broke conversational
ground with--

"Do you know who the great Athanasius was?"

"He was an excellent person, who will always be widely known to fame for
his omissions. He did not write the Athanasian creed. For that reason he
will always be deserving of our respect."

Tommy listened to these remarks with profound attention, and expressed
himself very well satisfied with this addition to his youthful
knowledge. He thrust his hot hand into Lord Reggie's with the artless
remark--

"You are more clever than Cousin Betty!" and invited him to join
forthwith in a game of ball upon the bowling-green. To Lady Locke's
surprise, Lord Reggie did not resist the alluring temptation, but ran
off with the boy quite light-heartedly. She stood watching them as they
disappeared across the smooth, green lawn.

"I can't understand him," she thought to herself. "He seems to be
talented, and yet an echo of another man, naturally good-hearted, full
of horrible absurdities, a gentleman, and yet not a man at all. He says
himself that he commits every sin that attracts him, but he does not
look wicked. What is he? Is he being himself, or is he being Mr.
Amarinth, or is he merely posing, or is he really hateful, or is he only
whimsical, and clever, and absurd? What would he have been if he had
never seen Mr. Amarinth?"

She began vaguely to dislike Mr. Amarinth, vaguely to like Lord Reggie.
Her boy had taken a fancy to him, and she was an unreasonably motherly
mother. People who are unreasonably motherly like by impulse wholly very
often, and hate by impulse. Their mind has no why or wherefore with
which to bolster up their heart. She went slowly towards the cottage to
dress for dinner, and all the time that she was walking, she continued,
rather strenuously, to like Lord Reggie.

That evening, after dinner, there was music in the small drawing-room,
which was exquisitely done up in Eastern style, with an arched roof,
screens of wonderfully carved wood brought from Upper Egypt, Persian
hangings and embroideries, divans and prayer rugs, on which nobody ever
prayed. Lord Reggie and Mr. Amarinth both played the piano in an easy,
tentative sort of way, making excess of expression do duty for
deficiencies of execution, and covering occasional mistakes with the
soft rather than with the loud pedal. Lord Reggie played a hymn of his
own, which he frankly acknowledged was very beautiful. He described it
as a hymn without words, which, he said so