"I'd like to see it, Mark. Some of my best sermons have been suggested—only suggested, mind you—by reading others. Robertson is a gold-mine—and Newman. Where is your sermon?"
"Locked up in my desk at the Mission House."
"Oh!"
"I can nip up and get it," said Mark, after a pause.
"I couldn't allow that, Mark. You're on a holiday and——"
"There's stuff in that sermon," Mark interrupted. "I'd like you to see it. Holiday be hanged! I'll fetch it to-morrow."
CHAPTER XII
BETTY SPENDS AN HOUR IN STEPNEY
Betty Kirtling came down to breakfast the next morning in her prettiest frock, and with her prettiest smile upon a glowing face. Indeed, Lord Randolph, meeting her in the hall, held up his thin, white hand, and confessed himself dazzled. Betty laughed when he quoted a line of Dryden, sensible that only a poet could do justice to her looks if they reflected faithfully her feelings. Perhaps the philosopher, with his faintly ironical smile, knew better than the poet that "the porcelain clay of human kind" is easily broken, and (being a collector) he may have remembered (which accounts for the shadows in his eyes) that rare pieces seldom escape chipping. He followed the girl into the dining-room, and saw that she seated herself next the chair which had been taken by Mark the morning before. Mark, however, was not in the room, his absence being accounted for by young Kirtling, who had met him driving to the station.
"To the station?" echoed Betty.