At last he listened and was a little soothed.

It appeared that Santa Claus was one you might believe in or might not.

Even Clytie seemed to be puzzled about him.

He could see that she overflowed with belief in him, yet he could not make her confess it in plain straight words.

The meat of it was that good children found things on Christmas morning which must have been left by some one--if not by Santa Claus, then by whom?
Did the little boy believe, for example, that Milo Barrus did it?
He was the village atheist, and so bad a man that he loved to spell God with a little g.
He mused upon this while his tears dried, finding it plausible.