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most pure emotion he had ever known.
    Then he felt guilty that he could not feel so fine and pure a love for Maurice.

CHAPTER 4
    â€œS HE likes us.”
    â€œOf course she likes us, you oaf. Goes out of her way to meet up with us, asks us to tea . . . It was good, that tea.”
    The boys had needed a couple of days to assimilate their first independent social occasion. Bicycling had precluded talking on the way home, and when they had got there they had walked in on a domestic row—or rather on their father shouting at their mother, and their mother looking as if she were a thousand miles away, examining some recherché fragment of Greek statuary, perhaps, or some intricate Byzantine mosaic. It has struck Ted suddenly at that moment that he hardly recognised his own mother.
    Now, the Monday evening, when they were up in Ted’s bedroom supposedly doing their English homework, they could talk about the experience because they had both thoroughly digested it. Ted, the elder, was a confident, sturdy boy, with a lock of dark brown hair falling over one eye. He should have been the one who could best understand the nature of the bond Lydia had begun to forge between herself and them, but in fact this was an emotional area in which he felt uncertain. Perhaps this was because the bonds between the Bellingham boys and their own parents were ill-defined: semi-detached love from their mother, a hectoring, blundering concern from their father. Colin, slighter but handsomer, with a charm of which he sometimes revealed that he was aware, seemed to accept Lydia more whole-heartedly.
    â€œShe’s very intelligent,” he said now.
    â€œYes . . . She’s more than that. A teacher can be intelligent. Lydia’s an intellectual.”
    â€œWhat’s the difference?”
    â€œWell, it’s like more so. I mean, an intellectual lives by his brain. His whole life is in the mind. He’s always thinking.”
    â€œI don’t think her whole life is in the mind. Otherwise she wouldn’t be so interested in us.”
    â€œI don’t mean it literally, daftie.” Ted thought for a few moments. “She talks a lot about her nephews.”
    They both sat thinking about that for a time. The thought that they were in some way substitutes was both obvious yet difficult to put into words.
    â€œAt least she does take an interest,” said Colin.
    â€œYes. It makes a change. . . . Though Dad’s interested, I suppose.”
    â€œDo you think so? When he’s around he sometimes shouts at us. I suppose you could call that an interest.”
    â€œMum used to be interested. . . . I’m worried about Mum.”
    â€œYes. Something’s happened to her. She’s just switched off . . . Do you like her? Lydia, I mean.”
    Ted considered. He was a considering boy.
    â€œYes. Yes, I do. She’s interesting. Out of the ordinary. She doesn’t say the sort of things ordinary people say. And she doesn’t talk down to us.”
    â€œShe makes you think,” agreed Colin. “Makes you see things from a different angle. . . . In a way it’s flattering.”
    â€œFlattering?”
    â€œThat she seems so interested in us. It makes you think you’re not so ordinary after all.”
    â€œYou never did think you were ordinary,” pointed out Ted, who knew his brother better than anyone. “You’ve got a very high opinion of yourself.” He thought. “You know, I do wonder whether she’d be as interested if we were both girls.”
    They thought about this.
    â€œI rather don’t think she would.”
    â€œDon’t let her hear you come out with a sentence like that!” They both laughed. They could still look at Lydia with objectivity. “She has standards. That’s rather good in a way. She . . . she has expectations of us.”
    â€œThat’s all very