ories of French Orientalists, or
Roman cardinals, or modern Greek professors, enjoying the impartial
sarcasm which one of the greatest of _savants_ was always ready to pour
out upon his brethren of the craft.

The squire, however, was never genial for a moment during the interview.
He did not mention his book nor Elsmere's letter. But Elsmere suspected
in him a good deal of suppressed irritability; and, as after a while he
abruptly ceased to talk, the visit grew difficult.

The rector walked home feeling restless and depressed. The mind had
begun to work again. It was only by a great effort that he could turn
his thoughts from the squire, and all that the squire had meant to him
during the past year, and so woo back to himself 'the shy bird Peace.'

Mr. Wendover watched the door close behind him, and then went back to
his work with a gesture of impatience.

'Once a priest, always a priest. What a fool I was to forget it! You
think you make an impression on the mystic, and at the bottom there is
always something which defies you and common sense. "Two and two do not,
and shall not, make four,"' he said to himself, in a mincing voice of
angry sarcasm. '"It would give me too much pain that they should." Well,
and so I suppose what might have been a rational friendship will go by
the board like everything else. What can make the man shilly-shally in
this way? He is convinced already, as he knows--those later letters were
conclusive! His living, perhaps, and his work! Not for the money's
sake--there never was a more incredibly disinterested person born. But
his work? Well, who is to hinder his work? Will he be the first parson
in the Church of England who looks after the poor and holds his tongue?
If you can't speak your mind, it is something at any rate to possess
one--nine-tenths of the clergy being without the appendage. But
Elsmere--pshaw! he will go muddling on to the end of the chapter!'

The squire, indeed, was like a hunter whose prey escapes him at the very
moment of capture, and there grew on him a mocking aggressive mood which
Elsmere often found hard to bear.

One natural symptom of it was his renewed churlishness as to all local
matters. Elsmere one afternoon spent an hour in trying to persuade him
to open the new Institute.

'What on earth do you want me for?' inquired Mr. Wendover, standing
before the fire in the library, the Medusa head peering over his
shoulder. 'You know perfectly well that all the g