It dawned on Hyacinth that quite possibly the Canon’s view of the situation might be the right one. It was certainly wonderfully pleasant to see the girls move through the room, and it seemed to him that they actually realized the almost forgotten ideal of serviceable womanhood. The talk at dinner turned first on the ailments of an old woman who was accustomed to clean the church, but was now suspected of being past her work; then, by an abrupt transition, on the new hat which the bank-manager’s wife had brought home from Dublin; and, finally, the connection of thought being again far from obvious, on the hymns which had been sung that morning. It was at this point that Hyacinth was included in the conversation. Marion Beecher announced that one of the hymns was a special favourite of hers, because she remembered her mother singing the younger children to sleep with it when they were babies. She caught Hyacinth looking at her while she spoke, and said to him: ‘Do you sing, Mr. Conneally?’ ‘I do a little.’ ‘Oh, then you must come and help us in the choir.’ ‘Choir’ seemed a grandiose name for the four Beechers and Mr. Quinn, but Marion, who had little experience of anything better, had no misgivings. ‘I hope you sing tenor. I always long to have a tenor in my choir. Why, we might have one of Barnby’s anthems at Easter, and we haven’t been able to sing one since Mr. Nash left the bank.’ Hyacinth had never sung a part in his life, and could not read music, but he grew bold, and, professing to have an excellent ear, said he was willing to learn. The prospect of a long series of choir practices conducted by Marion Beecher seemed to him just then an extremely pleasant one. After dinner, while the two girls cleared away the plates and dishes, Canon Beecher invited Hyacinth to smoke. ‘I never learnt the habit myself,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t so much the fashion in my young days as it is now, but I have no objection whatever to the smell.’ Hyacinth lit a cigarette apologetically. It seemed to him almost a wicked thing to do, but his host evidently wished him to be comfortable. Their talk after the girls had left the room turned on politics. Hyacinth’s confession of his friendship with Augusta Goold had impressed the Canon, and he delivered himself of a very kindly little lecture on the duty of loyalty and the sinfulness of contention with the powers that be. His way of putting the matter neither irritated Hyacinth, like the flamboyant Imperialism of the Trinity students, nor drove him into self-assertion, like Dr. Henry’s contemptuous reasonableness. Still, he felt bound to make some sort of defence of the opinions which were still his own. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘there must be some limit to the duty of loyalty. If a Government has no constitutional right to rule, is a man bound to be loyal to it?’