Chapter V

(i)

SOMETHING of the same Despair that had visited Algy on a previous occasion, fell upon us three as we approached Crowston, In the train we had been comparatively cheerful, and had decided upon our plan of action. It would be best, we agreed, that Chris should do most of the talking; he was so very Lay, that it seemed probable he would be more effective with the country gentleman than avowed priests could ever be-; and Chris had sketched generally what he proposed to say, and at what points we should support him.

I said one word to him on recent events. " You have heard about Esher? "

He nodded.

But from the moment we entered the motor, even Chris became a little depressed; and by the time that we were spinning through the park he sat silent altogether. For a well-padded motor and an English park are perhaps, above all else, the two things most calculated to induce a materialistic frame of mind. They are so supremely comfortable, so adequate to lower needs, so entirely representative of imagination fettered to the requirements of the body. How hardly shall they who have motors and parks —! Past Dick's rather large head I saw woods and bracken slip noiselessly by, and I knew that every branch was, so to speak, named and numbered. I saw a few anxious rabbits see-sawing back to their holes in the autumn light and knew that these too were the private possession of the man we were coming to see — his little incarnate interests. And the errand on which we came was to the effect that his son proposed to relinquish all rights to these things and all that they stood for and to devote himself to praising God. It was grotesque.

I gained a certain consolation from Chris's presence beside me. Though he was silent I knew that there was in him no thought of wavering. To a stranger nothing could appear more completely secular and conventional than this trim, well-dressed man, with his little pointed beard, and well-blacked boots, and trousers with a crease down the front; and yet I, who had known him now for ten years, understood that beneath that exterior lay what was perhaps the most remarkable character of my acquaintance — a man who looked on the world from an angle that very few persons have reached. It reassured me to feel him there.

The house was one more weight upon my soul. It was so very large and square and heavy. Through the dining-room windows I caught a glimpse of a table laid with linen and silver, gleaming and dancing in the rich firelight. Above rose the tiers of windows, very Grecian and solid. Then, as the motor slackened and stopped, there was the porch and a stout butler....

We took off our coats in the silent and leisurely hall. There were horns all round it, and pikes above the line of wigged and bejewelled portraits. And there a large wood fire burned in the chimney. As I followed Dick through a baize door on the left, I heard another door open behind me, and, turning, caught a glimpse of a girl's face. But I was not absolutely certain who she was. We went on through the ante-room, and found ourselves in the library.

"Mr. Banister will be with you immediately, sir," said the butler.

This room was really the climax of all. It had a high fine ceiling, heavily corniced. Between the three windows stood two tall book-cases, grated with brass wire. It was plain that they were never opened; and it was those that gave the room the dignity of a library. I conjectured to myself that they contained volumes of early Victorian divinity and travel. (Algy, a little later, informed me with genial laughter that I was right.) The rest of the room was furnished with sporting engravings heavily framed, low, leather-fringed book-cases ill filled with bound numbers of magazines and the series called " Badminton," gun-cases, mahogany tables and chairs, and large metal boxes. The Turkey carpet was deep and noiseless. A sober red fire seemed to meditate to itself in the hearth beyond the brass fender, and a couple of green-shaded lamps stood upon tables, though the sun was not yet gone down.

I am a strong believer in the significance of rooms; and this, in which I found myself, corroborated exactly all that I knew of Algy's father. The motor, the park, the Corinthian porch, and the two rooms through which we had passed had been like a crescendo of music leading to this climax; and I found the climax worthy of its introduction.

Dick was looking at a photograph on the yellow marble mantelpiece, with that furtive eagerness that we all show in a strange house.

" Theo," he said.

I went and looked at it too. Yes, it was surely Theo. It was a stoutish young man in a militia uniform with a smooth, childish face on which there was less expression than is conceivable on a human countenance. It was the face of a perfectly contented animal. He held his sword trappings gathered up in his left hand. There is really no more to be said about it. Yet it fascinated me.

It seemed to me extraordinarily pathetic. Here was the model son, deceased, the pattern of what this old man wished his sons to be; and here were we, three Papists, come to announce that another of his sons, the successor of this militia young man, who should have followed in his brother's square-planted footsteps, intended to take up a life that would appear to his father as nothing else than one of wicked insanity. And yet we were quite certain... and so was he....

Chris was standing a little apart from us, upon the hearthrug, a reassuring figure enough to a secularly minded man; yet it was from his lips that the cruel news was to fall. He was staring down now into the fire, self-contained and thoughtful. He looked up suddenly.

" Remember, Dick, you begin. Then bring me in, and I'll take it up."

" You'll do as you said in the train? " I asked.

" Of course. I shan't meet him on the lower ground until he's had his chance."

And so we waited.

Again and again I tried to represent to my own imagination what would be likely to pass through the mind of the old man; and again and again I failed. I could conjecture nothing except blind revolt and bewilderment. I understood perfectly how he would loathe it — why every arrangement my eyes fell upon in the room told me that. He would honestly believe that his son was about to degrade himself below the level of a man, that he proposed, in his wild insanity, to practise a self-mutilation with regard to all for which he was created and endowed more fantastic and far more inexcusable than the morbidities of a pagan. That a Banister should become a Catholic was a heavy enough blow, that he should become a priest was worse, that he should become a Contemplative monk was intolerable.

