It was a new light on Cecil's character.

“Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired?”

“I can scarcely discuss — ”

“No, but have you ever? He is the sort who are all right so long as they keep to things — books, pictures — but kill when they come to people. That's why I'll speak out through all this muddle even now. It's shocking enough to lose you in any case, but generally a man must deny himself joy, and I would have held back if your Cecil had been a different person. I would never have let myself go. But I saw him first in the National Gallery, when he winced because my father mispronounced the names of great painters. Then he brings us here, and we find it is to play some silly trick on a kind neighbour. That is the man all over —