, with a little forced
laugh.
    »Yes - in all but a very few human concerns. How often could you tell me
what it is that prevents your taking life cheerfully?«
    He glanced at her, and Marcella's eyes fell; a moment after, there was a
suspicion of colour in her cheek.
    »What are you reading?« Peak asked abruptly, but in a voice of more
conventional note.
    »Still Hafiz.«
    »I envy your power of abstraction.«
    »Yet I hear that you are deeply concerned about the locomotive powers of the
diatomaccæ?«
    Their eyes met, and they laughed - not very mirthfully.
    »It preserves me from worse follies,« said Peak. »After all, there are ways
more or less dignified of consuming time« -
    As he spoke, his ear caught a familiar name, uttered by Christian Moxey, and
he turned to listen. Moxey and Earwaker were again talking of the Rev. Bruno
Chilvers. Straightway disregarding Marcella, Peak gave attention to the men's
dialogue, and his forehead wrinkled into scornful amusement.
    »It's very interesting,« he exclaimed, at a moment when there was silence
throughout the company, »to hear that Chilvers is really coming to the front. At
Whitelaw it used to be prophesied that he would be a bishop, and now I suppose
he's fairly on the way to that. Shall we write letters of congratulation to him,
Earwaker?«
    »A joint epistle, if you like.«
    Mr. Morton, who had brightened since dinner, began to speak caustically of
the form of intellect necessary nowadays in a popular clergyman.
    »He must write a good deal,« put in Earwaker, »and that in a style which
would have scandalised the orthodox of the last century. Rationalised dogma is
vastly in demand.«
    Peak's voice drew attention.
    »Two kinds of books dealing with religion are now greatly popular, and will
be for a long time. On the one hand there is that growing body of people who,
for whatever reason, tend to agnosticism, but desire to be convinced that
agnosticism is respectable; they are eager for anti-dogmatic books, written by
men of mark. They couldn't endure to be classed with Bradlaugh, but they rank
themselves confidently with Darwin and Huxley. Arguments matter little or
nothing to them. They take their rationalism as they do a fashion in dress,
anxious only that it shall be good form. Then there's the other lot of people -
a much larger class - who won