Gobion soon caught the note and was voted an acquisition. Although he was of a somewhat finer grain than most of these men, he recognized the type instantly. Cheap cynicism was the keynote of most of the conversation, and his lighter side revelled in it. Most complex of all men, he could suck pleasure from every shade of feeling. Lord Tennyson's beautiful line: "A glorious devil large in heart and brain," fitted him exactly. With his intellect he might have been a saint, instead of which he was sublime in nothing whatever. With the face of an angel, he loved goodness for its beauty, and sin for its excitement.
Before he left the "copy shop" he had picked up several good stories, and saw his way to at least half a dozen scandalous paragraphs, which he would send to a provincial paper with which he had some connection.
He went away, being pressed to come regularly, and Mr. Hamilton met him going out, expressing his pleasure at seeing any "friend of Mister Heath's and member of the fourth hestate, 'oping as the pleasure will be repeated." Not being a journalist, the worthy landlord had a high opinion of the press.
Gobion left with Wild, and they strolled down towards Fleet Street.
"Drop in at my place some evening, will you?" he said to his companion.
"Thanks very much. I will, certainly. You must come and look me up when you've time. I am at present sharing a flat with Blanche Huntley, whom you may have heard of. I suppose you don't mind?"
"I, my dear fellow? Rather not; delighted to come. Do you turn off here?"
"Yes, I'm going to the Temple station; good-bye."
Gobion had heard of Miss Huntley. "How very nasty some men are in their tastes," he thought; "it's all rather horrid. I'll go to evensong somewhere." Not the better, but the finer side of him woke up, and he felt the necessity of a quieting and poetic influence to counteract the clever sordidness of the afternoon. He took a cab to Pimlico, where he knew churches were plentiful, and after a little search found what he wanted not far from Victoria Station.
The church was only lit by the candles on the high altar and a solitary corona over the stall of the clergyman. Gobion was quite alone. The shadows and gloom of the building were thrown into a deeper gloom, an added mystery, by the radiance above. A young priest, of the earnest Cuddesdon type, walked in all alone, his steps echoing mournfully on the flagged chancel floor. He gave a slight start of pleasure when he saw that there was a congregation, a young man, too!—the poor curate had never before seen such a phenomenon at a weekday evensong.