In an instant George was standing on the wall, light as fluff. Edwin
held him by the legs, and his hand was on Edwin's cap. The feel of the
boy was delightful; he was so lithe and so yielding, and yet firm; and
his glance was so trustful and admiring. "Rough!" thought Edwin,
remembering Maggie's adjective. "He isn't a bit rough! Unruly? Well,
I dare say he can be unruly if he cares to be. It all depends how you
handle him." Thus Edwin reflected in the pride of conquest, holding
close to the boy, and savouring intimately his charm. Even the boy's
slightness attracted him. Difficult to believe that he was nine years
old! His body was indeed backward. So too, it appeared, was his
education. And yet was there not the wisdom of centuries in, "I don't
generally ask for things that I really want?"
Suddenly the boy wriggled, and gave a sound of joy that was almost a
yell. "Look!" he cried.
The covered top of the steam-car could just be seen gliding along above
the high wall that separated Edwin's garden from the street.
"Yes," Edwin agreed. "Funny, isn't it?" But he considered that such
glee at such a trifle was really more characteristic of six or seven
than of nine years. George's face was transformed by ecstasy.
"It's when things move like that--horizontal!" George explained,
pronouncing the word carefully.
Edwin felt that there was no end to the surpassing strangeness of this
boy. One moment he was aged six, and the next he was talking about
horizontality.
"Why? What do you mean?"
"I don't know!" George sighed. "But somehow--" Then, with fresh
vivacity: "I tell you--when Auntie Janet comes to wake me up in the
morning the cat comes in too, with its tail up in the air--you know!"
Edwin nodded. "Well, when I'm lying in bed I can't see the cat, but I
can see the top of its tail sailing along the edge of the bed. But if I
sit up I can see all the cat, and that spoils it, so I don't sit up at
first."
The child was eager for Edwin to understand his pleasure in horizontal
motion that had no apparent cause, like the tip of a cat's tail on the
horizon of a bed, or the roof of a tram-car on the horizon of the wall.
And Edwin was eager to understand, and almost persuaded himself that he
did understand; but he could not be sure. A marvellous child--
disconcerting! He had a feeling of inferiority to the child, because
the child had seen beauty where he had not dreamed of seeing it.
"Want a swing," he suggested, "before I have to go off to business?"
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