"You mean that ironically! What does for Rome, however, doesn't do for us. The Church of England is It--not She--to most people. As for Rome, nothing in her belongs to humanity, except the Vatican discipline--the life of which, I confess, is a permanent miracle!"
"My best friends," entreated Sara gaily, "do not--do not fight. Be nice to each other and listen to me. The English never read history. Why not get up a kind of Historical Commission and examine the validity of the Anglican Orders? There you can work at the roots of things. After that, introduce a Bill for the admission of clergymen to Parliament. You have spiritual peers, why not spiritual Commons?"
"One at a time," said Reckage; "what ideas you have! Say them again. I believe they are not half bad. But do go more slowly."
Sara, with a becoming instinct of meekness, took her favourite seat on the fender, and at the feet of the two men, looking up humbly, began to explain herself with that lightness of phrase only possible to those who have a profound knowledge of their subject. Her submissive attitude, her soft, musical voice, and her docile expression made both men insensible to the actual commands insinuated into the emotional wit and acute arguments of her little speech. Reckage was fascinated. He sat there drinking in her beauty and wisdom--the one stimulated his senses, the other pierced his intelligence, making him feel that, with such a companion ever by his side, he might achieve heroism with a good conscience. As matters were, he was often dissatisfied, sleepless, and oppressed--particularly under praise. He was not often set right, as he would have said it, in his own opinion--even when the world and his Executive Committee were disposed to cry out--"Well done."
"I didn't run within pounds of my form," was the cry of self-reproach he invariably heard above the applause of his colleagues or the commendation of the Press. Sara, he believed, would give him the courage of his own better nature. These thoughts were passing rosily in his heart, when Lord Garrow, accompanied by Agnes Carillon, entered the room.
"My love," said Lord Garrow to Sara, "I met Miss Carillon on the steps of the London Library, and I have brought her in to tea. But why do you sit in the firelight? Why haven't they lit the gas? And who is here?"