The next two months brought no outward change in the existence of Wolf and the various people of his life; but when August arrived, all manner of strange developments, long prepared for under the surface, began to manifest themselves.
The trend of these developments began for the first time to grow clear to Wolf himself on the occasion of a small garden-party given by Mrs. Otter in her little front-garden. He had exhausted a great deal of energy in an attempt to entangle his mother in a more or less harmonious conversation with Selena Gault; and it was with a queer feeling of triumph that he left these old antagonists drinking tea side by side, in their low chairs, on Mrs. Otter’s lawn, to cross the grass so that he might speak to Jason.
He came upon him in the back garden, in converse with old Dimity Stone, who fled precipitately into her kitchen at his approach.