About him was something intensely earnest, intensely eager and alert, and, watching him, I realized he belonged to that little group which through the ages has dared to differ with accepted order; and for his daring he had suffered, as all must suffer who feel as well as think.
"You don't mind," the smile on his face was whimsical, "if I take a good draught of this, do you? It's been long since I've seen just this sort of thing." His eyes were on a picture between two windows. "Out of Denmark one rarely sees anything of Skovgaard's. That Filipinno Lippi is excellent, also. At the Hermitage in St. Petersburg I tried to get a copy like that"—he nodded at Rembrandt's picture of himself—"but there was none to be had. Did you get yours there?"
"Four years ago. I also got that photograph of Houdon's Voltaire there."
He looked in the direction to which I pointed, and, getting up, went over to first one picture and then another, and studied them closely. A bit of bronze, a statuette or two, an altar-piece, a chalice, a flagon, a paten, a censer, and an ikon held his attention, one after the other, and again he turned to me.
"These are very interesting. Is it as one of the faithful you collect?" A smile which strangely lighted his face swept over it.
"Oh no!" I shook my head. "The faithful would find me a most disturbing person. I ask too many questions." My hand made movement in the direction of the bookshelves around the four sides of the room, on the tops of which were oddly assorted little remembrances of days of travel. "A study of such things is a study of religious expression at different periods and among different peoples. They've always interested me."
"They interest me, also." Mr. Guard stood before the ikon, looked long upon it before coming back to the fire and again sitting down. For a moment he gazed into it as if forgetting where he was, then he leaned back in his chair and turned to me.
"A collection of examples of ecclesiastical art, of religious ideas embodied in objects used for purposes of worship, is interesting—yes—but a collection of re-actions against what they fail to represent would be more so, could they be collected."
"They have been—haven't they? In the lives of those who dare to differ, to break from heritage and tradition, much has been collected and transmitted. The effect of re-actions is what counts, I suppose."
"Their inevitability is what people do not seem to understand." Leaning forward, he again looked into the fire, his hands between his knees. "The teachings of Christ having been twisted into a system of theology, and the Church into an organization based on dogma and doctrine, re-action is unescapable. However, we won't get on that." Again he straightened. "Was it re-action that brought you to Scarborough Square? I beg your pardon! I have no right to ask. There was something you wished to ask me, I believe."