Listening to the English pastor heating himself over the Licensing Bill which, with all politics, is surely as distinctly outside the pastoral province as it is outside the woman’s, I remembered this earlier success, and not caring to stand there unnoticed any longer thought I would repeat it. I therefore began to laugh, gently at first, as though tickled by my thoughts, then more heartily.
They all stopped to look at me.
“What is the joke, Baron?” asked Menzies-Legh, scowling up.
“Forgive me, Pastor,” said I, taking off my hat and bowing—he for his part only stared—“but we are accustomed in my country (which, thank God, is Germany!) never to connect clergymen with politics, the inevitable wranglings of which make them ill-suited as a study for men whose calling is purely that of peace. So firmly is this feeling rooted in our natures that it is as amusing to me to see a gentleman of your profession deeply interested in such questions as it would be to see—to see——”
I cast about for a simile, but nothing occurred to me at the moment (and they were all sitting waiting) than the rose and inkpot one, so I had to take that.
And Mrs. Menzies-Legh, just as obtusely as the little bride of years ago, asked, “But is that amusing?”
Before I could reply Menzies-Legh got up and said he must write some letters; the pastor got up too and said he must hurry off to a class; and Lord Sigismund, as I approached the vacated chair next to him, and was about to drop into it, said he felt sure Menzies-Legh had no stamps, and he must go and lend him some.
Looking up from the grass on which she still sat, Mrs. Menzies-Legh patted it and said, “Come and sit on this nice soft stuff, dear Baron. I think men are tiresome things, don’t you? Always rushing off somewhere. Tell me about the rose and the inkpot. I do see, I think, that they’re—they’re funny. Why did the vicar remind you of them? Come and sit on the grass and tell me.”
But I had no desire to sit on grass with Mrs. Menzies-Legh, as though we were a row of turtle doves, so I merely said I did not like grass, and bowing slightly, walked away.