“And now, Lalage,” I said, “you must tell me what brings you to Portugal.”
“To see you,” said Lalage promptly.
“It’s very nice of you to say that,” I said, “and I feel greatly flattered.”
“Hilda was all for Oberammergau, and Selby-Harrison wanted Normandy. He said there were churches and things there but I think churches are rather rot, don’t you?”
“Besides,” I said, “after the way the society has been treating bishops it would hardly be decent to accept their hospitality by wandering about through their churches. Any bishop, especially if he’d been driven out of public life by a series of scathing articles, published anonymously, would have a genuine grievance if you——”
“It was really that which decided us on coming here,” said Lalage.
“Quite right. There is a most superior kind of bishop here, a Patriarch, and I am sure that anything you publish about him in the Portuguese papers——”
“You don’t understand what I mean. You’re getting stupid, I think. I’m not talking about bishops. I’m talking about you.”
“Don’t bother about taking up my case until you’ve quite finished the bishops. I am a young man still, with years and years before me in which I shall no doubt talk a lot of tommyrot. It would be a pity to drive me out of public life before I’ve said anything which you can really scathe.”
“We thought,” said Lalage, “that as it didn’t much matter to us where we went we might as well come out to see you. You were the only person who gave a decent ‘sub’ to the society. I’ll explain our new idea to you later on.”