The vicar of St. Elwyn's was a tall, clean-shaven priest, who would have been pompous had he not been so suave. His face was a smooth cream-color, his eyes ingratiating and perhaps a little furtive, while the mouth was mobile and clever. He occupied a somewhat peculiar position among the London clergy. He was an advanced Ritualist, inclining to many ceremonies that were purely Roman and Continental. But he had very little of the ascetic about him, and was as far removed from the patient, self-denying Anglican clergy of the slum districts in the East End, as four pounds of butter is from four o'clock. St. Elwyn's was one of the "smartest" congregations in London. The costly splendor of its ceremony, the perfection with which everything was done, attracted pleasure-loving people, who would go anywhere for a thrill that would act as the blow of a whip to jaded and enervated lives.
Mr. Persse "catered"—the word exactly describes his methods—for precisely that class of people whom he was so successful in attracting.
"How do you do, Lady Kirwan?" he said, in a pleasant and gentlemanly voice. "Ah, Sir Augustus, I hope you are better. It is a trying time of the year. I have called this morning on a somewhat singular errand. I was told, I must not say by whom, that he actually saw your niece, Miss Lys, in the theatre last night—you have read the papers this morning—yes?—in company with this extraordinary mountebank of whom every one is talking. Of course I denied it indignantly. I have met Miss Lys at your house, and I knew such a thing to be impossible. But my informant is, I am sorry to say, a little prone to gossip and tittle-tattle, and I thought, in justice to you that if I were armed with an authoritative denial, I should be able to nip all such foolish gossip in the bud, before it has time to spread. You know how people talk, dear Lady Kirwan."
Lady Kirwan certainly knew—and so did Mr. Persse. He was the hero of many afternoon tea-tables, and an active disseminator of gossip.
"My dear Mr. Persse," Sir Augustus said somewhat emphatically, "allow me to tell you that you have been quite mistaken in your view of the new movement. The man whom the papers call Joseph is not at all what you think. Sir Thomas Ducaine, for example, is hand and glove with him. I must really correct your ideas on the point. If irregular, perhaps, the mission will be most influential."
"Oh, ah! I had no idea," said Mr. Persse, with remarkable mental agility. "Dear me, is that so, Sir Augustus? Anything that makes for good, of course, must be welcomed by all of us. I myself—"
"I will introduce you to Joseph," Sir Augustus interrupted, with intense internal enjoyment. "He happens to be in the house at this moment."
That afternoon all the evening papers contained an announcement that Joseph, the new evangelist, would preach at St. Elwyn's, Mayfair, after evening service on the morrow—which was Sunday.
What had happened was this:
Joseph had been duly introduced to Father Persse. The latter, in whom the instincts of the theatrical entrepreneur were very largely developed, saw his chance at once. Mayfair would have a sensation such as it had never enjoyed before.