For a time she and Lady Ella, to whom these ideas were novel, discussed the animation of grey and sombre towns by house painting. In such matter Lady Sunderbund had a Russian mind. “I can't bea' g'ey,” she said. “Not in my su'oundings, not in my k'eed, nowhe'e.” She turned to the bishop. “If I had my way I would paint you' cathed'al inside and out.”
“They used to be painted,” said the bishop. “I don't know if you have seen Ely. There the old painting has been largely restored....”
From that to the end there was no real danger, and at last the bishop found himself alone with his wife again.
“Remarkable person,” he said tentatively. “I never met any one whose faults were more visible. I met her at Wimbush House.”
He glanced at his watch.
“What did she mean,” asked Lady Ella abruptly, “by talking of your new views? And about revelations?”
“She probably misunderstood something I said at the Garstein Fellows',” he said. “She has rather a leaping mind.”
He turned to the window, looked at his nails, and appeared to be suddenly reminded of duties elsewhere....
It was chiefly manifest to him that the difficulties in explaining the changes of his outlook to Lady Ella had now increased enormously.
(7)