And in reply to Vane's second attempt his father said simply:
"No, Vane, this is a surprise party, as they say in the States, and I am not going to give the names of my guests away. You really must possess your soul in patience for the present. Meanwhile tell me what Father Baldwin thinks of the position you have taken up?"
"You mean, of course, about this new heresy of mine?" replied Vane with a laugh—"a heresy, by the way, which is as old as Christianity. Well, dad, to tell you the truth I think the dear old Father is a little bit frightened, but he is too strong a man to go back from the position, and too good a Christian to want to do so. He sees that I am right, or, I should say of course, that this is after all the only possible doctrine and belief for a Christian. He gave me permission to preach that sermon from his pulpit, but I don't think he quite realised, as a matter of fact I didn't myself, what an effect it would have, and perhaps the consequences have worried him a little; but he is perfectly staunch, and so are Moran and Webley."
"And so, I suppose," replied Sir Arthur, "St. Chrysostom's will not be a pleasant Sunday morning and evening resort for rich people any longer. That is, perhaps, a somewhat flippant way of putting it, but of course you know what I mean."
"Yes, I quite see what you mean, dad," said Vane rather more seriously. "I don't think it will be, but I do think that before very long we shall have a better congregation of Christians than we have ever had before, people who, I mean, will have lost their delusions about fashionable Christianity—just as if there could be such a thing!—and who come to hear the Word of God as it is, and not as most people would like it to be. By the way, have you heard that the Canon, I mean Canon Thornton-Moore, of Worcester, a man that I met at dinner at the Abbey, has accepted the presentation of All Saints, Densmore Square? It is supposed to be a little higher even than St. Chrysostom, and if possible the congregation is even more disgustingly rich and fashionable and everything that is not Christian."
"I must say, Vane, that you have all the uncompromising severity of the true enthusiast, and the way in which you include your old father with these hopeless sinners is really almost unfilial. I think I can tell you this much, that to-night you are going to meet a very much greater sinner than I am, a sinner to the extent of millions, and yet, from what I have learned of him on the best possible authority, as honest a man, as good-hearted a fellow, as ever fought the world single-handed and beat it."
"Just as you did, dad," said Vane in a tone which reminded his father of the old days. "I suppose there is nothing to be said of the other two persons of the Infernal Trinity."
"Not at present," said Sir Arthur, with a sudden change in his voice which made Vane look round at him. His face had changed with his tone. He was leaning with his arms on the door of the cab, staring up at the sky over the roofs of the houses. Vane noticed a little twitching of the lip under the long grey moustache, and thought it well to hold his peace.
Fortunately, perhaps, for both, the cab at that moment swung round out of the main road into Warwick Gardens. Vane looked at the familiar corner at which he had stopped that other hansom cab on that memorable Boat Race night and got out, after Carol had denied him the kiss he asked for, to meet his father on the pavement. Sir Arthur remembered it too, and he had good reasons to, for he said as the cab swung round:
"Vane, when my lease is up I am going to leave this place. I never can pass that corner without thinking of what no man ought to be obliged to think of."