"And now," he continued, "that little misunderstanding being cleared up, will you mind my turning into the restaurant just here, in High Street, for a cup of coffee and a roll? I have not breakfasted yet."
Whereupon George Lovegrove pranced before him, incoherent in kindly remonstrance and advice.
"At 11 A. M., and after your severe indisposition at Christmas, too, out walking on an empty stomach! It is positively suicidal. Where have you been to?" he cried.
"To Mass," Iglesias answered, still smiling, though with something of a fighting light in his eyes and a lift of his head.
His companion stared at him in blank amazement.
"To what?" he said.
"To Mass," Iglesias repeated. "I have been waiting for a suitable opportunity to speak to you of this, George. I, too, have felt the weight of enforced leisure. It has not been a particularly cheerful experience; but it has given me time to read, and still more to think, with the consequence that I have returned to the faith of my childhood. I have made my peace with the Church."
They continued to walk slowly onward; but George Lovegrove drew away to the further side of the path as though contact might be dangerous, as though infection was hanging about. He kept his eyes averted, his head bent.
"You do surprise me," he said at last. "I had not the slightest inkling that you were contemplating such a step. I give you my word, you have fairly taken away my breath. I do not seem to be able to grasp it, that you, whom I have always looked up to as so mentally superior, so independent in your thought, should have become a Romanist—for that is your meaning, I take it, Dominic?"
"Yes, that is my meaning," Iglesias answered.