that Monsignor had gathered into his
hands. To Amory it was a haunting grief to see him lying in his coffin,
with closed hands upon his purple vestments. His face had not changed,
and, as he never knew he was dying, it showed no pain or fear. It was
Amory's dear old friend, his and the others'--for the church was full
of people with daft, staring faces, the most exalted seeming the most
stricken.

The cardinal, like an archangel in cope and mitre, sprinkled the holy
water; the organ broke into sound; the choir began to sing the Requiem
Eternam.

All these people grieved because they had to some extent depended upon
Monsignor. Their grief was more than sentiment for the "crack in his
voice or a certain break in his walk," as Wells put it. These people
had leaned on Monsignor's faith, his way of finding cheer, of making
religion a thing of lights and shadows, making all light and shadow
merely aspects of God. People felt safe when he was near.

Of Amory's attempted sacrifice had been born merely the full realization
of his disillusion, but of Monsignor's funeral was born the romantic
elf who was to enter the labyrinth with him. He found something that he
wanted, had always wanted and always would want--not to be admired, as
he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to
be necessary to people, to be indispensable; he remembered the sense of
security he had found in Burne.

Life opened up in one of its amazing bursts of radiance and Amory
suddenly and permanently rejected an old epigram that had been playing
listlessly in his mind: "Very few things matter and nothing matters very
much."

On the contrary, Amory felt an immense desire to give people a sense of
security.

*****

THE BIG MAN WITH GOGGLES

On the day that Amory started on his walk to Princeton the sky was a
colorless vault, cool, high and barren of the threat of rain. It was a
gray day, that least fleshly of all weathers; a day of dreams and far
hopes and clear visions. It was a day easily associated with those
abstract truths and purities that dissolve in the sunshine or fade out
in mocking laughter by the light of the moon. The trees and clouds
were carved in classical severity; the sounds of the countryside had
harmonized to a monotone, metallic as a trumpet, breathless as the
Grecian urn.

The day had put Amory in such a contemplative mood that he caused much
annoyance to several motorists who were forced to s