'Of course it is. I think you're beautiful.'
'Oh, Matthew, do you? But you distract me. What I must say to you is this.'
For the moment, however, Margaret did not say what she must say, presumably because, in one quick movement, Lyall had thrown the bed-covers aside, altogether exposing her naked form. Her right hand flew to cover her crotch; her left forearm went across her breasts. Without touching her, without stirring, Lyall looked her in the eyes. Her head jerked away, then slowly came back till she could glance down at her own body. Another jerk, another return, this time to Lyall's face and away again. After a minute of this, she was looking straight back at him, eye to eye, and her arms were at her sides.
'I must make sure you are beautiful, all of you,' said Lyall. 'I may have spoken too lightly, out of nothing more than instinct... Well, if so, it was sound enough. You are entirely beautiful. But your most beautiful part... is here.'
He reached out and stroked her temple and cheek. She caught his hand, kissed it, and said in a shaky voice, 'Nobody has ever looked at me like that before.'
'You haven't allowed it?'
'No, just—nobody has ever looked at me.'
'I'm glad I was the first.'
'So am I.'
After putting back the covers and waiting for a moment, he said, 'Well?'
'Forgive me?'
'There was something you must say to me, I thought.'
'Oh. Oh yes. But it seems of less import now.'
'Since you were distracted from whatever it is by my telling you you were beautiful, you may forget it for ever and not ruffle me.'
'No. No, I must say. Here it is. Matthew, it may seem to you that all my talk of Hubert and the document was a pretext, and I called on you only to come to your bed.'
'That is not so.'
'No, it's not so, but do you believe it's not so?'
'I believe it.'
'Swear that you do. Swear by Almighty God.'
'I so swear,' said the priest, making the Sign of the Cross as he lay naked on his back. Nor was this a false oath: it was a quarter of an hour or more since he had discarded the view he had just denied. 'Now, is that better?'
'Half better. Only half better, because I must talk to you again of Hubert and the document; I must try again to persuade you to help me. And this may make you believe something different, but still bad. Matthew, I didn't come to your bed to make it harder for you not to be persuaded.'
Both manners and policy dictated his answer to that. 'No, Margaret, I'm sure you didn't.'
'Are you? Your voice isn't the same. This time you're thinking. You spoke without thought before. Now, you consider whether you've heard the truth or not. Isn't that so, Matthew?'
'Yes.' Lyall had indeed been thinking, to the effect that only a bold and devious woman would have ventured to raise openly the point about persuasion, let alone press it, and that Margaret Anvil was not bold and very likely was not devious either.
'Say, then.'
'I swear by Almighty God that I truly believe that you came to my bed out of no ulterior motive.'
She sighed but said nothing.
'Where's your persuasion?' he asked after a time.
'Here it is, now that you ask—to begin it at once would have been too vulgar. As Hubert's mother I have a duty to protect him, a duty laid on me by God and nature. But, in this world, what can a woman do? I must have a man by me who will-'
'You have a man. I'll help you, so far as I'm able. That may not be far, but there's something in the wording of that document which gives room for debate, and two years ago a friend of mine was in the Archbishop's directorate. I must discover if he's still there.'
'You said nothing of this before. All was hopeless.'
'That was before.'
'And now you see things differently.'
'Yes.'
This was broadly true. What he did not see differently was Hubert's interests: fame, money, position, divine favour and—hardly less important-ecclesiastical favour were surely a rather better than fair exchange for the sexual and parental functions: the one would in this case never be missed, and the other, to judge by the families one came across, brought no great joy to anybody. It was now clear, however, that the feelings of the boy's mother, reasonable or not, extravagantly expressed or not, were as near genuine as most feelings were. This and the fact that he was in bed with her had done something to Father Lyall's hitherto lukewarm, half-whimsical desire to flout the Abbot and what stood behind the Abbot.
'When I...' Margaret stopped and tried again. 'You said it was love then. You remember.'
