“No, Stephen, we’ll forget all that⁠ ⁠… you’re not to do anything.⁠ ⁠… It’s a bit trying, but I can stand it. I don’t want to upset things any more now.⁠ ⁠… Margery and you⁠ ⁠… a fresh start, you know.⁠ ⁠… Good night.” And he was gone.

Stephen went slowly upstairs, astonished and ashamed, with a confused sense of humiliation and relief. And while he felt penitent and mean in the face of this magnanimity of John’s, he could not avoid a certain conceited contentment with the wisdom and success of his planning.

Yes, it was very satisfactory. And now he could get on with the poem about “Chivalry.” He sat down at his table and pulled out the scribbled muddle of manuscript. But he wrote no word that night. He sat for a long time staring at the paper, thinking of the chivalry of John Egerton. And it brought no inspiration.