“I challenge the term,” said Brandon with the note of airy banter which always charmed. “Not for the first time, you know. I’m afraid we shall never agree about the dear chap.”
“No, I’m afraid we shall not.” The vicar could not quite keep resentment out of his voice. But in deference to a graceful and perhaps merited rebuke, the controversialist lowered his tone a little. “But let me give you the facts.”
Thereupon, with a naïveté not lost upon the man in the spinal carriage, Mr. Perry-Hennington very solemnly related the incident of the white feather.
Brandon said nothing, but looked at the vicar fixedly.
“I hate having to worry you in this way.” Mr. Perry-Hennington watched narrowly the drawn face. “Of course it had to be followed up. At first, I’ll confess, I took it to be a mere piece of blasphemous bravado in execrable taste, but now I’ve seen the man, now I’ve talked with him, I have come to another conclusion.”
The vicar saw that Brandon’s eyes were full of an intense, eager interest.
“Well?” said the sufferer softly.
“The conclusion I have come to is that it’s a case of paranoia.”
“That is to say, you think he intended the statement to be taken literally?”
“I do. But I didn’t realize that all at once. When I accused him of blasphemy he defended himself with a farrago of quasi mystical gibberish which amounted to nothing, and he ended with a perfectly fantastic statement. Let me give it you word for word. ‘At two o’clock this morning a presence entered my room and said, “I am Goethe and I have come to pray for Germany.” And I said, “Certainly, I shall be very glad to pray for Germany,” and we knelt and prayed together. And then he rose and showed me the little town with its quaint gables and turrets where he sleeps at night, and I asked him to have courage and then I embraced him and then he left me, saying he would return again.’”