he way, I couldn't make out his face very well.
Is that a picture of him?"

He stood up suddenly and stepped across to where the portrait
hung. There was nothing very startling about the picture. It
showed just a very ordinary face with straight closed lips, of a
man seated in an embossed chair, with the familiar white cap,
cassock, and embroidered stole with spade-ends.

"He looks quite ordinary," mused Monsignor aloud. "It's . . .
it's like the face of a business man."

"Oh yes, he's ordinary. He's an extremely good man and quite
intelligent. He's never had any very great crisis to face, you know.
They say he's a good financier. . . . You look disappointed."

"I hadn't expected him to look like that," said the prelate, musing.

"Why not?"

"Well, he seems to have an extraordinary position in the world. I
should have expected more of a----"

"More of a great man? Monsignor, don't you think that the Average
Man makes the best ruler?"

"But that's rank Democracy!"

"Not at all. Democracy doesn't give the Average Man any real
power at all. It swamps him among his fellows--that is to say, it
kills his individuality; and his individuality is the one thing
he has which is worth anything."

Monsignor sat down again, sighing.

"Well, I think it's got into me at last," he repeated. "I mean, I
think I really realize what the world's like now. But I want to
see a great deal more, you know."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, I don't quite know. . . . You might call it the waterline
between Faith and Science. I see the Faith side. I understand
that the life of the world moves on Catholicism now; but I don't
quite realize yet how all that joins on to Science. In my day----"
(he broke off) "I mean I had a kind of idea that there was a gap
between Faith and Science--if not actual contradictions. How do
they join on to one another? What's the average scientific
attitude towards religion? Do people on both sides just say that
each must pursue its own line, even if they never meet?"

Father Jervis looked puzzled.

"I don't quite understand. There's no conflict between Faith and
Science. A large proportion of the scientists are
ecclesiastics."

"But what's the meeting-point? That's what I don't see."

The priest shook his head, smiling.

"I simply don't know what you mean, Monsignor. Give me an example."

"Well . . . er . . . what about Faith-healing? The dispute used
to be, I think, as to the explanation of certa