'Come here'—she said, drawing him back towards her. 'Come and let us talk.'
* * * * *
Meanwhile Manisty and Father Benecke were climbing the long hill, on the return from their walk. There had been no full confidence between these two. Manisty's pride would not allow it. There was too sharp humiliation at present in the thought of that assurance with which he had spoken to Benecke by the river-side.
He chose, therefore, when they were alone, rather to talk to the priest of his own affairs, of his probable acceptance of the Old Catholic offers which had been made him. Benecke did not resent the perfunctory manner of his talk, the half-mind that he gave to it. The priest's shrewd humility made no claims. He understood perfectly that the catastrophe of his own life could have no vital interest for a man absorbed as Manisty was then absorbed. He submitted to its being made a topic, a passe-temps.
Moreover, he forgave, he had always forgiven Manisty's dominant attitude towards the forces which had trampled on himself. Often he had felt himself the shipwrecked sailor sinking in the waves, while Manisty as the cool spectator was hobnobbing with the wreckers on the shore. But nothing of this affected his love for the man. He loved him as Vanbrugh Neal had loved him; because of a certain charm, a certain indestructible youth and irresponsibility at the very heart of him, which redeemed half his errors.
'Ah! my dear friend,' Manisty was saying as they neared the top of the hill—with his largest and easiest gesture; 'of course you must go to Bonn; you must do what they want you to do. The Old Catholics will make a great deal of you. It might have been much worse.'
'They are very kind. But one transplants badly at sixty-six,' said the priest mildly, thinking perhaps of his little home in the street of his Bavarian town, of the pupils he should see no more, of the old sister who had deserted him.
'Your book has been the success,' said Manisty, impatiently. 'For you said what you meant to say—you hit your mark. As for me—well, never mind! I came out in too hot a temper; the men I saw first were too plausible; the facts have been too many for me. No matter. It was an adventure like any other. I don't regret it! In itself, it gave one some exciting moments, and,—if I mistook the battle here—I shall still fight the English battle all the better for the experience! Allons donc!—"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new!"'
The priest looked at his handsome reckless air, with a mixture of indulgence and repulsion. Manisty was 'an honourable man,' of many gifts. If certain incalculable elements in his character could be controlled, place and fame were probably before him. Compared with him, the priest realised profoundly his own meaner, obscurer destiny. The humble servant of a heavenly patria, of an unfathomable truth, is no match for these intellectual soldiers of fortune. He does not judge them; he often feels towards them a strange forbearance. But he would sooner die than change parts!
* * * * *