‘On my honour, I have no wish to convert him. All I want is to have human speech of him—to hear from his own lips that he is content. Whither should I convert him? Not to my own platform—for I am nowhere. Not to that which he has left, . . . for if he could have found standing ground there, he would not have gone elsewhere for rest.’
‘Therefore they went out from you, because they were not of you,’ said the ‘Father,’ half aside.
‘Most true, sir. I have felt long that argument was bootless with those whose root-ideas of Deity, man, earth, and heaven, were as utterly different from my own, as if we had been created by two different beings.’
‘Do you include in that catalogue those ideas of truth, love, and justice, which are Deity itself? Have you no common ground in them?’
‘You are an elder and a better man than I. . . . It would be insolent in me to answer that question, except in one way, . . . and—’
‘In that you cannot answer it. Be it so. . . . You shall see your cousin. You may make what efforts you will for his re-conversion. The Catholic Church,’ continued he, with one of his arch, deep-meaning smiles, ‘is not, like popular Protestantism, driven into shrieking terror at the approach of a foe. She has too much faith in herself, and in Him who gives to her the power of truth, to expect every gay meadow to allure away her lambs from the fold.’
‘I assure you that your gallant permission is unnecessary. I am beginning, at least, to believe that there is a Father in Heaven who educates His children; and I have no wish to interfere with His methods. Let my cousin go his way . . . he will learn something which he wanted, I doubt not, on his present path, even as I shall on mine. “Se tu segui la tua stella” is my motto. . . . Let it be his too, wherever the star may guide him. If it be a will-o’-the-wisp, and lead to the morass, he will only learn how to avoid morasses better for the future.’
‘Ave Maris stella! It is the star of Bethlehem which he follows . . . the star of Mary, immaculate, all-loving!’ . . . And he bowed his head reverently. ‘Would that you, too, would submit yourself to that guidance! . . . You, too, would seem to want some loving heart whereon to rest.’ . . .
Lancelot sighed. ‘I am not a child, but a man; I want not a mother to pet, but a man to rule me.’
Slowly his companion raised his thin hand, and pointed to the crucifix, which stood at the other end of the apartment.