he said to himself one evening
"After all," he said to himself one evening, as his eyeswandered, with somewhat of a convalescent’s simple joy, from oneto another of their large confiding faces, "after all, they’vegot a religion …." The phrase struck him, in the moment ofusing it, as indicating a new element in his own state of mind,and as being, in fact, the key to his new feeling about theHickses. Their muddled ardour for great things was related tohis own new view of the universe: the people who felt, howeverdimly, the wonder and weight of life must ever after be nearerto him than those to whom it was estimated solely by one’sbalance at the bank. He supposed, on reflexion, that that waswhat he meant when he thought of the Hickses as having "areligion" ….
A few days later, his well-being was unexpectedly disturbed bythe arrival of Fred Gillow. Lansing had always felt a tolerantliking for Gillow, a large smiling silent young man with anintense and serious desire to miss nothing attainable by one ofhis fortune and standing. What use he made of his experiences,Lansing, who had always gone into his own modest adventuresrather thoroughly, had never been able to guess; but he hadalways suspected the prodigal Fred of being no more than a well-disguised looker-on. Now for the first time he began to viewhim with another eye. The Gillows were, in fact, the one uneasypoint in Nick’s conscience. He and Susy from the first, hadtalked of them less than of any other members of their group:
they had tacitly avoided the name from the day on which Susy hadcome to Lansing’s lodgings to say that Ursula Gillow had askedher to renounce him, till that other day, just before theirmarriage, when she had met him with the rapturous cry: "Here’sour first wedding present! Such a thumping big cheque from Fredand Ursula!"Plenty of sympathizing people were ready, Lansing knew, to tellhim just what had happened in the interval between those twodates; but he had taken care not to ask. He had even affectedan initiation so complete that the friends who burned toenlighten him were discouraged by his so obviously knowing morethan they; and gradually he had worked himself around to theirview, and had taken it for granted that he really did.
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