'I should be very sorry to do that--for any length of time. My wish is to settle somewhere in the country, and spend a year or two in quiet study.'
Mrs. Warricombe looked amiable surprise, but corrected herself to approving interest.
'I have heard some of our friends say that their minds get unstrung, if they are long away from town, but I should have thought that country quietness would be much better than London noise. My husband certainly finds it so.'
'People are very differently constituted,' said Godwin. 'And then it depends much on the nature of one's work.'
Uttering these commonplaces with an air of reflection, he observed that they did not cost him the self-contempt which was wont to be his penalty for concession to the terms of polite gossip; rather, his mind accepted with gratitude this rare repose. He tasted something of the tranquil self-content which makes life so enjoyable when one has never seen a necessity for shaping original remarks. No one in this room would despise him for a platitude, were it but recommended with a pleasant smile. With the Moxeys, with Earwaker, he durst not thus have spoken.
When the hour of separation was at hand, Buckland invited his guest to retire with him to a part of the house where they could smoke and chat comfortably.
'Moorhouse and Louis are fagged after their twenty mile stretch this morning; I have caught both of them nodding during the last few minutes. We can send them to bed without apology.'
He led the way upstairs to a region of lumber-rooms, whence a narrow flight of steps brought them into a glass-house, octangular and with pointed tops, out upon the roof. This, he explained, had been built some twenty years ago, at a time when Mr. Warricombe amused himself with photography. A few indications of its original purposes were still noticeable; an easel and a box of oil-colours showed that someone--doubtless of the younger generation--had used it as a painting-room; a settee and deep cane chairs made it an inviting lounge on a warm evening like the present, when, by throwing open a hinged wall, one looked forth into the deep sky and tasted the air from the sea.
'Sidwell used to paint a little,' said Buckland, as his companion bent to examine a small canvas on which a landscape was roughed in. It lay on a side table, and was half concealed by an ordnance map, left unfolded. 'For the last year or two I think she has given it up. I'm afraid we are not strong in matters of art. Neither of the girls can play very well, though of course they both tinkle for their own amusement. Maurice--the poor lad who was killed--gave a good deal of artistic promise; father keeps some little water-colours of his, which men in that line have praised--perhaps sincerely.'
'I remember you used to speak slightingly of art,' said Godwin, as he took an offered cigar.
'Did I? And of a good many other things, I daresay. It was my habit at one time, I believe, to grow heated in scorn of Euclid's definitions. What an interesting book Euclid is! Half a year ago, I was led by a talk with Moorhouse to go through some of the old "props", and you can't imagine how they delighted me. Moorhouse was so obliging as to tell me that I had an eminently deductive mind.'
He laughed, but not without betraying some pleasure in the remark.
'Surprising,' he went on, 'how very little such a mind as Moorhouse's suggests itself in common conversation. He is really profound in mathematics, a man of original powers, but I never heard him make a remark of the slightest value on any other subject. Now his sister--she has studied nothing in particular, yet she can't express an opinion that doesn't bear the stamp of originality.'
Godwin was contented to muse, his eyes fixed on a brilliant star in the western heaven.
'There's only one inconsistency in her that annoys and puzzles me,' Buckland pursued, speaking with the cigar in his mouth. 'In religion, she seems to be orthodox. True, we have never spoken on the subject, but--well, she goes to church, and carries prayer-books. I don't know how to explain it. Hypocrisy is the last thing one could suspect her of. I'm sure she hates it in every form. And such a clear brain!--I can't understand it.'
The listener was still star-gazing. He had allowed his cigar, after the first few puffs, to smoulder untasted; his lips were drawn into an expression very unlike the laxity appropriate to pleasurable smoking. When the murmur of the pines had for a moment been audible, he said, with a forced smile:
'I notice you take for granted that a clear brain and religious orthodoxy are incompatible.'
The other gave him a keen look.
'Hardly,' was Buckland's reply, spoken with less ingenuousness of tone than usual. 'I say that Miss Moorhouse has undeniably a strong mind, and that it is impossible to suspect her of the slightest hypocrisy.'
'Whence the puzzle that keeps you occupied,' rejoined Peak, in a voice that sounded like assumption of superiority, though the accent had an agreeable softness.
Warricombe moved as if impatiently, struck a match to rekindle his weed, blew tumultuous clouds, and finally put a blunt question:
'What do you think about it yourself?'
'From my point of view, there is no puzzle at all,' Godwin replied, in a very clear voice, smiling as he met the other's look.
'How am I to understand that?' asked Buckland, good-naturedly, though with a knitting of his brows.
'Not as a doubt of Miss Moorhouse's sincerity. I can't see that a belief in the Christian religion is excluded by any degree of intellectual clearness.'
'No--your views have changed, Peak?'
'On many subjects, this among them.'
'I see.'
The words fell as if involuntarily from Warricombe's lips. He gazed at the floor awhile, then, suddenly looking up, exclaimed:
'It would be civil to accept this without surprise, but it is too much for me. How has it come about?'
'That would take me a long time to explain.'
'Then,' pursued his companion, watching him closely, 'you were quite in sympathy with that exposition you gave at lunch today?'
'Quite. I hope there was nothing in my way of speaking that made you think otherwise?'
'Nothing at all. I couldn't help wondering what it meant. You seemed perfectly in earnest, yet such talk had the oddest sound on your lips--to me, I mean. Of course I thought of you as I used to know you.'
'Naturally.' Peak was now in an attitude of repose, his legs crossed, thumb and forefinger stroking his chin. 'I couldn't very well turn aside to comment on my own mental history.'
Here again was the note of something like genial condescension. Buckland seemed sensible of it, and slightly raised his eyebrows.
'I am to understand that you have become strictly orthodox in matters of religious faith?'
'The proof is,' replied Godwin, 'that I hope before long to take Orders.'
Again there was silence, and again the sea-breath made its
