The short figure looked taller in the cassock, funny and hounded, like all curates; pounding about and arranging a place for her and trying to collect his thoughts while he repeated how good it was of her to have come. He sat down at last to the poached eggs and tea laid on one end of the small book-crowded table.

“I have a service at four-thirty” he said busily eating and glaring in front of him with unseeing eyes, a little like Mr. Grove only less desperate because his dark head was round and his eyes were blue—“so you must excuse my meal. I have a volume of Plato here.”

“Oh yes” said Miriam doubtfully.

“Are you familiar with Plato?”

She pondered intensely and rushed in just in time to prevent his speaking again.

“I should like him I know—I’ve come across extracts in other books.”

“He is a great man; my favourite companion. I spend most of my leisure up here with Plato.”

“What a delightful life” said Miriam enviously, looking about the small crowded room.

“As much time as I can spare from my work at the Institute and the Mission chapel; they fill my active hours.”

Where would a woman, a wife-woman, be in a life like this? He poured himself out a cup of tea; the eyes turned towards the tea-pot were worried and hurried; his whole compact rounded form was a little worried and anxious. There was something—bunnyish about him. Reading Plato the expression of his person would still have something of the worried rabbit about it. His face would be calm and intent. Then he would look up from the page, taking in a thought and something in his room would bring him back again to worry. But he was too stout to belong to a religious order.

“You must have a very busy life” said Miriam, her attention wandering rapidly off hither and thither.

“Of course” he said turning away from the table to the fire beside which she sat. “I think the clergy should keep in touch to some extent with modern thought—in so far as it helps them with their own particular work.”

Miriam wondered why she felt no desire to open the subject of religion and science; or any other subject. It was so extraordinary to find herself sitting tÊte-À-tÊte with a clergyman, and still more strange to find him communicatively trying to show her his life from the inside. He went on talking, not looking at her but gazing into the fire. She tried in vain to tether her attention. It was straining away to work upon something, upon some curious evidence it had collected since she came into the room; and even with her eyes fixed upon his person and her mind noting the strange contradiction between the thin rippling many-buttoned cassock and the stout square-toed boots protruding beneath it, she could not completely convince herself that he was there.

“... novels; my friends to recommend any that might be helpful.”

He had looked up towards her with this phrase.

“Oh yes, Red Pottage” she said grasping hurriedly and looking attentive.

“Have you read that novel?”

“No. I imagined that you had because you lent it to Miss Dear.”

“Miss Dear has spoken to you of me.”

“Oh yes.” “Of you she has spoken a great deal. You know her very well. It is because of your long friendship with her that I have taken courage to ask you to come here and discuss with me about her affairs.”

“I have known Miss Dear only a very short time” said Miriam, sternly gazing into the fire. Nothing should persuade her to become the caretaker of the future Mrs. Taunton.

“That surprises me very much indeed” he said propping his head upon his hand by one finger held against a tooth. He sat brooding.

“She is very much in need of friends just now” he said suddenly and evenly towards the fire without removing his finger from his tooth.

“Yes” said Miriam gravely.

“You are, nevertheless, the only intimate woman friend to whom just now she has access.”

“I’ve done little things for her. I couldn’t do much.”

“You were sorry for her.” Mr. Taunton was studying her face and waiting.

“Well—I don’t know—she” she consulted the fire intensely, looking for the truth; “she seems to me too strong for that.” Light! Women have no pity on women ... they know how strong women are; a sick man is more helpless and pitiful than a sick woman; almost as helpless as a child. People in order of strength ... women, men, children. This man without his worldly props, his money and his job and his health had not a hundredth part of the strength of a woman ... nor had Dr. Densley....

“I think she fascinated me.”

Mr. Taunton gathered himself together in his chair and sat very upright.

“She has an exceptional power of inspiring affection—affection and the desire to give her the help she so sorely needs.”

