For example, there were the Weekeses, three girls who lived with their mother in a house so artistic that you broke your head whichever way you turned in it.

The son of the family was a conscientious objector who had refused to do any sort of work whatever, and had got quodded for his pains.

They were immensely proud of him and used to relate his sufferings in Dartmoor with a gusto which I thought rather heartless.

Art was their great subject, and I am afraid they found me pretty heavy going.

It was their fashion never to admire anything that was obviously beautiful, like a sunset or a pretty woman, but to find surprising loveliness in things which I thought hideous.