The Lions Share | Page 5

of all the boys in the
district."
"But he's really very fond of you, Audrey."
"Yes, I know," said Audrey. "He ought to keep me in the china
cupboard."
"Well, it's a great problem."
"He's invented a beautiful new trick for keeping me in when he's out. I
have to copy his beastly Society letters for him."
"I see he's got a new box," observed Miss Ingate, glancing into the open
cupboard in which stood the safe. On the top of the safe were two
japanned boxes, each lettered in white: "The National Reformation
Society." The uppermost box was freshly unpacked and shone with all
the intact pride of virginity.
"You should read some of the letters. You really should, Winnie," said

Audrey. "All the bigwigs of the Society love writing to each other. I bet
you father will get a typewriting machine this year, and make me learn
it. The chairman has a typewriter, and father means to be the next
chairman. You'll see.... Oh! What's that? Listen!"
"What's what?"
A faint distant throbbing could be heard.
"It's the motor! He's coming back for something. Fly out of here,
Winnie, fly!"
Audrey felt sick at the thought that if her father had returned only a few
minutes earlier he might have trapped her at the safe itself. She still
kept one hand behind her.
Miss Ingate, who with all her qualities was rather easily flustered, ran
out of the dangerous room in Audrey's wake. They met Mr. Mathew
Moze at the half-landing of the stairs.
He was a man of average size, somewhat past sixty years. He had
plump cheeks, tinged with red; his hair, moustache and short, full beard,
were quite grey. He wore a thick wide-spreading ulster, and between
his coat and waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put
him in the Strand in town clothes, and he might have been taken for a
clerk, a civil servant, a club secretary, a retired military officer, a poet,
an undertaker--for anything except the last of a long line of immovable
squires who could not possibly conceive what it was not to be the
owner of land. His face was preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as
he realised that Miss Ingate was on the stairs it instantly brightened into
a warm and rather wistful smile.
"Good morning, Miss Ingate," he greeted her with deferential cordiality.
"I'm so glad to see you back."
"Good morning, good morning, Mr. Moze," responded Miss Ingate.
"Vehy nice of you. Vehy nice of you."

Nobody would have guessed from their demeanour that they differed
on every subject except their loyalty to that particular corner of Essex,
that he regarded her and her political associates as deadly microbes in
the national organism, and that she regarded him as a nincompoop
crossed with a tyrant. Each of them had a magic glass to see in the
other nothing but a local Effendi and familiar guardian angel of Moze.
Moreover, Mr. Moze's public smile and public manner were
irresistible--until he lost his temper. He might have had friends by the
score, had it not been for his deep constitutional reserve--due partly to
diffidence and partly to an immense hidden conceit. Mr. Moze's
existence was actuated, though he knew it not, by the conviction that
the historic traditions of England were committed to his keeping.
Hence the conceit, which was that of a soul secretly self-dedicated.
Audrey, outraged by the hateful hypocrisy of persons over fifty, and
terribly constrained and alarmed, turned vaguely back up the stairs.
Miss Ingate, not quite knowing what she did, with an equal vagueness
followed her.
"Come in. Do come in," urged Mr. Moze at the door of the study.
Audrey, who remained on the landing, heard her elders talk smoothly
of grave Mozian things, while Mr. Moze unlocked the new tin box
above the safe.
"I'd forgotten a most important paper," said he, as he relocked the box.
"I have an appointment with the Bishop of Colchester at ten-forty-five,
and I fear I may be late. Will you excuse me, Miss Ingate?"
She excused him.
Departing, he put the paper into his pocket with a careful and loving
gesture that well symbolised his passionate affection for the Society of
which he was already the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the
National Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise of
its name, this wealthy association of idealists had no care for reforms in
a sadly imperfect England. Its aim was anti-Romanist. The
Reformation which it had in mind was Luther's, and it wished, by

fighting an alleged insidious revival of Roman Catholicism, to make
sure that so far as England was concerned Luther had not preached in
vain.
Mr. Moze's connection with the Society had originated in