Mr. Barron looked attentively at his hostess. It was as though he were for the first time really occupied with her—endeavouring to place her, and himself with regard to her. His face stiffened.
"That's all very well—excellent, of course. Only, let me remind you, he was not asked to take vows about the water-supply! But he did promise and vow at his ordination to hold the Faith—to 'banish and drive away strange doctrines'!"
"What are 'strange doctrines' nowadays?" said a mild, falsetto voice in the distance.
Barron turned to the speaker—the long-haired dishevelled person whose name he had not caught distinctly as Mrs. Flaxman introduced him. His manner unconsciously assumed a note of patronage.
"No need to define them, I think—for a Christian. The Church has her
Creeds."
"Of course. But while this gentleman shelves them—no doubt a revolutionary proceeding—are there not excesses on the other side? May there not be too much—as well as too little?"
And with an astonishing command of ecclesiastical detail Manvers gave an account—gently ironic here and there—of some neo-Catholic functions of which he had lately been a witness.
Barron fidgeted.
"Deplorable, I admit—quite deplorable! I would put that kind of thing down, just as firmly as the other."
Manvers smiled.