The butler ushered in Brother Copas and withdrew, after a glance at the lights. Two wax candles burned upon the writing-table in the oriel, and on the side-table an electric lamp shaded with green silk faintly silhouetted the Master's features. Brother Copas, standing a little within the doorway, remarked to himself that the old gentleman had aged of late.
"Ah, Brother Copas? Yes, I sent for you," said the Master, rousing himself as if from a brown study. "Be seated, please."
He pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the hearth; and Brother Copas, seating himself with a bow, spread the worn skirt of his Beauchamp robe, and arranged its folds over his knees. The firelight sparkled upon the Beauchamp rose on his breast, and seemed to hold the Master's eye as he looked up after a pause.
"You guess, no doubt, why I sent for you?"
Brother Copas inclined his head.
"It concerns the Petition which Brother Warboise presented to the Bishop last Monday. I am not complaining just now of his fashion of procedure, which I may hazard was not of your suggesting."
"It was not, Master. I may say so much, having warned him that I should say it if questioned."
"Yet you wrote out and signed the Petition, and, if I may hazard again, composed it?"
"I did."
"I have," said Master Blanchminster, studying the back of his hands as he held his palms to the fire, "no right to force any man's conscience. But it seemed to me, if I may say so, that while all were forcibly put, certain of your arguments ignored—or, let me rather say, passed over—points which must have occurred to a man of your learning. Am I mistaken?"