own utterances; to
have taken fresh stock of his faith, to have gone deep into its roots,
would have been like taking up the foundations of a still-standing house.
Some men naturally root themselves in the inexpressible--for which one
formula is much the same as another; though Edward Pierson, gently
dogmatic, undoubtedly preferred his High-Church statement of the
inexpressible to that of, say, the Zoroastrians. The subtleties of
change, the modifications by science, left little sense of inconsistency
or treason on his soul. Sensitive, charitable, and only combative deep
down, he instinctively avoided discussion on matters where he might hurt
others or they hurt him. And, since explanation was the last thing which
o could be expected of one who did not base himself on Reason, he had
found but scant occasion ever to examine anything. Just as in the old
Abbey he had soared off into the infinite with the hawk, the beetles, and
the grasses, so now, at the piano, by these sounds of his own making, he
was caught away again into emotionalism, without realising that he was in
one of his, most religious moods.

"Aren't you coming to tea, Edward?"

The woman standing behind him, in a lilac-coloured gown, had one of those
faces which remain innocent to the end of the chapter, in spite of the
complete knowledge of life which appertains to mothers. In days of
suffering and anxiety, like these of the great war, Thirza Pierson was a
valuable person. Without ever expressing an opinion on cosmic matters,
she reconfirmed certain cosmic truths, such as that though the whole
world was at war, there was such a thing as peace; that though all the
sons of mothers were being killed, there remained such a thing as
motherhood; that while everybody was living for the future, the present
still existed. Her tranquil, tender, matter-of-fact busyness, and the
dew in her eyes, had been proof against twenty-three years of life on a
tea-plantation in the hot part of Ceylon; against Bob Pierson; against
the anxiety of having two sons at the front, and the confidences of
nearly every one she came across. Nothing disturbed her. She was like a
painting of "Goodness" by an Old Master, restored by Kate Greenaway. She
never went to meet life, but when it came, made the best of it. This was
her secret, and Pierson always felt rested in her presence.

He rose, and moved by her side, over the lawn, towards the big tree at
the bottom of the garden.