scattered about
were for the most part tugging silently at their pipes, alternately
eyeing the clock and the new-comers.

There was a stir of feet round the door.

'There he is,' said Mr. Flaxman, craning round to see, and Robert
entered.

He started as he saw them, flashed a smile to Rose, shook his head at
Mr. Flaxman, and passed up the room.

'He looks pale and nervous,' said Lady Charlotte grimly, pouncing at
once on the unpromising side of things. 'If he breaks down are you
prepared, Hugh to play Elisha?'

Flaxman was far too much interested in the beginnings of the performance
to answer.

Robert was standing forward on the platform, the chairman of the meeting
at his side, members of the committee sitting behind on either hand.
A good many men put down their pipes, and the hubbub of talk ceased.
Others smoked on stolidly.

The chairman introduced the lecturer. The subject of the address would
be, as they already knew, 'The Claim of Jesus upon Modern Life.' It was
not very likely, he imagined, that Mr. Elsmere's opinions would square
with those dominant in the club; but whether or no, he claimed for him,
as for everybody, a patient hearing, and the Englishman's privilege of
fair play.

The speaker, a cabinetmaker dressed in a decent brown suit, spoke with
fluency, and at the same time with that accent of moderation and _savoir
faire_ which some Englishmen in all classes have obviously inherited
from centuries of government by discussion. Lady Charlotte, whose
Liberalism was the mere varnish of an essentially aristocratic temper,
was conscious of a certain dismay at the culture of the democracy as
the man sat down. Mr. Flaxman, glancing to the right, saw a group of men
standing, and among them a slight, sharp-featured thread-paper of a man,
with a taller companion whom he identified as the pair he had noticed
on the night of the story-telling. The little gas-fitter was clearly all
nervous fidget and expectation; the other, large and gaunt in figure,
with a square impassive face, and close-shut lips that had a perpetual
mocking twist in the corners, stood beside him like some clumsy modern
version, in a commoner clay, of Goothe's 'spirit that denies.'

Robert came forward with a roll of papers in his hands.

His first, words were hardly audible. Rose felt her color rising, Lady
Charlotte glanced at her nephew, the standing group of men cried, 'Speak
up!' The voice in the distance rose at once, braced by