I will not deny that once and again in those moments of waiting the bitter doubt surged up as to whether we were not all wrong together, as to whether it were not Algy's place after all to remain here, to shoot birds, to marry a wife, to beget children and to put on weight; but I am pleased to think, looking back on it all, that I treated the thought as the faithlessness that it was. For I remembered our conversations, Algy's revelations of himself, the incidents that took place at St. Hugh's, at Amplefield and elsewhere — above all that amazing little incident at Esher, when, for the first time in his life a man's passion had rushed upon him, fully armed, and he had vanquished it. There was no question that he had vanquished it; his recovery in Dick's presence, like the recoil of a spring, his sane, steady, ardent letter to me three weeks later. — Why, the thing was plain. He had met his adversary once, face to face; and the rest of his life was to be a deliberate conflict, I thought of all these things — in fact, of all that strange and mystical process of events by which a soul climbs to the light, that history of an inner life at the time as bewildering as a jumbled puzzle, afterwards as convincing as the same puzzle set in order.

There was a vibration somewhere; then a heavy footstep on the strip of uncarpeted board outside the door. Then the handle turned, and a tall old man, in a dark Norfolk suit, came forward into the room.

Hostility is as indefinable as love, and as unmistakable; and here was hostility in every line and feature.

Oh! he was courteous; he made a little stiff bow to each of us, though he did not take our hands; he saw us seated, before he took his own place in the chair to the right of the fire — the chair, no doubt, from which he conducted all his less formal business; he said a few proper words as to the inclemency of the day and his hopes as to our comfort coming up; he even thanked us (though hostility blazed again beneath his courteous words) for the interest we took in his son and for the trouble to which we were putting ourselves on his behalf. It was an admirable display of the suspicious Englishman dominated by the gentleman; and the fatuous well-bred dignity of it all brought a lump to my throat.

" I understand, gentlemen, that you have news to give me of my son? "

"It is very kind of you to receive us, sir," began Dick; but the old man waved that away.

" I could do nothing else," he said. " I shall be very much obliged "

" It was I who received him into the Church, I must tell you," went on Dick a little hurriedly. "I don't at all want to conceal that."

The hostility in the other's arching eyes seemed to concentrate itself into two gleaming points; and I saw his lips tighten beneath his grey moustache.

" But it is Mr. Dell here," continued Dick, " who has had most to do with him since."

Mr. Banister made the faintest inclination towards Chris. Chris lifted his chin from his hand; he was sitting directly opposite our host, with us two priests between.

' You won't think me impudent, I hope," he said in his distinct well-bred voice, " if I tell you how fond

I am of him, and what a fine " He broke off suddenly. " Well, this is not the point. Here is our news in a sentence. Your son has asked us to tell you that he wishes to go into a monastery."

There fell an absolute silence. I had no idea that Chris meant to bring it out like that, and I do not think that he had so meant, until that moment. I looked at him nervously; he was sitting bolt upright, his chin a little tilted; and there was not in his appearance the faintest sign of that inexplicable shame in which I myself struggled. Dick drew a long breath, and remained still, staring at the hearthrug. Mr. Banister, too, remained still, petrified.

Chris's voice went on; it had a strange little ring in it.

" I have no doubt this sounds horrible to you, sir. I am very sorry for that; but I cannot help it. May I say a word or two before telling you what it all means? "

There was no answer or movement. Chris went on immediately.

" Please remember this, Mr. Banister, though I am afraid it may not be of much comfort. These gentle-men here asked me to speak in their name — I am a layman, you see.... Well, please remember that though in the opinion of Englishmen, at the present time, to become a monk means to become a fool, if not a knave, it was not always so; nor is it so considered in other countries by those who have kept what was once the Faith of all Christendom.... I know you think them all terribly mistaken; but I ask you to make allowances, and to remember that Christians who think as you do, are in a very considerable minority, even at the present day. There is not one good Catholic "

He broke off suddenly, eyeing the old man. We were in the thick of it, with a vengeance.

Mr. Banister had moved in his seat. As I remember now the look on his face, I think I may say that I have never in my life seen such an admirable example of self-control. There was loathing there — such a loathing as that with which a man looks upon a piece of mean treachery or a disgusting outrage — there was anger fierce as fire, and there was torturing bewilderment; and yet these three passions were held down and restrained by that slender thing which we call breeding. His face worked a little; but he was master of himself; and though his voice shook, it was neither broken nor passionate.

" Tell me what it means, sir."

Chris, without moving a muscle, raised his voice a little, not to the note of defiance, but to what I may call a proclamatory tone. His words may be considered by some bad form; but I did not find them so.

" It means this, Mr. Banister — that your son has been called by God, if we are right, to the highest position that a human soul can reach on earth; that he has been called, as our Saviour said, to forsake father and mother and lands and wife and children, and to become a crucified disciple of a crucified Lord.... Yes, you dispute all that; I know it. I do not ask you to believe it. But we do ask you to believe that your son believes it. That is something to be proud of, surely! You would be proud of your son if he died for his country. I ask you to be proud of him for even wishing to die for God. You would be proud even if he died for a mistake; so long as he did so willingly and gallantly. Of course you would be grieved, as you are grieved now; but there is something stronger than grief.... Even if all this was a mistake too, if we were all wrong in our religion and you were right — well, even then you should be proud."

