Their friendship was founded on a mutual detachment.

It prospered exceedingly.
Maggie soon discovered that Mr.Magnus was very happy to sit in their house even though Aunt Anne was not present.

His attitude seemed to be that the atmosphere that she left behind her was enough for him and that he could not, in justice, expect any more.

Before Maggie's arrival he had had but a slender excuse for his continual presence.

He could not sit in the empty drawing-room surveying the large and ominous portrait of the Cardinal childhood, quite alone save for Thomas, without seeming a very considerable kind of fool.