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On the one side was all his life, his sloth and ease and comfort, his religion, his good name, his easy intercourse with his fellow-men, Grace, intellectual laziness, acceptance of things as they most easily are, Skeaton, regular meals, good drainage, moral, physical and spiritual, a good funeral and a favourable obituary in The Skeaton Times.
I think if we were somewhere else than Skeaton it would be easier. And now after what has happened " Maggie broke in: "You couldn't leave Skeaton, Paul. You know you couldn't. It would just break your heart. All the work of your life has been here everything you've ever done. And Grace too." "No, no, you're wrong," said Paul vigorously. "A change is probably what I need.
His approach did not make her pulses beat a moment faster, she did not long for him to come when he was not there but he wanted her! That was the great thing. He wanted her! "Of course if he asked you, you wouldn't really think of marrying him?" said Millicent. "I don't know," said Maggie slowly. "What! Marry him and live in Skeaton!" Millicent was frankly amazed.
He admitted now that his heart, always too soft and too gentle perhaps, had been touched beyond wisdom. She had seemed to need just the protection and advice that he had been fitted to give her. Then, as though in the darkness of the night, the change had been made; from the moment of entering into Skeaton there had been a new Maggie.
"The enemy shouteth ... The enemy shouteth ..." Skeaton sat enraptured. Women let the tears stream down their faces, men blew their noses. Once again the voice arose. "Hear my prayer, Oh, God, incline Thine ear ..." It was Maggie's voice, Maggie's cry.
His effeminacy was the result of his training because he had always been sheltered. Now his contact with Maggie was presenting him for the first time with Reality. Would he face and grapple with it, or would he slip away, evade it, and creep back into his padded castle? The return to Skeaton and the winter that followed it did not answer that question.
You don't understand the Skeaton air," said Grace. "That's because I don't get enough of it," said Maggie. She found herself looking back to the Chapel services with wistful regret. What had there been there that was not here? Here everything was ordered, arranged, in decent sequence, in regular symmetry and progression.
I've been too long in the same place. Time goes so fast that one doesn't realise. And for Grace, too, I expect a change will be better." "And do you think," said Maggie, "that Grace will ever live with me now in the same house when she knows that I've driven you from Skeaton? Grace is quite right. She's just to feel as she does about me."
"He says I've got to go back at once." "Well, there you are." "But don't you see, Martin, I shouldn't go back to him even if I left you. I've quite decided that. He'll never be happy with me unless I love him, which I can't do, and there's his sister who hates me. And he's just rooted in Skeaton. I can't live there after Uncle Mathew!" "Tell me about that." "No," she said, shrinking back.
What could he see in that plain, gauche, uncharming creature? See something he undoubtedly did. However, that would wear off very quickly. The Skeaton atmosphere was against romance and Paul was too lazy to be in love very long. Once or twice in the weeks before the wedding Grace's suspicions were aroused.
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