"I hope so, Marjory," he murmured limply.
"I must tell you about the Bishop, Alfred. He was just the kind of man you would expect a Protestant bishop to be—his face, I mean. Calm—so very calm—and so gently yet firmly ecclesiastic! He wore an unobtrusive but stylish clerical costume of soft grey, and a little gold cross hung round his neck—you know. It struck me as never before how close the Episcopacy is snuggling up to Rome.... Oh, but I must tell you about the Bishop's going to bed!"
The Rev. Needham sat there almost breathless on his screened porch. His dismay might have struck one as speechless—at any rate, he was speechless.
"The Bishop," continued Miss Whitcom, "seemed very weary. There was a quiet, tired look in his eyes. He had his dinner early, sitting all alone at one of the little tables on the shady side. I ate my dinner at another of the little tables, and was quite fascinated. There was something so patrician about him. He was so subtly sleek! I didn't see him again until his berth was made up. But the making up, Alfred, was what fascinated me more than the Bishop himself! The porter was just fitting things together when I came in from my simple dinner. He spread down one mattress, and then—Alfred, I gasped to see it—he spread down another right on top of it!"
"Another, Marjory?" The minister appeared quite absorbed, almost fascinated.
"Had he taken the whole section?" she demanded.
To this no reply was ventured, and she continued:
"Or did he get them both as a kind of divine dispensation? Anyway, the bed, I must say, looked almost royal. There were four pillows instead of two, and they were given little special pats and caresses. All of a sudden I thought of Jacob's stone, Alfred. Wasn't it funny? I couldn't help it. And then I thought about 'the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head'—wasn't it curious? And then, only then, Alfred (you see how slow I am), it occurred to me that this must be a part of the new order of things! It came to me almost like an inspiration that the bed of the Bishop must have something to do with Practical Christianity. But I'm forgetting the last appealing touch, Alfred. The Bishop had a huge bag of golf sticks with him. They reposed all night in the upper berth!"
She ended her rather long story about the Bishop; and its precise interpretation remained a thing of doubt for the minister. Was she serious? Or was she only laughing? His bearing now argued a preparedness for either mood. But whatever her motive, in a moment Miss Whitcom appeared to have forgotten all about the Bishop and to be busy with other matters. The Rev. Needham sat on his own side of the netting and didn't know just what he ought to do or say. What was to be done, what said? Fortunately, at this vaguely uncomfortable juncture, there came another, and this time a really important, interruption.