“Perhaps that is it” said Miriam judicially. But you are very much mistaken in calling on me for help ... ‘domestic work and the care of the aged and the sick’—very convenient—all the stuffy nerve-racking never-ending things to be dumped on to women—who are to be openly praised and secretly despised for their unselfishness—I’ve got twice the brain power you have. You are something of a scholar; but there is a way in which my time is more valuable than yours. There is a way in which it is more right for you to be tied to this woman than for me. Your reading is a habit, like most men’s reading, not a quest. You don’t want it disturbed. But you are kinder than I am. You are splendid. It will be awful—you don’t know how awful yet—poor little man.

“I think it has been so in my case if you will allow me to tell you.”

“Oh yes do” said Miriam a little archly—“of course—I know—I mean to say Miss Dear has told me.”

“Yes” he said eagerly.

“How things are” she finished looking shyly into the fire.

“Nevertheless if you will allow me I should like to tell you exactly what has occurred and to ask your advice as to the future. My mother and sisters are in the Midlands.”

“Yes” said Miriam in a carefully sombre non-committal tone; waiting for the revelation of some of the things men expect from mothers and sisters and wondering whether he was beginning to see her unsuitability for the rÔle of convenient sister.

“When my rector sent me to look up Miss Dear” he began heavily “I thought it was an ordinary parish case and I was shocked beyond measure to find a delicately nurtured ladylike girl in such a situation. I came back here to my rooms and found myself unable to enter into my usual employments. I was haunted by the thought of what that lonely girl who might have been one of my own sisters—must be suffering and enduring and I returned to give what relief I could without waiting to report the case to my rector for ordinary parish relief. I am not dependent on my stipend and I felt that I could not withhold the help she ought to have. I saw her landlady and made arrangements as to her feeding and called each day myself to take little things to cheer her—as a rule when my day’s work was done. I have never come in contact with a more pathetic case. It did not occur to me for ... a moment that she viewed my visits and the help I was so glad to be able to give ... in ... in any other light ... that she viewed me as other than her parish priest.”

“Of course not” said Miriam violently.

“She is a singularly attractive and lovable nature. That to my mind makes her helplessness and resourcelessness all the more painfully pathetic. Her very name——” he paused gazing into the fire. “I told her lately in one of her moments of deep depression that she would never want for friends, that she would always inspire affection wherever she went and that as long as I lived she should never know want. Last week—the day I met you at the gates—finding her up and apparently very much better, I suggested that it would be well to discontinue my visits for the present, pointing out the social reasons and so forth.... I had with me a letter from a very pleasant Home in Bournemouth. She had hinted much earlier that a long rest in some place such as Bournemouth was what she wanted to set her up in health. I am bound to tell you what followed. She broke down completely, told me that, socially speaking, it was too late to discontinue my visits; that people in the house were already talking.”

“People in that house!”—you little simpleton—“Who? It is the most monstrous thing I ever heard.”

“Well—there you have the whole story. The poor girl’s distress and dependence were most moving. I have a very great respect for her character and esteem for her personality—and of course I am pledged.”

“I see,” said Miriam narrowly regarding him. Do you want to be saved—ought I to save you—why should I save you—it is a solution of the whole thing and a use for your money—you won’t marry her when you know how ill she is.

“It is of course the immediate future that causes me anxiety and disquietude. It is there I need your advice and help.”

“I see. Is Miss Dear going to Bournemouth?”

“Well; that is just it. Now that the opportunity is there she seems disinclined to avail herself of it. I hope that you will support me in trying to persuade her.”

“Of course. She must go.”

“I am glad you think so. It is obvious that definite plans must be postponed until she is well and strong.”

“You would be able to go down and see her.”

“Occasionally, as my duties permit, oh yes. It is a very pleasant place and I have friends in Bournemouth who would visit her.”

“She ought to be longing to go” said Miriam on her strange sudden smile. It had come from somewhere; the atmosphere was easier; suddenly in the room with her was the sense of bluebells, a wood blue with bluebells, and dim roofs, roofs in a town ... sur les toits ... and books; people reading books under them.

