As they walked back to the Lodgings, Sir Christopher was silent for awhile. Then he said abruptly: "That's a Saint! I don't know that it's much use for most of us to try to be saints--that's a matter of vocation, I think--but it does us good to meet one sometimes, doesn't it? All that you and I think--or, speaking for myself perhaps, used to think--so wonderful, so interesting, has for him no importance--hardly any real existence. It's at the most a sort of mist, or mirage, or something of that sort--or a disease of mortal eyes--what you like! Are you in any way a religious man?" "No, I'm afraid I'm not." He hesitated a moment and went on: "I don't quite see how one can be, you know, sir." "Not as he is, no--I don't either. And I suppose the world couldn't get on, as a working world, if by a miracle everybody became like him. The world wants its own children too--though no doubt it begets some devilishly extreme specimens, as you and I have seen in the last few weeks. Well, you'll probably make some sort of creed for yourself presently--oh, a very provisional sketchy sort of affair, I daresay, but still a bit better than club codes and that kind of thing. And----" He laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder--"the beginning of it may just as well be this: Earn your money honestly. Such work as you do get or take, put your back into it." "That after all is just what the Dean has done with his job, isn't it?" "Why, yes, so it is, though he doesn't do it for money--not even money of his currency. Upon my word, I believe he'd sooner be damned than let you or me be, if he could help it! So I've shown you one more variety of human nature, Arthur." "It's at least as well worth seeing as any of the rest." "Fit it in at leisure with your other specimens," Sir Christopher recommended. It did not seem altogether easy to follow this advice--even after reflection. But there had been other specimens, also not too easy to fit in with one another or with any neat and compact scheme of society, vindicating to complete satisfaction the ways of God to men and of men to one another. No symmetrical pattern emerged. Wherever he looked, life met his enquiring eyes with a baffling but stimulating smile. CHAPTER XXXI START AND FINISH Whenever he was at home at the time of the Assizes Lord Swarleigh made a point of inviting the Judge to dinner. He was Lord-Lieutenant of the County, and he considered the attention due from the Military to the Civil Representative of the Crown. The occasion was treated as one of ceremony, and though Sir Christopher, in mercy to the horses and his own patience, refused to drive the six hilly miles which lay between the town and Higham Swarleigh Park in the state carriage, and hired a car, he was in court dress; very refined and aristocratic he looked.