"Then what do you want Beauclerk to do?" asked Sara.
"He must fight just the same, of course. I merely wish him to see what he has to encounter. By dragging the clergy into the movement you make it savour--to the popular intelligence--of professional jealousy. By making Dr. Temple your example, you render those who respect his character powerless to express their opinion. Given the system, he is unquestionably the fittest man to profit by it."
Reckage took many turns round the room.
"The personal character of Dean Ethbin," he said, at last, "is not exactly square. He acts a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g part. But now and again he sums up a situation. He says that the English people do not choose to keep up an Established Church which shall be independent of its Sovereign and Legislature. I have seen most of the bishops and archdeacons. They are against Temple; they say very little about the system. Even men with nothing to gain by it," he added, ingenuously, "don"t appear to criticise it."
"For all that, the Church must deliver her conscience at whatever risk.
She ought to a.s.sert her will--even against her interest--in order to show England that she is her own mistress!"
"You mean that ironically! What does for Rome, however, doesn"t do for us. The Church of England is It--not She--to most people. As for Rome, nothing in her belongs to humanity, except the Vatican discipline--the life of which, I confess, is a permanent miracle!"
"My best friends," entreated Sara gaily, "do not--do not fight. Be nice to each other and listen to me. The English never read history. Why not get up a kind of Historical Commission and examine the validity of the Anglican Orders? There you can work at the roots of things. After that, introduce a Bill for the admission of clergymen to Parliament. You have spiritual peers, why not spiritual Commons?"
"One at a time," said Reckage; "what ideas you have! Say them again. I believe they are not half bad. But do go more slowly."
Sara, with a becoming instinct of meekness, took her favourite seat on the fender, and at the feet of the two men, looking up humbly, began to explain herself with that lightness of phrase only possible to those who have a profound knowledge of their subject. Her submissive att.i.tude, her soft, musical voice, and her docile expression made both men insensible to the actual commands insinuated into the emotional wit and acute arguments of her little speech. Reckage was fascinated. He sat there drinking in her beauty and wisdom--the one stimulated his senses, the other pierced his intelligence, making him feel that, with such a companion ever by his side, he might achieve heroism with a good conscience. As matters were, he was often dissatisfied, sleepless, and oppressed--particularly under praise. He was not often set right, as he would have said it, in his own opinion--even when the world and his Executive Committee were disposed to cry out--"Well done."
"I didn"t run within pounds of my form," was the cry of self-reproach he invariably heard above the applause of his colleagues or the commendation of the Press. Sara, he believed, would give him the courage of his own better nature. These thoughts were pa.s.sing rosily in his heart, when Lord Garrow, accompanied by Agnes Carillon, entered the room.
"My love," said Lord Garrow to Sara, "I met Miss Carillon on the steps of the London Library, and I have brought her in to tea. But why do you sit in the firelight? Why haven"t they lit the gas? And who is here?"
A sudden flame from the grate illuminated the faces of Orange and Lord Reckage. The two ladies greeted each other. All spoke, and then all were silent. It was an awkward meeting for every one present. Lord Garrow rang the bell, and the small company sat there without a word, watching the footman light the gas in the gla.s.s chandelier.
"What do you suppose we have been talking about?" asked Sara desperately.
"I can"t imagine, my dear," said her father. "I am far too cross. I hate these odd ways."
"We were discussing the validity of Anglican Orders."
"G.o.d bless my soul!" exclaimed his lordship; "what next?"
Agnes, who was looking pale and worried, frowned with displeasure.
"But how disloyal!" she said severely. "As if one could even discuss such a question!"
"Mr. Orange is a Roman Catholic," answered Sara, "so he is not disloyal.
I am nothing--so I have no obligations. Lord Reckage is in public life and has to meet the problems of the age. Don"t be narrow, dear Agnes."
"I think it too bad, all the same," replied Miss Carillon--"even in fun.
I am sure I am right."
Lord Reckage tried to conceal his annoyance, but his voice shook a little as he said--
"We were not joking. New men will come in, not improbably with new ideas. I must be ready for them. An ignorance of men"s moods is fatal."
