162
PAR TIS A N R'EV lEW
now for the first time that a little cup of violets stood on the plaster
ledge at her feet, Richard was sure who had searched them out
among the wet dead leaves to honor that place. He looked at Claude
again, particularly at the tilted curly back of the head and at the
abandoned angle of the brightened jaw, and thought, He may really
mean it, he may not even know it but I bet he does, I bet he knows
it makes a picture and I bet he got it from some picture of some
saint or other. But if he did really mean it, and no longer knew he was
doing it, then it was not fair to blame
him.
He was probably thinking about his mother.
It
seemed a [ong
time ago he had lost his mother to keep on making so much fuss about
it but maybe he took things harder than most people..Richard sud–
denly felt deeply ashamed of himself in case Claude really was
grieving and praying for his dead mother, and he began to feel
pity for her and for Claude as well, but then he remembered Claude's
voice, which sounded more girlish than a girl's even though it had
changed, reciting to him the Litany of the Blessed Virgin in impas–
sioned sugary tones; 0 most clement 0 most holy 0 most sweet
Virgin Mary; something of that sort and a lot more besides. He
had felt uneasy about the whole thing and at the instant that Claude
brought such juicy emphasis to the words
mosst sweeett,
with such
meticulousness about both t's, and pronouncing
most
like
moused,
Richard had decided that he definitely disliked the whole prayer; and
looking at Claude now, he disliked it even more thoroughly, and he
decided that even
if
Claude was genuine now in his praying, he did
not trust that kind of praying. He remembered
his
mother's gossiping
about Claude once, his desire that the School should put lace borders
on the cottas and his special attentions to the Blessed Virgin, and
saying impatiently, "Well what I can't see is, why doesn't he just–
go on over to Rome!"
But now remembering the scorn and impatience which had been
in her voice, and still watching Claude, with the long hair of the
back of his head like a shabby chrysanthemum, tilted about the
weak neck, he ,felt that Claude was pitiful, and that it was careless
and cruel to think of
him
contemptuously, and as shameful to be
watching
him
in this way, so unaware that he waslbeing watched, or
that he might look in the least silly, so defenseless, as it would
be
to peer at
him
through a keyhole. How do
I
know, he thought; he's
