k of, and
you arrive one day at the condition of Louis XIV. after the battle of
Ramillies: "Dieu a donc oublie tout ce que j'ai fait pour lui?" Read
your Renan; remind yourself at every turn that it is quite possible
after all the egotist may turn out to be in the right of it, and you
will find at any rate that the world gets on excellently well without
your blundering efforts to set it straight. And so we get back to the
Archbishop's maxim--adapted, no doubt, to English requirements,' and
he shrugged his great shoulders expressively: '_Pace_ Mr. Elsmere, of
course, and the rest of our clerical friends!'

Again he looked down the table, and the strident voice sounded harsher
than ever as it rose above the sudden noise of the storm outside.
Robert's bright eyes were fixed on the Squire, and before Mr. Wendover
stopped, Catherine could see the words of reply trembling on his lips.

'I am well content,' he said, with a curious dry intensity of tone. 'I
give you your Renan. Only leave us poor dupes our illusions. We will not
quarrel with the division. With you all the cynics of History; with us
all the "scorners of the ground" from the world's beginning until now!'

The Squire made a quick, impatient movement. Mr. Wynnstay looked
significantly at his wife, who dropped her eyeglass with a little
irrepressible smile.

As for Robert, leaning forward with hastened breath, it seemed to him
that his eyes and the Squire's crossed like swords. In Robert's mind
there had arisen a sudden passion of antagonism. Before his eyes there
was a vision of a child in a stifling room, struggling with mortal
disease, imposed upon her, as he hotly reminded himself, by this man's
culpable neglect. The dinner-party, the splendor of the room, the
conversation, excited a kind of disgust in him. If it were not for
Catherine's pale face opposite, he could hardly have maintained his
self-control.

Mrs. Darcy, a little bewildered, and feeling that things were not going
particularly well, thought it best to interfere.

'Roger,' she said, plaintively, 'you must not be so philosophical. It's
too hot! He used to talk like that,' she went on, bending over to Mr.
Wynnstay, 'to the French priests who came to see us last winter in
Paris. They never minded a bit--they used to laugh: "Monsieur votre
frere, madame, c'est un homme qui a trop lu," they would say to me when
I gave them their coffee. Oh, they were such dears, those old priests!
Roger said they