nt itself to
persiflage, and by indulging in that mood Godwin tasted some
compensation for the part he had to play.

'And I believe you know the Warricombes very well?' pursued Chilvers.

'Yes.'

'Ha! I hope to see much of them. They are people after my own heart.
Long ago I had a slight acquaintance with them. I hear we shan't see
them till the summer.'

'I believe not.'

'Mr. Warricombe is a great geologist, I think?--Probably he frequents
public worship as a mere tribute to social opinion?'

He asked the question in the airiest possible way, as if it mattered
nothing to him what the reply might be.

'Mr. Warricombe is a man of sincere piety,' Godwin answered, with grave
countenance.

'That by no means necessitates church-going, my dear Peak,' rejoined
the other, waving his hand.

'You think not? I am still only a student, you must remember. My mind
is in suspense on not a few points.'

'Of course! Of course! Pray let me give you the results of my own
thought on this subject.'

He proceeded to do so, at some length. When he had rounded his last
period, he unexpectedly started up, swung on his toes, spread his
chest, drew a deep breath, and with the sweetest of smiles announced
that he must postpone the delight of further conversation.

'You must come and dine with me as soon as my house is in reasonable
order. As yet, everything is _sens dessus-dessous_. Delightful old
city, Exeter! Charming! Charming!'

And on the moment he was gone.

What were this man's real opinions? He had brains and literature; his
pose before the world was not that of an ignorant charlatan. Vanity, no
doubt, was his prime motive, but did it operate to make a cleric of a
secret materialist, or to incite a display of excessive liberalism in
one whose convictions were orthodox? Godwin could not answer to his
satisfaction, but he preferred the latter surmise.

One thing, however, became clear to him. All his conscientious scruples
about entering the Church were superfluous. Chilvers would have smiled
pityingly at anyone who disputed his right to live by the
Establishment, and to stand up as an authorised preacher of the
national faith. And beyond a doubt he regulated his degree of 'breadth'
by standards familiar to him in professional intercourse. To him it
seemed all-sufficient to preach a gospel of moral progress, of
intellectual growth, of universal fraternity. If this were the tendency
of Anglicanism, then almost any man wh