"Only I," he concluded, "had the impending horror of a scathing reply from the other side. You black-coated gentlemen have an immense advantage there, an advantage which I hope you, my boy, will never abuse. Is it indiscreet to ask what theme you have taken?"
Archie answered the question by repeating a phrase of Mark's, which summed up, aptly enough, the scope and purpose of the sermon. Lord Randolph raised his grizzled brows.
"Um! I like to see a young man tackling a subject bigger than himself: and the bigger the man, the bigger ought to be his subject. Often," he concluded abruptly, "it is the other way. You are ambitious, Archibald?"
"Yes," the minor canon confessed; and then, afraid of saying too much, he held his tongue. Lord Randolph respected his silence, supposing that the preacher was occupied with his thoughts. Nor did he mention that he expected to meet the Prime Minister at the deanery, who doubtless would attend service in the cathedral. If this young fellow acquitted himself with distinction, his sermon might prove a stepping-stone to great things. A week ago no man knew that a maker of prelates was coming to Westchester, certainly not the Dean, otherwise he might have elected to preach himself. Lord Randolph smiled with a slightly cynical curl of the lip. The Dean, as has been said, was radical in politics, but he probably foresaw that his party, now in power, was not likely to endure for ever.
Lord Randolph left his horses in charge of the groom, and descended at the ancient gate which leads to the Close. At the same moment two figures emerged from the shadows of the deanery porch. "There is the Prime Minister," said Lord Randolph. "I shall have pleasure, Archie, in introducing you to him."
"By Jove!" exclaimed the young man.
A moment later the most eloquent speaker in the kingdom was holding Archibald Samphire's hand and peering into his face. The great man had appreciation of physical beauty, and an eye for a personality. Archie blushed: a tribute ever welcome to genius.
"Our preacher to-day," said the Dean.
"Indeed?"
The young man's hand was retained in the ample grasp of the Prime Minister, who asked a dozen questions, enveloping Archie with that magnetic current, which seemed to emanate from him in fuller measure than from any other of his generation.