"Protest would have been wasted," said Archibald. "If you will excuse me, my dear, I will go downstairs. The deputation is waiting for me."
"One moment," said Betty. "I have something to say which must be said—here and now. Last night you spoke eloquently enough of that west country and the life we might lead there. And I—I," she faltered and blushed, "I was not honest when I urged you to stay here. I am drifting into the old hateful whirlpool from which I thought I had escaped for ever. I pictured to myself life in a cathedral close—stagnant, dun-coloured, full of uninteresting duties—and I recoiled from it. I smelled that old smell of cleaned gloves at all the parties. I thought of myself, not of you. But now, I beseech you to consider what London means to both of us—to you and to me. And if Mr. Conquest is right, if your sacred profession is a trade, if great success in it can be achieved only by such self-advertisement as he thinks justifiable, is such success worth having to a Christian gentleman?"
Archibald frowned. Then, feeling that his powers of speech had returned to him, he answered at length, citing certain prelates whose piety, sincerity, and humility were above reproach. Conquest took the worldling's view. He was more than half pagan, and he posed openly as a scoffer and a cynic. Still, he was right in contending that the great places in the Church's gift were held by those whom a wide knowledge of the world had equipped. Such knowledge was not to be gleaned in a cathedral close lying in the heart of a sleepy west country town. He hoped that his dearest Betty would not misunderstand him when he confessed frankly that he did aspire to the highest positions, not for what they might hold of honour or emolument, but for the power they conferred of doing widespread good to others. Warming to his theme, he flooded Betty's perplexed mind with scores of ready-made phrases—phrases laboriously accumulated: stones, so to speak, with which he had fortified his own position.
"Oh—I am muddled, muddled," said Betty.
"I have been muddled myself," her husband admitted. "Modern life must perplex and distress the wisest. And all of us at times feel a desire to get out of the hurly-burly. Shall I say that last night, feeling worn out and discouraged, I did long for the quiet and peace of that west-country deanery; but this morning—now," he expanded his chest, "I am myself again."
He smiled assuringly and left the room.
When he had gone, Betty went back to the chair among the ferns and palms. She tried to go over what her husband had said, to look at the matter fairly from his point of view. But the effort was greater than she could compass. She felt as if she had been submerged in a torrent of words, and of these words nothing was left—only a sense of desolation and isolation.
When she saw Mark a few days later, the article in the Mercury had been published. Conquest was given to boasting that he could "boom" an author with such subtlety that none, not even the man himself, suspected what was being done. The readers of the Mercury rose from the perusal of the article in question convinced that a seasonable and well-deserved tribute had been paid to a saintly and self-sacrificing preacher of Christ's gospel. Archibald, reading it, was aware that his cheeks, as also the cockles of his heart, were very warm indeed. Betty did not read the article. Mark, however, was full of it, not knowing that Conquest had written it.
"The truth is," he told Betty, "the truth is, Betty, that I did not like his acceptance of the Basilica. It bothered me a good deal. Now this proves plainly that Archie is above worldly considerations. Not another man of his age would have refused such an offer."
Betty asked for news of the Songs.