“The Bible!” The vicar could not conceal his surprise. It was almost the last thing he expected to see in the hands of so distinguished a skeptic.
Brandon was secretly amused by the air of sudden perplexity. “You see I am making my soul,” he said.
The vicar was puzzled. It was hard to forbear from being gratified. But fearing the ironical spirit of the modern questioner, he kept on his guard. Brandon, he knew, had a secret armory of powerful weapons. A primitive distrust of the intellect knew better than to engage him at close quarters.
“Our friend, John Smith, has led me back to the Bible,” said Brandon, with a simplicity which Mr. Perry-Hennington greatly mistrusted.
“John Smith!” The tone was frankly incredulous.
“Until the other day I had not opened it for twenty years. But that wonderful work of his has suddenly changed the angle of vision. And in order to read the future by the light of the past, which is the advice he gives to the world, I return to the fount of wisdom.”
The vicar was more and more puzzled. To be led to the Bible by John Smith was like being inducted by the devil into the use of holy water. If Brandon was sincere he could only fear for the state of his mind. On the other hand an intellectual bravo of the ultramodern school might be luring one of simple faith into a dialectical trap. Therefore the vicar hastened to diverge from a perilous subject.
The divergence, however, was only partial. All the vicar’s thought and interest played upon this vital question of John Smith, and he was there to carry it to a crucial phase. At this moment, he must see that he was not sidetracked by one whom he could only regard, at the best, as a dangerous heretic.
“Whom do you choose, my dear fellow?” said Mr. Perry-Hennington, after a wary pause. “Murfin? Moriarty? Birdwood Thompson?”
“I decline to make a choice,” Brandon spoke bitterly. “It would be an insult and a mockery.”