"Ah! indeed—no doubt that happens in some measure to all of us. I am to understand that you are a resident?"
Iglesias assented.
"In this district?"
Again he assented.
"Indeed. Really, I wish I had known it sooner. It always gives me pleasure to meet persons of another nationality than my own. Intercourse with them makes for liberality of view. It often dispels anti-English prejudice. I am always glad to be helpful to strangers."
"You are very kind," Iglesias said with gravity.
"Not at all—not at all. I hold very practical views not only regarding the duties of the Englishman to the alien, but of the pastor towards his flock. But I find it almost impossible, I regret to say, to become personally acquainted with all my parishioners. My curates are capital young fellows—earnest, active, go-ahead. But in a large area such as this there is always a shifting population with which the clergy, however energetic, find it difficult to keep in touch. We are obliged to discriminate between dwellers and sojourners. As soon as any person is proved to be a bona fide dweller my curates pass his or her name on to me, and either I or my wife call in due course."
Dominic Iglesias permitted himself to smile.
"An excellent system, no doubt," he remarked.
"I find it works very well on the whole. But no system is infallible. There must be occasional oversights, and you have been the victim of one. I mention this to disabuse your mind of the idea of any intentional neglect. Well, Mrs. Lovegrove, and so our good friends Mrs. Porcher and Miss Hart have gone—estimable women both of them in their own line. I ought to be running away, too, and I have just been having a word with your other guest here, Mr.——"