His mind went back again to that first encounter; to himself, a boy, looking down from the boat-house window on to those four, those sunflower heads. Then and later he had found unreasonable beauty in them – a harvest of beauty which looked to be cut down. Unreasonable beauty joined with the calm and confident exercise of unreasonable power.

I hated them, he thought dispassionately. I always hated. There was never any love to be supplanted; no more than envy and fascination. The only one I did not hate was Diana, because she was the weakest of the four. And the one I hated most was John, because in him, more than any, beauty and power went hand in hand.

There were no regrets. A four-branched flowering tree; three of the branches had been cut down, and the fourth lay bruised and broken on this unfriendly ground. Now he rested his axe.