Chris was splendid. I shook to hear him. When I looked again for an instant at the father, I was shocked at the change in his face; and yet still there was. nothing but to admire. But his ruddy colour had turned almost to ashes; and the lines were terribly deep. He swallowed once in his throat.

" Tell me what it means," he said again, in that trembling voice.

" I have told you, sir; it means that your son says good-bye to the world as he knows it; that he leaves everything except God; that he gives himself up to prayer. He will not be a preacher, though he will be a priest. There will be nothing at all for you to be proud of in him, in the ordinary way. The world will never hear of him again, even when he dies. But it is for what comes after death that he will do all this.... Of course we may be wrong; it may be a mistake that he is making in attempting this life at all; in that case he will not live it. But we do not think that it is; that is why I have spoken so plainly. These two priests, as well as one or two others who have been consulted, are confident that he is right."

Mr. Banister moved a little in his red-leather chair; he put one gaitered foot over the other. Then he struck the first regrettable note.

" I suppose you will say, sir, that he has not been persuaded."

Chris flashed back like a rapier.

" On the contrary, I say that he has to a large extent. Personally I have done my utmost — as soon as I saw what was in his mind."

Mr. Banister uttered a little sound. The answer took him plainly by surprise; and it was then that I saw clearly that Chris's appeal had failed. I suppose it meant nothing to him at all; it was the talk of a Catholic — that was all — to be put aside like any other professional jargon. Chris saw it too,' for his teeth closed, and a little hollow came out at the cheek nearest to me; his eyes were bright as sparks. But he made another effort.

" Mr. Banister, I beg of you not to misunderstand us. Would not you yourself try to persuade your son to do what you thought right, if you saw him hesitating? Surely you have done so already! I cannot imagine your not having done so. In that sense, and in that sense only have we — have I tried to persuade him.... May I tell you again what we are asking? It is this. We do not ask you to believe that your son is right, but only that he is sincere. He will come down here the moment you ask him.... We can take back a letter this evening, if you wish, and he will be with you to-morrow. He will remain here as long as you like, to talk things over. I am quite sure that if you will tell him all that is in your mind, he will tell you all that is in his; and I am quite sure, too, that you will find him entirely sincere. Please bear in mind that he has nothing in the world to gain by doing what he intends — in fact, everything to lose."

The old man's head had sunk forward a little on his neck. I could see that Chris had made no impression at all. There was an uncomfortable suggestiveness in his look. He was more master of himself than ever; but it was what theologians call a vitiosa victoria... he had conquered one passion by another.

When Chris ended there was a little silence. I counted seven ticks on the delicate black marble clock on the mantelpiece. Then Mr. Banister began to speak.

" You have said what you have to say, Mr.... Mr. Dell; I have heard everything. Now I must speak. The boy wants to become a monk.... I... I had feared that.... I was almost prepared to hear that. When he became a... a Catholic I feared that.... And now you must let me speak."

His lips mumbled together a little; and I began to prepare myself for a storm, I saw that he had been able to restrain himself up to now, partly because the shock was so severe. Now he had had time to recover; and we should have news of it. Then it burst out.

" I...1 can find no words to use strong enough, gentlemen. I could not have believed it! I have often heard that Catholics did such things; but I have never come across a case before...." (He was upright again now in his chair; and his eyes blazed.) " Here you three gentlemen, all middle-aged and experienced, have set yourselves to persuade my boy to become a monk,.. you have talked him round... of course you have; you tell me so yourselves. You have not become monks yourselves... no, no; all that fine life which you say I ought to be proud of for my boy's sake, that is not for you. But instead you have set yourselves to talk my boy over. He's the eldest son... you know that... you know all about the entail, I'll be bound. Can you look me in the face, gentlemen, and say that you do not? "

He paused an instant.

" We know all about the entail, Mr. Banister," came Chris's level voice.

ft Yes, you know all about that," retorted Mr. Banister, " and so you have set yourselves to persuade my boy to become a monk." (His voice rose higher; he gripped the arms of his chair.) " Now I tell you this, gentlemen; and you may take it from me. I do not mind saying these things to you even though you are my guests for a time. You must take the consequences of coming at all on such an errand. It is this that I have to say. You shall not have what you want. It shall be stopped if there is justice in England, I shall write to my solicitors. All England shall hear of it. There shall be questions asked in the Houses of Parliament. Things like this are not so easily done nowadays. And as for you, gentlemen, who have tried to work this trick, I have no words that I can use. You have come down here trying to get me to take it quietly! Well, I will not take it quietly. It is an outrage. You have my answer, gentlemen. If you have no more to say, I will ask you to leave my house."

He sprang to his feet and stood there, a fine stalwart old man, a monument of splendid wrath and straightforwardness. And yet, though I shook with anger myself, I saw the pathos of the thing. It was so gallant and so stupid. I wondered whether we had been right in approaching him like this at all. Five minutes hence!

Then Chris's voice broke in again, level and low.

