From time to time one of the old ladies would
try to draw Mark into the conversation; but he preferred listening and
let them think that his monosyllabic answers signified a shyness that
did not want to be conspicuous. Soon they appeared to forget his
existence. Deep in the lap of an armchair covered with a glazed chintz
of Sevres roses and sable he was enthralled by that chronicle of
phantoms, that frieze of ghosts passing before his eyes, while the
present faded away upon the growing quiet of the London evening and
became remote as the distant roar of the traffic, which itself was
remote as the sound of the sea in a shell. Fox-hunting squires caracoled
by with the air of paladins; and there was never a lady mentioned that
did not take the fancy like a princess in an old tale.
"He's universal," Mark thought. "And that's one of the secrets of being
a great priest. And that's why he can talk about Heaven and make you
feel that he knows what he's talking about. And if I can discern what he
is," Mark went on to himself, "I can be what he is. And I will be," he
vowed in the rapture of a sudden revelation.
On Sunday morning Father Rowley preached in the fashionable church of
St. Cyprian's, South Kensington, after which they lunched at the
vicarage.
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