Vicar, Shine, the little servant-girl, whose heads are all spinning with galaxies of Angels.…"
"But," said the Angel. "Face your world! I tell you I can't. And leave Delia! I don't understand.… I do not know how to set about getting Work and Food and Shelter. And I am growing afraid of human beings…"
"Fancies, fancies," said Crump, watching him, "mania."
"It's no good my persisting in worrying you," he said suddenly, "but certainly the situation is impossible as it stands." He stood up with a jerk.
"Good morning, Mr.—Angel," he said, "the long and the short of it is—I say it as the medical adviser of this parish—you are an unhealthy influence. We can't have you. You must go."
He turned, and went striding through the grass towards the roadway, leaving the Angel sitting disconsolately on the tree trunk. "An unhealthy influence," said the Angel slowly, staring blankly in front of him, and trying to realise what it meant.
§ 42
Sir John Gotch was a little man with scrubby hair, a small, thin nose sticking out of a face crackled with wrinkles, tight brown gaiters, and a riding-whip. "I've come, you see," he said, as Mrs. Hinijer closed the door.
"Thank you," said the Vicar, "I'm obliged to you. I'm really obliged to you."
249