" May I ask you to give us a few minutes more, Mr. Banister? We have not nearly done yet."

" I see no need."

" We have more to say, sir. A great deal more. Please sit down again, if you will be so kind."

The old man did not move.

I looked across at Chris. He too was as pale as ashes now; it was as if he were the culprit; and yet his voice was completely under his control. I looked at Dick; and there I saw a model of depressed patience; he was still staring moodily at the hearthrug; but I could see that he was meditating a remark. Then out it came, abruptly.

" You have said some very sharp things, Mr. Banister. It is only right that you should hear what we have to say in our defence." (His voice suddenly became peremptory.) " May we ask you once more to sit down? "

Mr. Banister sat down.

" Now, Chris," said Dick.

Chris drew a slow breath; lifted his eyes once to the old man's face, then fixed them on the fire and began again.

" First," he said, "as to your remark about our not being monks. I am afraid I shall never make you believe that we are sincere in the lives we live, and that all of us would be monks if we thought Almighty God desired it. Perhaps it may make some difference to your opinion if I tell you that I myself have done my best to be one — that I lived the life for eight months...." He paused to let that sink in; then he added; "I only left then because I was told I had no — that I should never be happy there. However, it isn't our point now to justify ourselves."

Chris leaned back; and I saw that the old man was watching him, though he said nothing.

" Now as to your second point," went on Chris; " let us get that quite clear. I understand that you think that, in accordance with our reputation, we have overpersuaded your son to become a monk, in order to get this property into our hands, that we knew all about the entail and so on, and have hoped that the Church would finally get at any rate the greater part of your property, in the event of your death. Is that right? "

He glanced up; as Mr. Banister nodded curtly.

" Now I am extraordinarily sorry you thought that. It is rather — er — elementary. Frankly, I hoped you wouldn't at any rate say so outright without proof.... Well, I was wrong. It only remains for me to put you right."

. Chris deliberately unbuttoned his coat and drew out of his breast-pocket a letter; then, still holding it, he went on.

" Here is a letter your son gave to me to give to you, if by any chance you did make that accusation. I will leave it with you when I go. But I will tell you the purport of it now. It is this. Your son renounces all claim to the property, in the event of his becoming professed as a monk; he states in this letter his willingness to sign any legal documents that may be necessary for that end; he suggests to you that you should make over to him an annuity until his death of one hundred and twenty pounds a year, so that he shall not be an actual burden upon his brethren in Religion; but he leaves that entirely to you. Should you decline to do this, my friend here, Monsignor Yolland, who is a man of considerable wealth, has undertaken to pay your Y 321 son that annuity himself.... I think, Mr. Banister, if you will kindly consider these points, you will think it only right to withdraw the accusation you have just made."

Then Chris leaned forward and delivered his last thrust with extreme deliberation, pausing between his sentences.

" Please understand what this means.... It means that this place will remain in Protestant hands— in your younger son's hands, instead of in Catholic hands.... Do you not think that a good arrangement, Mr. Banister, from your point of view? "

Still without looking at the old man, Chris rose out of his chair high enough to prop the letter on the mantelpiece, and sat down again. Then I, too, looked at Mr. Banister.

I do not think I have ever seen a man more astonished. The hostility was still in his face, but it was blended with amazement. His old lips were parted, and he was staring straight at Chris. I once saw a man fall heavily off a bicycle, and as I ran to pick him up he looked at me with just that expression. I do not believe that even now Mr. Banister understood all that was implied; he only perceived that somehow the tables were turned. But he said nothing.

Chris, after one look, had dropped his eyes again. Then he went on quietly.

" Think over it a little, sir. I do not believe you will be hard upon your son when you see what all this means. It will be just as if he had died. I don't know how these things are arranged; perhaps a deed of gift will be necessary — or whatever it is called. In any case, as I say, it will be as if he had died. Your younger son, of whom he has told me, will inherit everything. It will be a few years before the final profession takes place in any case; so that there is no hurry. All your son asks of you now is leave to come down here again for a month or so until his reception can be arranged, to... to say good-bye. The Prior of the Carthusians — which is the Order your son wishes to enter — has consented, provisionally, to receive him soon after Christmas. I may say he has the highest opinion of your son."

Chris was talking on, I could see, rather more verbosely than was necessary, in order to let the other have time to take in the situation. Already the old man was beginning to do so; he shifted his position a little; he passed his hand over his mouth once or twice. Then he spoke; and his voice shook.

" This... all this... makes a difference, gentle-men.... I... I do not think I quite understand.... You... you must give me time...."

"Of course," said Chris genially: "I was afraid the whole thing would be a shock. But you will understand presently. May I just tell you again? "

Once more, quite slowly and deliberately, Chris enumerated the points of Algy's letter; and once more he explained that all claim to the property was to be given up, that the question of the annuity was left entirely to Mr. Banister's discretion, and that Harold would inherit.

I could see the old man almost step by step reconstructing his ideas. He showed it by his face and movements. His features resettled themselves; his lips moved a little in a kind of nervousness; and the hostility, though not the suspicion, began to die out of his face. Once he made a motion towards the letter that rested, conspicuously white, at the foot of a bronze nymph upon the mantelpiece; and, as Chris half rose to give it him, he motioned him back once more. When Chris finished, the other was himself again.

