"I don't think," Lord Henry replied, "that you are sufficiently inclined to allow for the fundamental fact, that mankind is very, very slow in dropping an old habit. We are now, thank goodness, witnessing the slow death agony of Christianity. These people here are among those who plume themselves on having abandoned Christian dogma. But deep down in their natures, there is not the inkling of the supernatural of which you speak, but simply the religious habit,—the habit of believing in something vague and indemonstrable, the habit of services and congregational worship. And while they are dropping away from the old Church in all directions, they simultaneously, from sheer habit, create new-fangled creeds very much more absurd than anything the Church ever taught, and not nearly so beautiful."
At this moment a hush suddenly fell upon the whole company, and Mrs. Delarayne, who by virtue of her rôle as hostess, was officiating as assistant to the Incandescent Gerald that afternoon, entered the room by a small door at the back, followed by the minister.
Everyone stood up, and Lord Henry noticed that the venerable bald head of Sir Lionel Borridge was bowed in humble reverence.
The service lasted about three quarters of an hour; even Sir Joseph Bullion, who, as the latest of the elect, was the new broom of the afternoon, was seen to gape once during the course of it; and when it was over and a sort of blessing had been pronounced by the minister, the whole company filed out of the dining-room into the library for refreshment and also for the discussion of the meeting.
Everyone seemed intent upon reaching Mrs. Delarayne, and among those who struggled most to achieve this end was Sir Joseph Bullion. Congratulations were being pronounced on all sides. "How well she had read the Articles of Faith!" "How clearly she had announced the hymns!" "How cool and collected she was, and yet how reverent!"
Gradually the throng pressed less thickly about her, and Sir Joseph reached his idol.
"Wonderful, Edith,—wonderful!" he whispered. "And what a beautiful impressive service!"
Mrs. Delarayne grasped his hand, and even nodded, but her eyes were busy elsewhere. She was watching the movements of Lord Henry, who had not yet spoken to her, and who, apparently in animated conversation with Sir Lionel Borridge, had hitherto held himself aloof.
"You wouldn't remember, of course," Sir Joseph pursued, "the arrival of Baroness Puckha Bilj in London in the late eighties, with her doctrine of 'Self-Exteriorisation.' The Inner Light reminds me somewhat of that. We were her bankers. She was most successful."
"Your husband surpassed himself, Mrs. Tribe," said Denis Malster to the emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald. Denis felt extremely superior behind his solid Anglican Protestant entrenchments, and thought that he could afford to be generous and even patronising to the members of a struggling creed.