"But what on earth does it all mean?" asked the Bishop, staring across from the archway.
"It's—it's Bonaday's child—he's one of our Brethren: as I suppose, rehearsing her part for the Pageant."
Corona's audience had no eyes but for the performance. As she advanced to the edge of the grass-plot and dropped a final curtsey to them, their hands beat together. The clapping travelled across the dusk of the quadrangle to the two watchers, and reached them faintly, thinly, as though they listened in wonder at ghosts applauding on the far edge of Elysian fields.
CHAPTER XXII.
MR. SIMEON MAKES A CLEAN BREAST.
"I won't say you sold the pass," snarled Brother Warboise, "though I might. The fact is, there's no trusting your cleverness. You see a chance of showing-off before the Bishop, and that's enough. Off you start with a lecture on architecture (which he didn't in the least want to hear), and then, when he finds a chance to pull you up, you take the disinterested line and put us all in the cart."
"You hit it precisely," answered Brother Copas, "as only a Protestant can. His eye is always upon his neighbour's defects, and I never cease to marvel at its adeptness.… Well, I do seem to owe you an apology. But I cannot agree that the Bishop was bored. To me he appeared to listen very attentively."
"He affected to, while he could: for he saw that you were playing his game. His whole object being to head off our Petition while pretending to grant it, the more nonsense you talked, within limits, the better he was pleased."
Brother Copas pondered a moment.