The Bishop’s quiet length sank into a deep chair. His long slim hands rested calmly upon the leather arms.
Dr. Newbold sat bolt upright upon the couch, darting furtive glances at the Bishop from eyes too blue for his reddened face. His right hand, strong and square, clutched a cushion tensely. The nervous twitching of his lips redeemed from heaviness a face clean-shaven but always bearing the blue-black shadow of a heavy growth of beard. There was a pleasant sweep of brow beneath jet hair.
“I am sorry you find me so upset this morning, Bishop. They perhaps told you downstairs—” then he paused, remembering what they might well have told the Bishop downstairs!
“Harry told me you were ill. I met him going out.”
“I judged that he had gone out. Harry’s sole comment on his father’s headaches is slamming the front door!”
“The youngsters know so little about headaches,” answered the Bishop; “that is the trouble, then, this morning, headache?”
“The headache is constant, back here, incessant. But this morning the trouble is,—a case of everything, as the doctor says.”
“What does the doctor say? We must find some way of setting straight this case of everything.”
“What they all say—nerves, rest, less work, less worry, fewer diocesan committees, fewer dinner parties—in Westbury where dining is a cult, and as venerable and as sacred as the church steeple! I might as well toss over one as the other! Suppose I did turn heretic, and refuse Mrs. Hollister’s invitation for Thursday! Could I preach beneath her withering glances next Sunday?
“Or suppose I gave up my bridge with my Senior Warden. The Church needs more card-playing clergy, he says quite frankly. And I’m inclined to think, Bishop, that it does. A little more humoring of men of our good warden’s type, and perhaps Dr. Judd’s experiences would be less often repeated. Doctors and dinners be what they will—” mockery and worry both played about the heavy flexible lips, “I have the unfortunate close of that rectorate ever before me.”