He hoped she would take this warning to herself. She was, however, too stirred to consider anything except the cause of their common agitation.
"Dr. Benson was saying to papa only last week," she answered, "that there is no apparent recognition of the Divine presence in our daily affairs. It is most shocking."
"The clergy are doing their level best, by bigotry, to make Benson"s a.s.sertion true. At any rate, I am not going about, as the French put it, with my paws in the air. I feel strongly tempted to throw up my present line, and give the whole a.s.sociation to the best qualified hypocrite of my acquaintance."
"The sure way out of that temptation is not to think yourself exposed to it," said Robert quickly.
"I hate sophistries," said Agnes, tightening her lips. "And I hope, Beauclerk, that you will never remain in any painful situation against your will."
These words seemed to bear an ominous significance. Agnes herself, having uttered them, received one of those sudden inward illuminations which, in some natures, amount to second-sight. But she was unimaginative and not especially observant, sensitive, or skilled in discerning the signs of any psychological disturbance. She felt only, on this occasion, that a crisis had been reached, that Reckage was vexed with himself, with her, with life generally. She had a letter in her pocket from David Rennes--a beautiful, touching letter, full of longing for a faith, a hope--love, he said, he possessed, alas! What a difference in the two men!
"You don"t understand," said Sara. "You are right because you haven"t heard enough. Mr. Orange is going to give a lecture on Church History, and Lord Reckage has promised to be chairman. They will hold the meeting at St. James"s Hall, and I am sure it will be most interesting. More I cannot tell you, because they have gone no further in their plans."
But misfortune had entered the room, and that wayfarer--once admitted--a.s.serts her ill-will without let or hindrance. Agnes, barely touching her tea, rose to say goodbye. Lord Garrow and Reckage escorted her to the hall. They helped her into a carriage (lent her for that afternoon by the d.u.c.h.ess of Pevensey), and she drove away, trembling, tearful, afraid, not reminding her _fiance_ that they were to meet at dinner in the evening. He walked homeward, but not until he had decided, after much hesitation, that he could scarcely go back again to Lady Sara. His thoughts were fixed now to one refrain--"I must have my freedom." Freedom, at that moment, had a mocking, lovely face, the darkest blue eyes, and quant.i.ties of long, black hair. She wore a violet dress, her hands were white, and she talked like a Blue Book set to music by Beethoven. Yes, he must have his freedom and live.
Sara and Orange, meanwhile, left alone in the drawing-room, were exchanging interrogatory glances, "What do you think now?" she asked; "do you pretend to believe that Agnes and Beauclerk can make each other even moderately contented?"
"Then you are to blame."
A flush swept over her face. She looked bitter reproaches, but she made no answer.
"And why are you so interested in Anglican Orders?" he continued. "How is it that you know your subject so well? For you do know it well."
"Catholic questions always appeal to me," she said coldly. "I have no religion, but I come from a race of politicians and soldiers--on my mother"s side. I must have an intellectual _pied a terre_, and I require a good cause. Party politics are too parochial for me. So I am on the side of the Vatican."
"_La reine s"amuse_," said Robert. "Is that all?"
"Yes, that"s all."
She turned over the music on her writing-table and hummed some bars from the Kyrie of Mozart"s Twelfth Ma.s.s.
"If you were a Jesuit," said she, "you would try to convert me."
"St. Ignatius never wasted time over insincere women."
"I am not insincere," she said frankly. "I own I may seem so. But you are not kind, and some day you may be sorry for this."
Her eyes filled with tears--which he noticed and attributed to fatigue.
"I wonder how men ever accomplish anything!" she exclaimed.
"Why?"
"They have no insight. They mistake self-control for coldness, and despair for flippancy. Isn"t that the case?"
"One can be light and true as well as light and false. Now you are witty, beautiful, brilliant--but you don"t always ring true."
She seemed confused for a minute, and hung her head.
"All the same," she said, suddenly, "I am always sincere with you. It is not in my power to be so with every one. "Fate overrules my will.""
"That is the trouble with most of us."