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He had reached the Arden Gate. He turned for a last look, and there it was, its black mass raised above the mist against the stars. Clutching his brown bag, his legs apart, he stared at it, wondering whether, in full light of day, he would be disappointed in it. This wonder came freshly to him on every fresh occasion, for after all, what could this passion of his for cathedrals be but an illusion? One day—he expected it to come at any time—he would say to himself: 'Well, now—think of that—whatever did I see in the thing?' and he knew that, when that moment came, he would suffer some loss, the kind of loss that he would suffer were he never to see his black marble crucifix again. This sense of what he would lose led him to yet further appreciation: 'No, indeed—I am no ordinary man. The ordinary man cares nothing for cathedrals.'

Through Arden Gate he walked and started down the High Street. Now he must consider the Town, about which of course he knew nothing at all.

He could not, as a visitor returning after several years might do—Shade, thin bony Shade of Miss Midgeley, are you there?—wonder at the many improvements and possibly lament them—at the up-to-date splendours of the St. Leath Hotel; at the fine sprouting of red-brick villas up the hill above Orange Street; at the renovation of 'The Bull' with its bathrooms and handsome garage; at the parking-place off the Market; at the reclamation and renovation of Pennicent Street, that once abominable heart of Seatown, now Riverside Street; at the excellent and justly famous eighteen-hole golf course carved from part of the St. Leath domain—(the St. Leaths, poor things, no longer wealthy as once they were)—the two splendid cinemas, 'The Arden' and 'The Grand,' forgetting the little cheap one, 'The Majestic' (vulgarly known as 'The Dog'), down in Riverside Street.