The dramatic moment of the birthday feast came nearly at the end of the meal when Mrs. Maldon, having in mysterious silence disappeared for a space to the room behind, returned with due pomp bearing a parcel in her dignified¹ hands. During her brief absence Louis, Rachel, and Julian—hero of the night—had sat mute and somewhat constrained² round the debris³ of the birthday pudding. The constraint⁴ was no doubt due partly to Julian's characteristic and notorious grim temper, and partly to mere⁵ anticipation⁶ of a solemn event.

 

Julian Maldon in particular was self-conscious. He hated intensely to be self-conscious, and his feeling towards every witness of his self-consciousness partook always of the homicidal. Were it not that civilization has the means to protect itself, Julian might have murdered defenceless aged⁷ ladies and innocent young girls for the simple offence of having seen him blush.

 

He was a perfect specimen⁸ of a throw-back to original ancestry⁹. He had been born in London, of an American mother, and had spent the greater part of his life in London. Yet London and his mother seemed to count for absolutely nothing at all in his composition. At the age of seventeen his soul, quitting the exile of London, had come to the Five Towns with a sigh of relief as if at the assuagement¹⁰ of a long nostalgia¹¹, and had dropped into the district as into a

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