piece of news," the Rector said.
"Don't tell me Simon has got himself engaged."
"No. It is not about Simon. It's about Patrick."