"But surely that's rather risky," Lucy said in some alarm. "And what about the other servants? I shouldn't think Miss Cass liked it much!"
Miss Cass was the housekeeper, the woman with the face like a horse. She always repelled Lucy, who, for no reason than the old, stupid "Dr. Fell" reason, disliked her heartily.
To her great surprise, she saw three faces turned towards her suddenly. On each was an expression of blank surprise, exactly the same expression. Lucy wanted to laugh; the three men were as alike as children are when a conjuror has just made the pudding in the hat or triumphantly demonstrated the disappearing egg.
The taciturn King spoke first. "I forgot," he said; "of course you don't know anything about Miss Cass. How should you, indeed! Miss Cass is a saint."
He said it quite simply, with a little pride, possibly, that the vicarage which housed him housed a saint, too, but that was all.
"Yes," the vicar said, his brogue dropping away from him, as it always did when he was serious, "Miss Cass is a saint. I'll tell you her story some time while you're here, dear. It is a noble story. But don't you be alarmed about our new importation. Bob will be all right. We know what we are doing here."
"It's wonderful, Miss Blantyre," Stephens broke out, his boyish face all lighted up with enthusiasm. "You know, Bob'd actually never been in church before yesterday morning, when he came to Mass."
He stopped for a moment, out of breath in his eagerness. Lucy saw that he—indeed, all of them—took it quite for granted that these things they spoke of had supreme interest for her as for them. There was such absolute conviction that these things were the only important things, that no excuse or apology was necessary in speaking of them. She found she liked that, she liked it already. There was a magnetism in these men that drew her within their circle. She saw that, whatever else they were, they were absolutely consistent. They did not have one eye on convention and the world, like the West End clergymen she knew,—some of them at least. These men lived for one aim, one end, with tremendous force and purpose. They simply disregarded everything else. Nothing else occurred! Yes, this was a fourth dimension indeed. She bent herself to listen to the boy's story, marking, with a pleasure that had something maternal in it, the vividness and reality of his interest and hopes.
"Before he went," the young man said, "I explained the Church's teaching exactly to him. Don't forget that the poor chap hadn't the slightest idea of anything of the sort. He was astounded. A mystery that I could not explain to him, a mystery for which there were no material evidences at all, came home to him at once. I saw faith born. And they say this is not an age of miracles! Think of the tremendous revolution in the man's mind. He talked to me after the service. It was all wonderfully real to him. He was absolutely convinced of the coming of our Lord. There isn't a rationalist in London that could shake the man's belief. I asked him why he was so sure—was it merely because I had told him, because I believed in it? His answer was singularly touching. 'Nah,' he said, scratching his head,—they all do when they try to think,—'It wasn't wot you said, guvnor, it was wot I felt. I knowed as 'E wos there. Why, I ses to myself, It's true!'"
"It is very wonderful," Lucy said. "It's more wonderful by far than a man at a Salvation Army meeting or a revival. One can understand that the sudden shouts and the trumpets and banners and things would influence any one. But that a service which is inexplicable even to the people who conduct it should influence this poor uneducated man is strange."