A faint amusement crossed Desterro's face; the first expression it had shown so far. Unexpectedly, this stung Lucy; as if she too had been found guilty of being naive.
"You don't agree?"
"I am trying to think of someone-some Senior-who is normal. It is not easy."
"Oh, come!"
"You know how they live here. How they work. It would be difficult to go through their years of training here and be quite normal in their last term."
"Do you suggest that Miss Nash is not normal?"
"Oh, Beau. She is a strong-minded creature, and so has suffered less, perhaps. But would you call her friendship for Innes quite normal? Nice, of course," Desterro added hastily, "quite irreproachable. But normal, no. That David and Jonathan relationship. It is a very happy one, no doubt, but it"-Desterro waved her arm to summon an appropriate word — "it excludes so much. The Disciples are the same, only there are four of them."
"The Disciples?"
"Mathews, Waymark, Lucus, and Littlejohn. They have come up the College together because of their names. And now, believe me, my dear Miss Pym, they think together. They have the four rooms in the roof"-she tilted her head to the four dormer windows in the roof of the wing-"and if you ask any one of them to lend you a pin she says: 'We have not got one. "
"Well, there is Miss Dakers. What would you say was wrong with Miss Dakers?"