The cathedral had a colossal grandeur seen from so near, every finial and waterspout clearly defined in the moonlight. Justina looked up at it with reverent eyes.
'Isn't it grand!' she whispered. 'One could fancy that God inhabits it. If I were an ignorant creature from some savage land, and nobody told me it was a church, I think I should know that it was God's house.'
'Should you?' said James, lightly. 'I think I should as soon take it for a corn exchange or a wild beast show.'
'Oh!'
'You see I have no instinctive sense of the fitness of things. You would just suit Clissold. He has all those queer fancies. I've seen him stand and talk to himself like a lunatic sometimes, among the lakes and mountains; what you call the artistic faculty, I suppose.'
They walked round the cathedral-square arm-in-arm, Justina charmed to silence by the solemn splendour of the scene. All was quiet at this end of the city. Up at the subscription rooms there might be riot and confusion; but here, in this ancient square, among these old gabled houses, almost coeval with the cathedral, silence reigned supreme.
'Justina,' James began presently, 'you told me yesterday that you didn't care about being an actress.'
'I told you that I hated it,' answered the girl, candidly. 'I suppose I should like it better if I were a favourite, like Villeroy.'
I prefer your acting to Miss Villeroy's ever so much. You do it rather too quietly, perhaps, but that's better than yelling as she does.'
'I'm glad you like me best,' said Justina, softly. 'But then you're not the British public. Yes, I hate theatres. I should like to live in a little cottage, deep, deep, deep down in the country, where there were woods and fields, and a shining blue river. I could keep chickens, and live upon the money I got by the new-laid eggs.'