matters. Thus and thus he would do in France, such and such trinkets he
would fetch back--"as toys for the most whimsical, the loveliest and the
most obstinate child in all the world," he phrased it. And they would be
married, Pevensey declared, in September: nor (he gaily said) did he
propose to have any further argument about it. Children should be
seen--the proverb was dusty, but it particularly applied to pretty
children.

Cynthia let him talk. She was just a little afraid of his self
confidence, and of this tall nobleman's habit of getting what he wanted,
in the end: but she dispiritedly felt that Pevensey had failed her. He
treated her as a silly infant: and his want of her, even in that
capacity, was a secondary matter: he was going into France, for all his
petting talk, and was leaving her to shift as she best might, until he
could spare the time to resume his love-making....


II

WHAT COMES OF SCRIBBLING

Now when Pevensey had gone the room seemed darkened by the withdrawal of
so much magnificence. Cynthia watched from the window as the tall earl
rode away, with three handsomely clad retainers. Yes, George was very
fine and admirable, no doubt of it: even so, there was relief in the
reflection that for a month or two she was rid of him.

Turning, she faced a lean dishevelled man who stood by the Magdalen
tapestry scratching his chin. He had unquiet bright eyes, this
out-at-elbows poet whom a marquis's daughter was pleased to patronize,