"My name's Davray. You probably heard of me as a drunkard who hangs about the town doing no good. I'm quite sure you don't want to speak to me or know me, but in here, where it's so quiet and so beautiful, one may know people whom it wouldn't be nice to know outside."
Ronder looked at him. The man's face, worn now and pinched and sharp, must once have had its fineness.
"You do yourself an injustice, Mr. Davray," Ronder said. "I'm very glad indeed to know you."
"Well, of course, you parsons have got to know everybody, haven't you? And the sinners especially. That's your job. But I'm not a sinner to-day. I haven't drunk anything for weeks, although don't congratulate me, because I'm certainly not going to hold out much longer. There's no hope of redeeming me, Canon Ronder, even if you have time for the job."
Ronder smiled.
"I'm not going to preach to you," he said, "you needn't be afraid."
"Well, let's forget all that. This Cathedral is the very place, if you clergymen had any sense of proportion, where you should be ashamed to preach. It laughs at you."
"At any rate the Bishop does," said Ronder, looking down at the tomb.
"No, but all of it," said Davray. Instinctively they both looked up. High above them, in the very heart of the great Cathedral tower, a mist, reflected above the windows until it was coloured a very faint rose, trembled like a sea about the black rafters and rounded pillars. Even as they looked some bird flew twittering from corner to corner.
"When I'm worked up," said Davray, "which I'm not to-day, I just long to clear all you officials out of it. I laugh sometimes to think how important you think yourselves and how unimportant you really are. The Cathedral laughs too, and once and again stretches out a great lazy finger and just flicks you away as it would a spider's web. I hope you don't think me impertinent."