zen
contradictory beliefs, were at times peculiarly antipathetic to Elsmere.
They were so now, just as heart and soul were nerved to an effort which
could not be made at all without the nobler sort of self-confidence.

But Flaxman was determined.

'No,' he said; 'this one day we'll give--to heresy. Don't look so
forbidding! In the first place, you won't see me; in the next, if you
did, you would feel me as wax in your hands. I am like the man in
Sophocles--always the possession of the last speaker! One day I am all
for the church. A certain number of chances in the hundred there still
are, you will admit, that she is in the right of it. And if so, why
should I cut myself off from a whole host of beautiful things not to be
got outside her? But the next day--_vive_ Elsmere and the Revolution! If
only Elsmere could persuade me intellectually! But I never yet came
across a religious novelty that seemed to me to have a leg of logic to
stand on!'

He laid his hand on Robert's shoulder, his eyes twinkling with a sudden
energy. Robert made no answer. He stood erect, frowning a little, his
hands thrust far into the pockets of his light gray coat. He was in no
mood to disclose himself to Flaxman. The inner vision was fixed with
extraordinary intensity on quite another sort of antagonist, with whom
the mind was continuously grappling.

'Ah, well--till to-morrow!' said Flaxman, with a smile, shook hands, and
went.

Outside he hailed a cab and drove off to Lady Charlotte's.

He found his aunt and Mr. Wynnstay in the drawing-room alone, one on
either side of the fire. Lady Charlotte was reading the latest political
biography with an apparent profundity of attention; Mr. Wynnstay was
lounging and caressing the cat. But both his aunt's absorption and Mr.
Wynnstay's nonchalance seemed to Flaxman overdone. He suspected a
domestic breeze.

Lady Charlotte made him effusively welcome. He had come to propose that
she should accompany him the following evening to hear Elsmere lecture.

'I advise you to come,' he said. 'Elsmere will deliver his soul, and the
amount of soul he has to deliver in these dull days is astounding. A
dowdy dress and a veil, of course. I will go down beforehand and see
some one on the spot, in case there should be difficulties about getting
in. Perhaps Miss Leyburn, too, might like to hear her brother-in-law?'

'_Really_, Hugh,' cried Lady Charlotte impatiently, 'I think you might
take your snubbing with dig