“Then p'each as a man. You must still wea' something.”
“Just ordinary clothes.”
“O'dina'y clothes a' clothes in the fashion,” she said. “You would have to go to you' taila for a new p'eaching coat with b'aid put on dif'ently, or two buttons instead of th'ee....”
“One needn't be fashionable.”
“Ev'ybody is fash'nable. How can you help it? Some people wea' old fashions; that's all.... A cassock's an old fashion. There's nothing so plain as a cassock.”
“Except that it's a clerical fashion. I want to be just as I am now.”
“If you think that—that owoble suit is o'dina'y clothes!” she said, and stared at him and gave way to tears of real tenderness.
“A cassock,” she cried with passion. “Just a pe'fectly plain cassock. Fo' deecency!... Oh, if you won't—not even that!”
(8)
As he walked now after his unsuccessful quest of Dr. Brighton-Pomfrey towards the Serpentine he acted that stormy interview with Lady Sunderbund over again. At the end, as a condition indeed of his departure, he had left things open. He had assented to certain promises. He was to make her understand better what it was he needed. He was not to let anything that had happened affect that “spi'tual f'enship.” She was to abandon all her plans, she was to begin again “at the ve'y beginning.” But he knew that indeed there should be no more beginning again with her. He knew that quite beyond these questions of the organization of a purified religion, it was time their association ended. She had wept upon him; she had clasped both his hands at parting and prayed to be forgiven. She was drawing him closer to her by their very dissension. She had infected him with the softness of remorse; from being a bright and spirited person, she had converted herself into a warm and touching person. Her fine, bright black hair against his cheek and the clasp of her hand on his shoulder was now inextricably in the business. The perplexing, the astonishing thing in his situation was that there was still a reluctance to make a conclusive breach.