" I... I thank you very much, Mr. Dell. It is all very bewildering still to me. But... but I think it is clear enough. I understand you to say that there is to be no claim upon the property at all? "

" Just so."

" Then... then, gentlemen, I must confess I was wrong in my suspicions... I... beg to express my regret for what I said.... And... and my younger son will inherit? "

" Exactly."

Mr. Banister stood up; and we rose with him. He took the letter from the mantelpiece. His hand shook violently.

" This is all very surprising to me, gentlemen. Of course — of course there will be no trouble about the annuity.... But... but you must give me a little time.... I must talk with my wife. She will be very much grieved, of course, as I am myself, at your news; but I must confess that all this makes a considerable difference.... Will you excuse me, gentlemen, for a few minutes? I will speak with her now...." He glanced at the clock. " You have still an hour, I think. Will you excuse me? " He hurried from the room.

(n)

The victory was won; that was certain. And yet I was conscious of a disagreeable sensation. It may sound priggish to say so, and yet it is a fact that one is always rather disappointed when a human being takes with alacrity a lower ground than he need. This Mr. Banister had emphatically done. If he had continued to insult us I should have wondered less. But his change from righteous indignation to incoherent complacency was an unpleasant argument on the cynic's side. It seemed that the property was what mattered — nothing else.

" I told you so," I said, rather gloomily to Chris.

Chris smiled pleasantly.

" My dear man, you were quite right and I was wrong. He had his chance, though, didn't he? "

" Oh! certainly he had his chance."

" I think it's a beastly shame," said Dick. " The whole thing took him by surprise."

Chris smiled again.

" Oh! I've no doubt he'd have been able to arrange 325 his emotions better if he'd had time; but Well, it doesn't matter."

" He'll give Algy a good send-off," I said rather drearily.

As we stood waiting there for the old man's return, once more I began to meditate. I saw very plainly what would happen. Opposition was dead; that is to say real opposition; though, of course, it was plain that the whole thing was not exactly to Mr. Banister's mind. But I saw that there would be no more real trouble. Algy would come down here in a few days; his father would meet him with chastened affection, would treat him as a spiritual invalid who needed humouring, and would despatch him at last, sufficiently cheerfully, to St. Hugh's. Then he would settle down again to what was to him the real business of life, to which all other considerations were secondary, to the cultivation of the Banister Family and Estate. Dear me! What a deal of Conventionalism there was in the world!

I looked at Dick.

"Well? "I said.

Dick groaned softly.

" Yes; and now for the girl," he said.

I had completely forgotten Miss Maple. Then I remembered the girl's face I had seen for one instant look through the hall-door.

" And she's here? " I said. " You're certain? "

He nodded.

That set me off again; and I sat down this time to consider myself, watching Dick fingering Theo's photograph, and Chris, his head in his hands, leaning forward as his manner was, over the mantelpiece. We looked singularly unlike victors, I thought. Then, as I still meditated, there came the footsteps again, and the old man came in, grave, yet with suppressed radiance in his face.

" My wife thinks as I do," he said abruptly, " though it is a great shock, of course. But she would like to see you, gentlemen. Will you come this way? "

We rose and went after him. We passed through the ante-room, hearing as we did so the clink of tea-things from the hall opposite, and then turned aside through another door which the old man held open for us; and I, at any rate, as I came through, saw that something was going to happen.

It was that same room in which Algy had made his announcement a few months ago; but it was shuttered now and curtained. An ample woman sat upon the sofa opposite, beside the fire, with Algy's letter open in her lap, and behind her stood a girl; and, after one glance at the old lady I saw that it was not in her that the storm centre lay; though, during the following interview, I kept my eyes chiefly upon Mrs. Banister, yet my whole attention was given to the other.

How hard it is to describe an interior crisis which one witnesses in another person! Let me first give an account of Miss Maple, as I saw her now for the first time. I need not say that Dick's swiftly indrawn breath behind me as he set eyes on her was not necessary for telling me who she was.

She was tallish and of an excellent figure, rounded and very upright, carrying her head superbly; she was in some softly brown dress with lace at throat and wrists; her hair was abundant and of a fine brown-gold. Her face I despair of describing; it was as a set mask; the features were good, with resolute eyes and mouth. There she stood for an instant; then she sat down abruptly still behind the sofa, leaning one arm on the table, yet in such a way that her face was still visible in the soft lamplight. She kept her eyes for the most part on Dick, though she glanced two or three times at Chris and myself. There were no introductions beyond a hasty enumeration of our names; Mr. Banister was too much excited for more.

Then he took up his position on the hearthrug, we sat down opposite his wife.

Now for the conversation that took place. Indeed I can hardly remember it; Algy was no longer the point of interest for me. Briefly, I remember, Mr. Banister touched on our message, and asked Chris to repeat himself. This he did; I remember hearing the arguments enumerated, the description of Algy's resolution, his proposals, and the general result that Crowston would pass to Harold. Mrs. Banister gave utterance to little sounds now and again. This went on, with question and answer, for, I suppose, about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.

