bury lifted its
spire into the world. We will stop here for a little while...."

Then it was that Dr. Martineau was grim about the stretching of his
legs.

Section 4

The sudden prospect which now opened out before Sir Richmond of talking
about history and suchlike topics with a charming companion for perhaps
two whole days instead of going on with this tiresome, shamefaced,
egotistical business of self-examination was so attractive to him that
it took immediate possession of his mind, to the entire exclusion
and disregard of Dr. Martineau's possible objections to any such
modification of their original programme. When they arrived in
Salisbury, the doctor did make some slight effort to suggest a different
hotel from that in which the two ladies had engaged their rooms, but
on the spur of the moment and in their presence he could produce no
sufficient reason for refusing the accommodation the Old George had
ready for him. He was reduced to a vague: "We don't want to inflict
ourselves--" He could not get Sir Richmond aside for any adequate
expression of his feelings about Miss Seyffert, before the four of them
were seated together at tea amidst the mediaeval modernity of the Old
George smoking-room. And only then did he begin to realize the depth and
extent of the engagements to which Sir Richmond had committed himself.

"I was suggesting that we run back to Avebury to-morrow," said Sir
Richmond. "These ladies were nearly missing it."

The thing took the doctor's breath away. For the moment he could say
nothing. He stared over his tea-cup dour-faced. An objection formulated
itself very slowly. "But that dicky," he whispered.

His whisper went unnoted. Sir Richmond was talking of the completeness
of Salisbury. From the very beginning it had been a cathedral city; it
was essentially and purely that. The church at its best, in the full
tide of its mediaeval ascendancy, had called it into being. He was
making some extremely loose and inaccurate generalizations about the
buildings and ruins each age had left for posterity, and Miss Grammont
was countering with equally unsatisfactory qualifications. "Our age
will leave the ruins of hotels," said Sir Richmond. "Railway arches and
hotels."

"Baths and aqueducts," Miss Grammont compared. "Rome of the Empire comes
nearest to it...."

As soon as tea was over, Dr. Martineau realized, they meant to walk
round and about Salisbury. He foresaw that walk with the utmost
clearn