Mr. Taunton smiled too.

“Unfortunately that is not so” he said leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs comfortably.

2

“You know” he said turning his blue gaze from the fire to Miriam’s face, “I have never been so worried in my life as I have during the last ten days. It’s upsetting my winter’s work. It is altogether too difficult and impossible. I cannot see any possible adjustment. You see I cannot possibly be continually interrupted and in such—strange ways. She came here yesterday afternoon with a list of complaints about her landlady. I really cannot attend to these things. She sends me telegrams. Only this morning there was a telegram. Come at once. Difficulty with chemist. Of course it was impossible for me to leave my work at a moment’s notice. This afternoon I called. It seems that she was under the impression that there had been some insolence ... it absorbs so much time to enter into long explanations with regard to all these people. I cannot do it. That is what it comes to. I cannot do it.”

Ah. You’ve lost your temper; like anyone else. You want to shelve it. Anyone would. But being a man you want to shelve it on to a woman. You don’t care who hears the long tales as long as you don’t....

“Have you seen her doctor?”

“No. I think just now he is out of town.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“You think I should see him.”

“Certainly.”

“I will do so on the first opportunity. That is the next step. Meantime I will write provisionally to Bournemouth.”

“Oh, she must go to Bournemouth anyhow; that’s settled.”

“Perhaps her medical man may help there.”

“He won’t make her do anything she doesn’t mean to do.”

“I see you are a reader of character.”

“I don’t think I am. I always begin by idealising people.”

“Do you indeed?”

“Yes, always; and then they grow smaller and smaller.”

“Is that your invariable experience of humanity?”

“I don’t think I’m an altruist.”

“I think one must have one’s heroes.”

“In life or in books?”

“In both perhaps—one has them certainly in books—in records. Do you know this book?”

Miriam sceptically accepted the bulky volume he took down from the book-crowded mantelshelf.

“Oh how interesting” she said insincerely when she had read Great Thoughts from Great Lives on the cover.... I ought to have said I don’t like extracts. “Lives of great men all remind us. We can make our lives sublime,” she read aloud under her breath from the first page.... I ought to go. I can’t enter into this.... I hate ‘great men’ I think....

“That book has been a treasure-house to me—for many years. I know it now almost by heart. If it interests you, you will allow me I hope to present it to you.”

“Oh you must not let me deprive you of it—oh no. It is very kind of you; but you really mustn’t.” She looked up and returned quickly to the fascinating pages. Sentences shone out striking at her heart and brain ... names in italics; Marcus Aurelius ... Lao-Tse. Confucius ... Clement of Alexandria ... Jacob Boehme. “It’s full of the most fascinating things. Oh no; I couldn’t think of taking it. You must keep it. Who is Jacob Boehme? That name always fascinates me. I must have read something, somewhere, a long time ago. I can’t remember. But it is such a wonderful name.”

“Jacob Boehme was a German visionary. You will find of course all shades of opinion there.”

“All contradicting each other; that’s the worst of it. Still, I suppose all roads lead to Rome.”

“I see you have thought a great deal.”

“Well” said Miriam feverishly, “there’s always science, always all that awful business of science, and no getting rid of it.”

“I think—in that matter—one must not allow one’s mind to be led away?”

“But one must keep an open mind.”

“Are you familiar with Professor Tyndall?”

“Only by meeting him in books about Huxley.”

“Ah—he was very different; very different.”

“Huxley” said Miriam with intense bitterness “was an egoistic adolescent—all his life. I never came across anything like his conceited complacency in my life. The very look of his side-whiskers,—well, there you have the whole man.” Her heart burned and ached, beating out the words. She rose to go holding the volume in hands that shook to the beating of her heart. Far away in the bitter mist of the darkening room was the strange little figure.

“Let me just write your name in the book.”

“Oh, well, really, it is too bad—thank you very much.”

He carried the book to the window-sill and stood writing his bent head very dark and round in the feeble grey light. Happy monk alone up under the roof with his Plato. It was a shame.