“How did you like it, Mr Grenfell?” she asked.
He smiled in a superior way, conscious to his fingertips of his unassailable theology.
“I daresay he may come to be something of a preacher in time,” he said. “But he was crude—very crude—and I should say he would do well to go through a good course of divinity. He evidently thinks he knows all about it; but if I could have a talk with him I could knock his arguments to shivers, I could—”
“Mr Grenfell,” said Mildred, feeling very repelled by his manner, “do you think religion is only theology of the Schools? If you could not feel the love of God, and love to man—the ‘enthusiasm of humanity,’ if you like to call it so—breathing through Mr Lyle’s every word and look and tone, I am sorry for you.”
Mr Grenfell grew very red.
“I am sorry,” he began, “I did not mean—I will think over what you say. Perhaps it is true that we clergy get into that way of thinking—as if religion were a branch of learning more than anything else. Thank you,” and with a shake of the hand he turned away.
A step or two further on, Mildred overtook a young man—a cripple, and owing to his infirmity, in poor circumstances, though a gentleman by birth. She was passing with a kindly bow, when he stopped her.
“Might I ask the name of the clergyman who preached this morning?” he asked, raising his face, still glowing with pleasure, to hers.
“Mr Lyle,” she replied; “at least,” as for the first time a slight misgiving crossed her mind, “I feel almost sure that is his name.”
“Thank you,” the cripple said. “I am glad to know it, though it matters little. Whoever he was, I pray God to bless him, I little knew what I was going to church to hear this morning; I felt as if an angel had unawares come to speak to us.”