ed on the court some little distance off--the players being
Dorothy, Peggy and a couple of athletic, flannel-clad parsons.
Marmaduke Trevor reposed on a chair under the lee of Lady Bruce. He
looked very cool and spick and span in a grey cashmere suit, grey
shirt, socks and tie, and grey _suede_ shoes. He had a weak,
good-looking little face and a little black moustache turned up at the
ends. He was discoursing to his neighbour on Palestrina.

The Dean's proclamation had been elicited by some remark of Sir
Archibald.

"I wonder how you have stuck it for so long," said the latter. He had
been a soldier in his youth and an explorer, and had shot big game.

"I haven't your genius, my dear Bruce, for making myself
uncomfortable," replied the Dean.

"You were energetic enough when you first came here," said Sir
Archibald. "We all thought you a desperate fellow who was going to
rebuild the cathedral, turn the Close into industrial dwellings, and
generally play the deuce."

The Dean sighed pleasantly. He had snowy hair and a genial, florid,
clean-shaven face.

"I was appointed very young--six-and-thirty--and I thought I could
fight against the centuries. As the years went on I found I couldn't.
The grey changelessness of things got hold of me, incorporated me into
them. When I die--for I hope I shan't have to resign through doddering
senility--my body will be buried there"--he jerked his head slightly
towards the cathedral--"and my dust will become part and parcel of the
fabric--like that of many of my predecessors."

"That's all very well," said Sir Archibald, "but they ought to have
caught you before this petrification set in, and made you a bishop."

It was somewhat of an old argument, for the two were intimates. The
Dean smiled and shook his head.

"You know I declined----"

"After you had become petrified."

"Perhaps so. It is not a place where ambitions can attain a riotous
growth."

"I call it a rotten place," said the elderly worldling. "I wouldn't
live in it myself for twenty thousand a year."

"Lots like you said the same in crusading times--Sir Guy de Chevenix,
for instance, who was the Lord, perhaps, of your very Manor, and an
amazing fire-eater--but--see the gentle irony of it--there his bones
lie, at peace for ever, in the rotten place, with his effigy over them
cross-legged and his dog at his feet, and his wife by his side. I
think he must sometimes look out of Heaven's gate down on the
cathedra