wouldn't go quite as far as that," said Father Payne, "but it was
not very nutritive--no, the nutriment was lacking! Come, I'll tell you
frankly what I did think, as I came away. I thought these pretty people
very adventurous, very quick, very friendly. But I don't truly think they
were interested in the real thing at all--only interested in the words of
the wise, and in the unconsidered trifles of the Major Prophets, so to
speak. I didn't think it exactly pretentious--but they obviously only cared
for people of established reputation. They didn't admire the ideas behind,
only the reputations of the people who said the things. They had
undoubtedly seen and heard the great people--I confess it amazed me to
think how easily the men of mark can be exploited--but I did not discern
that they cared about the things represented,--only about the
representatives. The American was different. He, I think, cared about the
ideas, though he cared about them in the wrong way. I mean that he claimed
to find everything distinct, whereas the big things are naturally
indistinct. They loom up in a shadowy way, and the American was examining
them through field-glasses. But my other friends seemed to me to be only
interested in the people who had the entree, so to speak--the priests of
the shrine. They had noticed everything that doesn't matter about the high
and holy ones--how they looked, spoke, dressed, behaved. It was awfully
clever, some of it; one of the women imitated Legard the essayist down to
the ground--the way he pontificates, you know--but nothing else. They were
simply interested in the great men, and not interested in what make the
great men different from other people, but simply in their resemblance to
other people. Even great people have to eat, you know! Legard himself eats,
though it's a leisurely process; and this woman imitated the way he forked
up a bit, held it till the bit dropped off, and put the empty fork into his
mouth. It was excruciatingly funny--I'll admit that. But they missed the
point, after all. They didn't care about Legard's books a bit--they cared
much more about that funny cameo ring he wears on his tie!"

"It all seems to me horribly vulgar," said Kaye.

"No, it was no more vulgar than a dance of gnats," said Father Payne. "They
were all alive, those people. They were just gnats, now I come to think of
it! They had stung all the great men of the day--even drawn a little
blood--and they were intoxicate