'My dear,' said Mrs. Gresley, 'infidels are all like that, and their only refuge is to be silent or profane. Don't you remember when that professor from Oxford, whom we met at Dr. Pearson's, said something about history and the Bible—I forget what, but it was perfectly unorthodox—and Dr. Pearson was so interested, and you spoke up at once, and he made no reply whatever, and then asked me the name of our Virginia creeper, and talked about flowers. I often think of that, and how he had to turn the subject.'
'But he was not convinced,' said Mr. Gresley, frowning; 'that is the odd part of it. He brought out a book on the Bible with things in it much worse than what he said in my presence, and which I positively refuted. And it went through six editions, and the Bishop actually read it.'
'You see,' said Mrs. Gresley, with the acumen which pervades the atmosphere of so many country vicarages, 'a man like the professor does not want to be convinced, or his books would not be read, any more than Mr. Loftus wants to be convinced he ought to come to church regularly, because then he would have no excuse for staying away. But perhaps his wife may be a Christian, James. They say she is quite a young girl, and that her aunt has brought her up well.'
And when Sibyl's sweet face and black velvet hat, and a wonderful flowing gown of white and lilac, appeared in the carved Wilderleigh pew beside Mr. Loftus's familiar profile, the Gresleys hoped many things; though Mrs. Gresley expressed herself, after service, as much shocked at the bride's style of dress, which she pronounced to be too showy. Mrs. Gresley's views on dress were exclusively formed at the two garden-parties and the one private ball to which she went in the course of the year. The Gresleys thought it wrong to go to public balls, and—which was quite another matter—they thought it wrong for other clergymen and their wives to go also.
It was fortunate that Mr. Loftus admired his wife's style of dress, as he had always admired Sibyl herself, from her graceful, fringeless head to her slender, low-heeled shoes. She pleased his fastidious taste as perhaps no other woman could have done. She was one of the few Englishwomen who can wear French gowns as if they are part of them, and not put on for the occasion.
After a becoming interval Mr. and Mrs. Gresley called, and this time Mrs. Gresley was somewhat mollified by what she called the very 'suitable' costume of brown holland in which Sibyl received them. Mr. Loftus did not appear, and in the course of conversation the young couple were further pleasantly impressed with the perfect orthodoxy and sound Church teaching of the bride, whose natural gift of platitude was enhanced by the subject under discussion.
They also made the discovery that Mr. Loftus was, in his wife's opinion, infallible. And Mrs. Gresley looked with some astonishment at a bride who actually entertained towards a 'layman' the unique sentiments which she did for her apostolic James.
'She is a nice young creature,' said Mrs. Gresley, half an hour later, as, with her hands full of orchids, she accompanied her lord back to the Vicarage, 'and her views, James, are beautiful—just what I think myself. She agreed with everything we said. She must have been very well brought up. But I can't understand her infatuation for Mr. Loftus. Really, from the way she spoke of him, and how he knew best, one might have supposed he was priest as well as squire here. It almost made one smile.'
Mr. Loftus and Crack had, in the meanwhile, remained in the gardens, he leaning back in a long deck-chair, looking dreamily up into the perspective of moving green above him, while Crack, who had only just arrived from Scotland, snapped mournfully at the English flies, which tasted very much the same as those of Strathspey, so few new things are there under the sun.
Sibyl had wished to bring Peter, the poodle, also to Wilderleigh, but nothing would induce Mr. Loftus to invite him. He told Sibyl that he himself hoped to replace Peter in her affections, and he had certainly succeeded.