Kennedy, seeing Mrs. Branscombe's expression change, raises his head, and so becomes aware of her husband's presence. Being a wise young man in his own generation, he smiles genially upon Dorian, and, going forward, shakes his hand as though years of devotion have served to forge a link likely to bind them each to each forever.
"Charming day, isn't it?" he says, with a beatific smile. "Quite like summer."
"Rather more like January, I think," says Dorian, calmly, who is in his very worst mood. "First touch of winter, I should say." He laughs as he says this; but his laugh is as wintry as the day, and chills the hearer. Then he turns aside from his wife and her companion, and lays his hand upon the vicar's shoulder, who has just risen from his class, having carried it successfully through the best part of Isaiah.
"My dear boy,--you?" says the vicar, quite pleased to see him. "But in bad time: the lesson is over, so you can learn nothing. I don't like to give them too much Scripture on a week-day. It has a disheartening effect, and----"
"I wish they could hear you," says Branscombe, with a slight shrug.
"It is as well they cannot," says the vicar; "though I doubt if free speaking does much harm; and, really, perpetual grinding does destroy the genuine love for our grand old Bible that we should all feel deep down in our souls."
"Feeling has gone out of fashion," says Dorian, so distinctly that Georgie in the distance hears him, and winces a little.
"Well, it has," says the vicar. "There can't be a doubt of it, when one thinks of the alterations they have just made in that fine old Book. There are innovations from morning till night, and nothing gained by them. Surely, if we got to heaven up to this by the teaching of the Bible as it _was_, it serves no cause to alter a word here and there, or a sentence that was dear to us from our childhood. It brings us no nearer God, but only unsettles beliefs that, perhaps, up to this were sound enough. The times are not to be trusted."
"Is anything worthy of trust?" says Dorian, bitterly.
"I doubt I'm old-fashioned," says the dear vicar, with a deprecating smile. "I dare say change is good, and works wonders in many ways. We old people stick fast, and can't progress. I suppose I should be content to be put on one side."