Father Stafford | Page 6

quite right. Let us talk about it."
"No, I won't. We will talk about you. You've been very ill, Father
Stafford?"
"A little knocked up."
"I don't wonder!" she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which
was now furnished with a potato.
He saw the glance.
"It wasn't that," he said; "that suits me very well."
Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said:
"I don't believe it. You're killing yourself. Why don't you do as the
Bishop does?"
The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.
"Men have different ways of living," he answered evasively.
"I think yours is a very bad way. Why do you do it?"
"I'm sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just
now. I notice you take a little wine. You probably would not care to
explain why."
"I take it because I like it."
"And I don't take it because I like it."

Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression
was confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate
Bernard, who sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences
of old visits to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a
little flattery that Stafford recognized only to ignore. They had known
one another well in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at
finding her playfellow both famous and not forgetful.
Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent
wonder. Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia,
and yet was devoting himself to Kate.
"I suppose it's on the same principle that he takes water instead of
champagne," he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at
Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she
was, as boys say, "dared" to make Father Stafford talk to her. This was
quite enough. Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who
thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized
her opportunity, and said in the softest voice:
"Father Stafford?"
Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark
eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.
"I am so sorry--but--but I thought you looked so ill."
Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human. The triumph of
wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes.
Suffice it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned
Eugene's glance with a look of triumph and scorn.
Meanwhile, trouble had arisen between the Bishop and Mr. Morewood.
Morewood was an artist of great ability, originality, and skill; and if he
had not attained the honors of the Academy, it was perhaps more of his
own fault than that of the exalted body in question, as he always treated
it with an ostentatious contumely. After all, the Academy must be
allowed its feelings. Moreover, his opinions on many subjects were

known to be extreme, and he was not chary of displaying them. He was
sitting on Mrs. Lane's left, opposite the Bishop, and the latter had
started with his hostess a discussion of the relation between religion
and art. All went harmoniously for a time; they agreed that religion had
ceased to inspire art, and that it was a very regrettable thing; and there,
one would have thought the subject--not being a new one--might well
have been left. Suddenly, however, Mr. Morewood broke in:
"Religion has ceased to inspire art because it has lost its own
inspiration, and having so ceased, it has lost its only use."
The Bishop was annoyed. A well-bred man himself, he disliked what
seemed to him ill-bred attacks on opinions which his position
proclaimed him to hold.
"You cannot expect me to assent to either of your propositions, Mr.
Morewood," he said. "If I believed them, you know, I should not be in
the place I am."
"They're true, for all that," retorted Morewood. "And what is it to be
traced to?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said poor Mrs. Lane.
"Why, to Established Churches, of course. As long as fancies and
imaginary beings are left free to each man to construct or destroy as he
will,--or again, I may say, as long as they are fluid,--they subserve the
pleasurableness of life. But when you take in hand and make a Church
out of them, and all that, what can you expect?"
"I think you must be confusing the Church with the Royal Academy,"
observed the Bishop, with some acidity.
"There would be plenty of excuse for me, if I did," replied Morewood.
"There's no truth and no zeal in either of them."
"If you please,