But the real point, as I have said, lay in the girl behind the sofa. It is simply impossible to say how I knew what I knew; it was enough that I knew it; and, as I learned afterwards, Dick and Chris knew it also. The marvel was that the excited old couple did not; for the girl's atmosphere was as eloquent as a speech. There are deafnesses other than physical.

For this atmosphere dominated everything for me. Miss Maple's personality must be an unusually strong one, for I do not think that one of us three for the time that we were in that room considered Algy more than a secondary figure in the situation; his intentions and actions seemed, to me at least, only of interest so far as they affected this girl. As for the parents, they became simply nonentities. How can I express this?... It was as when Duse comes on the stage.

The whole thing became horrible. I remembered that I had doubted as to whether she loved Algy, and I wondered at myself. Other things, no doubt, conspired to give driving-force to her central passion; she was getting on in years; her nature demanded luxury; it is peculiarly distressing to be thwarted twice. But these things were not the point. The point was that she had come to understand Algy, considered by most of his friends the fool of the family, whom she herself had once despised as an uncouth schoolboy, as indeed he had been. But now—well these things are not the business of a priest, except so far as they affect his duties. But I assure you that it was no longer grotesque that she should love this boy; the power that goes to make a Contemplative is a remarkable thing.

... I glanced up at her again.

She was perfectly motionless. Her cheek rested on her hand and her eyes were fixed on Chris, who talked. Her face was chiefly in the shaded light, yet I could make it out. Then those eyes moved to mine; and I looked away. I felt entirely contemptible.

I had not an idea what she would do; and I knew that no human being could prevent a catastrophe if she chose to precipitate it. She might say everything outright in a minute or two; or she might say something, or she might say nothing. That was her affair. We could only wait and see. Dick was motionless and speechless; and I was not surprised.

Once Mr. Banister turned to him.

" You saw him last week, you told me? "

" I saw him last week," repeated Dick heavily, with his eyes cast down; and that was the only sentence he uttered.

Chris did the rest of the talking, with the exception of one or two remarks which I had to make in answer to a direct question; and he did it marvellously well. His nerve was astonishing, for he knew even more pungently than we did the acute crisis which hung over us. At every moment, he told me afterwards, he expected the crash. One word too much, one instant's yielding on the part of the girl's will, and we should be in the midst of an unforgettable scene. But the moments went by and so far there was outward peace. The two old folks talked and questioned, he with an excited complacency that threw off more and more of the disguise of verbal regrets he still attempted to retain, she with a certain tremulousness and bewilderment that was more creditable. Oh! these people were terrible conventionalists after all. Nothing really mattered to them but the standard by which they had always lived; they did not care about Algy, they cared only about Banister. It was grievous that a Banister should turn Papist and monk; but it would be infinitely more grievous if a Papist Banister should inherit Crowston. They still talked of the necessity of consideration, but it was a conventional phrase, no more. I perceived more and more plainly that the thought of Harold's succession drowned all else in its blaze of glory. Even the grimness of the situation could not hinder a certain faint amusement in my mind at the thought of Chris's appeal just now on the higher ground. These people cared nothing for Algy; it was Banister they adored. And as for this girl's agony, they were not even aware of it.

Towards the end this came out clearly, and with it came the climax, as a wave that hangs suspended above a gulf.

The old man turned abruptly to the girl.

" Well, Miss Mary," he said genially; " and what is your opinion? "

There was an instant's dead silence. I lost my head completely. I perceived only that the girl would have to speak, and with that speaking would come the crash. Her voice at least must betray her, and then she would betray herself; for she had seen during the talk her last rays of hope die.

The atmosphere grew tense and electric, tenfold more than before. Even Mrs. Banister moved her head uneasily. I saw the girl, her face gone suddenly white as paper, lift her cheek from her hand. I heard Dick draw a slow whistling breath.

" Well, Miss Mary? " came the sturdy old voice again.

Then Chris recovered himself. It was like a Divine Interposition. It was rude, of course, but we had done with such considerations now; and his tone made it as little rude as possible. He interrupted —

" We're to see Algy to-night," he said to the old man, " and we want, if you will allow us, to take some definite message...."

I heard no more. I saw the girl's face flush to scarlet and her half-opened lips close, and her hand pass over her eyes.

" Well, well," said the old man. " I don't want to be hard on the boy...."

He stopped, and looked at his watch irresolutely.

" We will have a word again before you go," he said, " but we must have a cup of tea now."

As we passed out to the hall, where Harold and Sybil were waiting, I could not forbear from one glance backwards. The girl was standing now, motionless and erect, looking after us; and the sight of her hurt me like a knife. Yet, for the first and last time in my life I blessed God for His gift of Conventionalism. It had saved three persons that afternoon from irremediable disaster.

EPILOGUE

IT was in the following July that I went down again to Crowston to take news of Algy. Mrs. Banister herself invited me to do so. I had stayed the previous night at St. Hugh's, on purpose to make a first-hand report. Let me describe first what I saw there, for it was not in the least the same thing that I described to the Banisters.

