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Matthew said with a sly look at his friend.
    George flushed. “No more so than anyone else.”
    “Nonsense! I’m sure you must have the ladies throwing themselves at your feet. You’ve got just the coloring for it. Dark hair, pale skin, that air of mystery about you—”
    “There’s absolutely nothing mysterious about me!” George broke in a little more abruptly than was perhaps polite. “And anyway,” he added in an attempt to deflect Matthew’s interest, “if you were in the room nobody would even give me a second look.”
    “What rot!” Matthew said, laughing. “Contrary to what you may think, I do look in the mirror from time to time. It’s rather hard to shave if one doesn’t.”
     
     
    B OTH of their offices taking a half day on Christmas Eve, George and Matthew set off for Surrey soon after lunch, waiting only for Matthew to say an excessively fond farewell to Marmaduke and extort a promise from Mrs. Mac to feed him a prime cut of goose for his Christmas dinner. They travelled to Matthew’s family home by train, a journey of a little under two hours, including changes. Fortunately for them, as they waited on draughty station platforms, the weather had, with a perversity all too familiar to residents of the British Isles, turned unseasonably mild. The snows of a fortnight ago seemed now a distant memory.
    “It’s a bit of a shame Christmas wasn’t two weeks ago,” Matthew commented wistfully. He’d managed to bag the two window seats for them on the final leg of their journey, and they were now watching the countryside as it flashed past in dull shades of green and brown rather than sparkling white.
    “Yes, but on the other hand, at least the trains have been on time!” George countered. “I’ll take a swift, trouble-free journey over being stranded in the snow any day, be it ever so picturesque!”
    “True enough!” Matthew laughed. “It would have been an awful bore being stuck in London for Christmas.” Obviously delighted at the prospect of seeing his family again, he chattered away excitedly, telling George all about his younger brothers and sister, his mother’s passion for Good Works, and his father’s for obscure theological texts. “And, ah, George?” he said hesitantly, laying a hand on his friend’s knee that sent a warmth coursing throughout George’s body. “I’ve written to Mother and told her you don’t like to talk about the war, so you needn’t worry about anyone bringing all that up.”
    George felt rather overcome by Matthew’s kindness—he’d in fact been worrying about that a good deal. “That’s very decent of you,” he said inadequately.
    “Not at all. I don’t suppose anyone will want to talk about that sort of thing in any case—Christmas is a time for being happy, not sad.” Matthew was silent a moment. “I’m so glad you’re coming down with me.”
    “I—well, thank you for inviting me,” George said. He was painfully conscious of Matthew’s hand still resting on his knee but simultaneously aware that his friend could mean nothing by it. They were in a carriage full of people, for Heaven’s sake! Still, he felt a wrenching sense of loss when, after a moment, Matthew withdrew.
     
     
    T HE rectory, when they finally reached it by taxi from the station, was an imposing old building set in a large garden. It all looked exceedingly well kept up, suggesting the Reverend Connaught was not quite the poor country parson George had been expecting. Any questions as to whether Matthew’s father depended entirely on the Church for his income would, however, have been fearfully impolite, so George could only conjecture.
    As so often, Matthew appeared to read his friend’s mind. “Father was the only son, so by rights he shouldn’t have gone into the Church at all. But the old man has a genuine vocation for it, so my grandfather relented in the end. Father’s always encouraged my brothers and me to make our own way in the world and not rely