Evensong was half over when the preacher arrived, and the church
being full Mark was given a chair by the sidesman in a dark corner,
which presently became darker when Father Rowley went up into the
pulpit, for all the lights were lowered except those above the
preacher's head, and nothing was visible in the church except the
luminous crucifix upon the High Altar. The warmth and darkness brought
out the scent of the many women gathered together; the atmosphere was
charged with human emotion so that Mark sitting in his corner could
fancy that he was lost in the sensuous glooms behind some _Mater
Addolorata_ of the seventeenth century. He longed to be back in Chatsea.
He was dismayed at the prospect of one day perhaps having to cope with
this quality of devotion. He shuddered at the thought, and for the first
time he wondered if he had not a vocation for the monastic life. But was
it a vocation if one longed to escape the world? Must not a true
vocation be a longing to draw nearer to God? Oh, this nauseating bouquet
of feminine perfumes . . . it was impossible to pay attention to the
sermon.
Mark went to bed early with a headache; but in the morning he woke
refreshed with the knowledge that they were going back to Chatsea,
although before they reached home the journey had to be broken at High
Thorpe whither Father Rowley had been summoned to an interview by the
Bishop of Silchester on account of refusing to communicate some people
at the mid-day celebration.
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