I stayed the night in the guest-house, not seeing Algy that night at all, except in such disguise that I did not know him. I only watched from the high west gallery of the church that strange leisurely procession of white figures, hooded and hidden, pass in beneath me, each bearing his lantern; and, after that two hours' deliberate ceremony of the night-office, in the depth of the summer night, hearing the sonorous rolling psalmody rock like a ship in the high nave, I watched that same leisurely and steadfast procession of princes come out. But of his face I caught no glimpse.

Then, on the next morning after breakfast, I was taken through to the parlour, where a year ago, in shy bewilderment, we four had stood together.

He came in presently, very naturally, smiling, in his heavy white habit, newly shaved on cheeks and head, looking strangely ageless and remote; and I saw after a minute's conversation that that inexplicable veil, hanging always between the inner and the outer, was fallen between us. The experience at Esher had turned the boy into a man; but it was more than manhood that had come to him here. It was as was said long ago, " Touch me not...."

(Is this exaggerated? I think it will not seem so to any who have talked with enclosed Religious. I am aware that this book is written with all the odds against it; it deals with a hero who only comes into his own under circumstances which to most people appear the very heights of morbid folly. But I can only set down my impressions. Here was Algy, in one sense the same as he had always been, a natural and slightly clumsy young man; in another sense entirely different. Few things are more dreary than dried seaweed; and few things more delightful than seaweed in its proper element, alert and sensitive to its furthest fringe.)

He asked a few questions about his people, extremely quietly.

" I am going to Crowston to-day," I said. " They've asked me to stay the night."

" Give them my love," said Algy.

Then he asked whether the engagement between Harold and Sybil had been recognised.

" You know he'll make an excellent landlord," said Algy, smiling.

" I suppose so," I said. " And Sybil Markham will do very well, from what I've seen of her."

" She's charming," said Algy. " Then the engagement's recognised? "

I told him yes; but that the marriage would be delayed until Algy's own profession.

" And Miss Maple? " he said quite simply.

" I have not seen her," I said diplomatically, " since I was at Crowston last year "; and he was content with that, fortunately.

I asked him then about the life; and he described it to me, with the special regulations made for novices, the manner in which they were particularly looked after and guarded against depression and morbidity: he spoke of his novice-master with affection.

" And what do they say of your own prospects? " I asked.

He smiled.

" They say nothing at all," he said.

" But you are happy? "

Then his eyes opened a little; and while he spoke, it was as if the old Algy were almost back again. His humanity slid back into himself as he spoke of the extraordinary content that had come to him. He implied that he had been initiated — that he understood the point of things at last.... I knew what he meant. There come moments to every man, I suppose, when this is so — when every faculty, so to speak, is at rest in its object — when personality fits life as a key a lock, when life closes gently round personality, and each explains and understands perfectly the other. It is not that one knows the answer to everything, but rather that there is an answer to everything so adequate and yet so transcendent that there is room for nothing but content. That man is happy who finds it so in his course of life; it is the best sign of a fulfilled vocation; but the souls of Contemplatives, I think, have it more completely and continuously than the souls of.any others. Algy, at least, had found it.

I said good-bye to him after a few minutes; and had a word or two with the Prior before leaving.

Then I went silently out of the gate, with a huge envy in my heart, and climbed into the dog-cart that waited.

All the way in the cross-country train journey to Crowston I was thinking of Algy. I had to wait an hour or two at Brighton, and still, as I walked in the hot streets, I thought of Algy. I was thinking over all the times I had seen him since our first meeting in the London streets, under the mystical dawn so long ago. That dawn, surely, had been full of omen. Even then he had shown, though it was only beneath the stress of a very sentimental and unreal human love, that instinct for solitude that had led him now so far. I had patronised him then as he walked beside me in his white frieze coat; I was far from patronising him now in his white frieze of another cut. I suppose it is rather superstitious to dwell on such details; but I am not quite sure.

z 337

I reached Crowston station at about four, and the house a few minutes later, and waited in the hall a little while, while Mrs. Banister was found. Then I was conducted out to the cedar tree where tea was laid.

Really these people were charmingly friendly and broad-minded. There was Harold, looking very spruce and cheerful in grey flannel with a rose in his buttonhole, who handed me tea and ho.t cakes; there was Mrs. Banister, very particular as to whether I took two lumps of sugar or one: we had quite a pleasant little argument as to whether the general sugariness of a first cup did not make sugar in a second cup unnecessary, if proportions were to be observed. There was Mr. Banister himself, in grey tweed, who pressed upon me a cigar after tea, describing to me with considerable though dignified humour how he obtained them through a friend. There were one or two other people there, too, of no importance — I have even forgotten their names — but they were nice, though suspicious. Mr. Mortimer was there, in a black coat and waistcoat with white flannel trousers. A racquet lay beside his chair. He regarded me as one strange dog regards another — he morally walked on tiptoe, stiff-legged, with his frill expanded; but his words were smooth as oil; and he seemed to me a very earnest and sincere man. And, lastly, there was Lady Brasted, who gave me an understanding look whenever our eyes met.

Mrs. Banister, Harold, and myself strolled slowly off after tea in the direction of the village; it was understood that Mr. Banister's conversation should be administered to me later. They asked questions, of course, and I answered them. I described what Algy had to eat and what his cell looked like, and how the hours of the day and night were spent. Harold heard all in silence, and his mother with an occasional gentle clicking of the tongue. I could see that it was as if I described a lunatic asylum. She was sincerely sorry for the poor boy.

