s he had spoken that it had been a foolish
thing to say. He saw Mr. Thurston smile. In the pause that followed he
felt as though he had with a gesture of the hand flung a stone into a
pool of chatter and scandal whose ripples might spread far beyond his
control. At that moment he hated his sister.

"I didn't know you knew her so well, dear," said his mother.

"I don't know her," he said, "I've only seen her three times. But she
ought to be given her chance. It can't be much fun for her coming here
where she knows no one--after her father suddenly dying. I believe she
was all alone with him."

He had expected his father to defend her. He remembered that he had
apparently liked her. But his father said nothing. There was an awkward
and uncomfortable pause. After supper Mr. Thurston rubbed his hands,
helped Amy Warlock into her cloak, said to the company in general:

"Good night. Should be a very full meeting to-night ... Well, well ...
Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Warlock, I'm sure."

The door was closed, Mrs. Warlock retired into her bedroom; the house
was left to Martin and his father.

Mr. Warlock's room was hideous. It opened, somewhat ironically, out of
Mrs. Warlock's pink drawing-room. A huge and exceedingly ugly American
roll-top desk took up much of the room. There were bookshelves into
which books had been piled. Commentaries on the Bible, volumes of
sermons, pamphlets, tattered copies of old religious magazines. A bare
carpet displayed holes and rents. The fireplace was grim with dirty
pieces of paper and untidy shavings. In the midst of this disorder
there hung over the mantelpiece, against the faded grey wall-paper, a
fine copy of Raphael's "Transfiguration." Mr. Warlock lighted a candle
and the flame flickered with changing colours upon the picture's
surface. It had been given to John Warlock many years before by an old
lady who heard him preach and had been, for a week, converted, but on
his demand that she should give her wealth to the poor and fling aside
her passion for Musical Comedy, left him with indignation. The picture
had remained; it hung there now crooked on its cord.

John Warlock was unconscious of the dust and disorder that surrounded
him. His own passion for personal cleanliness sprang from the early
days with his father, to whom bodily cleanliness had been part of a
fanatical mysticism. Partly also by reason of that early training,
sloth, drunkenness, immorality, had no power over