; genius was honoured side by side with sanctity.
The rolling music, the pure, fresh voices of the boys appealed to his
sense of the beautiful, as those historical associations reawakened his
ambition. The white-robed priest, who stood in the centre of the great
building, yet whose voice without effort seemed able to penetrate to its
furthest corner, seemed both in his personal self and in his scholarly
diction exquisitely in accord with his great surroundings. Without a
manuscript, with scarcely a note, he stood there, calm and imposing, the
prototype of the modern priest, pleading against worldliness for the
sake of beauty and of God. With delicately chosen words and exquisite
imagery, the calm enthusiasm of the orator, always self-controlled and
sweetly convincing, seemed to Douglas like the transmutation of a
beautiful picture into a beautiful poem, instinct with life, vivid and
thrilling. He stayed till the sermon was over and the solemn words of
the benediction pronounced, till the deep, throbbing notes of the organ
rang down the emptying aisles. Then he walked out into the streets a
saner and a better man.

The life tingled in his veins as he walked slowly back into pagan
London. Here the great restaurants, brilliantly lighted, reminded him
that all day he had eaten nothing. He jumped into a hansom and was
driven to his rooms, kept the man while he changed his clothes, and
drove to Piccadilly. Here he entered a famous restaurant, known to him
only by name, found a small table and ordered his dinner with care. He
leaned back and looked out upon the throng with a kindly human interest.
He had the feeling of having returned once more into touch with his
kind. A faint smile was upon his lips, too long suppressed; as he ate
and drank, the heavy barrier which had come between him and the garden
of his imagination seemed to glide apart. He saw away into the future
of the life-story which he was writing. New images sprang up and the
old ones became once more pliant and supple. Difficulties fell away--a
singular clearness of perception seemed to come to him in those few
minutes. The joy of life was in his heart, the zest of it between his
teeth. He felt the unaccustomed colour in his cheeks, and an
acquaintance who paused to shake hands was astonished at his affability.
The gay music sounded strangely to his ears after the great organ notes,
but, in its way, it too was beautiful. Life was meant to be beautiful.
He had nev