" I hope he has plenty to eat," she said.

I was silent a moment; then I looked at her, and in that instant I saw real motherly tenderness and fear surge up in her eyes as she read my answer.

" They are very particular about health," I said awkwardly.

" But — but do you mean? "

" Well; I am afraid most people would not think it sufficient. But, you know, they live to a great age generally. It seems to suit them."

She said no more; but I began to understand better how hard it is to conquer nature. I knew quite well that this motherly woman would have her bad moments as she thought of her son — of the body she had borne and nursed.... I was thankful that she had no great powers of imagination; and I determined I would say even less than I had intended upon the physical hardships of St. Hugh's— above all not one word of the little scourge. I wondered, too, more than ever, what she would say if she could know of what had passed at Esher, and of her son's awakening. But then she never would know.

We went down as far as the churchyard gate, through the glorious evening sunshine, seeing the great cool woods above us on our left, fringed with scurrying rabbits — where Algy had dreamed, and the village roofs on our right clustering round the little Norman church. It was all very feudal and opulent and important. A child in a Tam-o'-Shanter, carrying a basket of eggs up to the Great House, stopped and ducked to Mrs. Banister's benignant smile.

At the gate of the churchyard we stood a moment or two in silence. Three yards away rose up an immense white marble cross on which I could see the words " Theodore, beloved son of," and then a fringe of pink roses bid the names of his parents. She looked at it gently and quietly; then she sighed to herself as she turned away. I think she was comparing her two elder sons. Yet, after all, she had nothing much to complain of from the Banister standpoint. Harold was all that could be wished.

I understood well enough by now why it was they had taken it so quietly on the whole, and why they were so indulgent to myself. Even if Algy had never become a Catholic he would have been but a poor master of Crowston, whereas now he had almost atoned for his faith by his departure.

Harold himself made a very pleasant impression on me. He was extremely nice-looking and extremely courteous: he hid the contempt, which I knew he felt for his poor brother, quite admirably.

Mr. Banister himself met us as we re-entered the garden — a fine sauntering figure of a man — and a few of the details had to be repeated for his benefit; while Harold turned off in the direction of the house. I knew later why he had gone, when I met Sybil at dinner.

Dinner was as you may expect. We talked of everything under the sun except of what was in our minds. I had an excellent opportunity of studying the future mistress of Crowston, and I found her delightful. She was exceedingly pretty, wholesome, and well-behaved. In fact, it was almost my only opportunity, for she vanished when we came into the drawing-room afterwards, simultaneously with Harold, and I perceived them three minutes later in the garden that was now darkening beyond the windows. They made a splendid pair, and were radiantly happy.

I got a private word or two with Lady Brasted, under cover of some music contributed by one of the unimportant persons whose names I have forgotten.

" What is Miss Maple doing? " I asked.

Lady Brasted put her head on one side. Then she shook it gently, like a swaying flower; and a little touch of sharpness came into her face.

"Poor child," she said, "she is abroad with her aunt."

" I heard that she is not a Catholic after all; and that she is engaged to be married."

" I believe that is so," said Lady Brasted.

" To a Manchester merchant? "

She nodded discreetly and sadly; but she spoilt it all by immediately adding —

" Of course it is all very beautiful about the dear boy.... I do so hope that he has found his true vocation "; by which I understood her to mean that she hoped he had not, and that he would be thoroughly miserable.

" The Prior seems to have no doubt about it," I said.

" Ah, well! "

She confided in me no more; I was plainly a bungler in the affaire Algy, though not a positive criminal like Dick. I mentioned that priest's name once to her, but never again....

We went off to the smoking-room presently; and there I observed the ritual which Algy had described to me with such accuracy. We all sat in a semicircle, our host in his pontifical chair on the right of the empty fire-place, with the whisky and syphons beside him, Harold on the leather couch, and the stranger next him, and I in the place of honour on the left. I smoked a cigarette or two to Mr. Banister's cigar; we spoke of undenominational country affairs and of Westminster Cathedral, and of the village schools. At the moment appointed in the ritual whisky was dispensed; and at a minute or two before eleven the other guest disturbed all the ceremonies by begging leave to go to bed. But it gave Mr. Banister his opportunity.

" Poor boy! " he said abruptly, when the footsteps had died away; and he drew the last few rich breaths from his cigar. " But you say he is happy? "

:' Very happy indeed," I answered.

" WeU, well."

He glanced across at Harold with infinite complacency, laying his cigar-end in the little tray at his elbow.

" Perhaps it's all for the best," he added. " You won't misunderstand me, Father Benson, when I say that he always was something like the fool of the family? "

" I understand perfectly," I said truthfully.

There was a pause. Then he glanced at the clock, sighed, rather too deliberately I thought, and pronounced the formula.

" Well — shall we be turning in? " he said.

I, too, glanced at the clock. It was on the stroke of the hour; and Algy at this moment, I knew, was entering the great church with his lantern. He had gone to bed as we went to dinner: now he was rising from his first sleep for his two or three hours' prayer, as we prepared to sleep....

" With all my heart," I said, rising.