“More than I can tell you.”
“I am very glad.”
“Do you know those two lines of Milton in which he describes such a performance on the organ?”
“No. Can you repeat them?”
“‘His volant touch,
Instinct through all proportions, low and high,
Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue.’”
“That is wonderfully fine. Thank you. That is better than my fugue by a good deal. You have cancelled the obligation.”
“Do you think doing a good turn again is cancelling an obligation? I don’t think an obligation can ever be RETURNED in the sense of being got rid of. But I am being hypercritical.”
“Not at all.—Shall I tell you what I was thinking of while playing that fugue?”
“I should like much to hear.”
“I had been thinking, while you were preaching, of the many fancies men had worshipped for the truth; now following this, now following that; ever believing they were on the point of laying hold upon her, and going down to the grave empty-handed as they came.”