"He was a Great Philosopher," answered Monsieur Claghorn with high approval. "The incarnation of pure stoicism, realizing the ideal more truly than even Seneca or Marcus. And what of the literary quality of the book?"
"The gospels are equal to the Vicar of Wakefield or Paul and Virginia. As to the rest," she shrugged her shoulders after the French fashion—"Revelation was written by a maniac."
"Or a modern poet," observed the gentleman.
Now while these latest exponents of the Higher Criticism were thus complacently settling the literary standing of Luke and John, placing them on as high a level as that attained by Goldsmith and St. Pierre, the man smoking and the girl sipping wine (for the fish had been devoured and their remains removed), two persons came into the garden. They carried knapsacks and canes, wore heavy shoes, were dusty and travel-stained. The elder of the pair had the clerical aspect; the youth was simply a very handsome fellow of twenty or thereabout, somewhat provincial in appearance.
Beverley Claghorn glanced at the pair, and with an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, which, if it referred to the newcomers, was not complimentary, continued to smoke without remark. The girl was more curious.
"They are English," she said.
"Americans," he answered, with a faint shade of disapproval in his tone.
"But so are we," she remonstrated, noting the tone.
"We can't help it," he replied, resenting one of his grievances. "You can hardly be called one."
"Is it disgraceful?"