He paused again; reflecting, his thin cheek leaning on his hand, that to be young was not necessarily to be overwhelming. Virginia, the youngest of the young--what inexhaustible, proud delight her youth gave him!--was not at all overwhelming. But Christopher did not really interest him. The world was full of young men--all, to Stephen, very much alike, all with spirits that had to be blown off. The Chickover ones, his own parishioners, blew theirs off on Saturday afternoons at football or cricket according to the time of year, and the rest of the week it was to be presumed that work quieted them. Of whatever class, they seemed to Stephen noisy and restless, and the one he had just seen reminded him of a lighted torch, flaring away unpleasantly among the sober blacks and greys of the late Mr. Cumfrit’s furniture. But he was not really interested. ‘I preach to-morrow at St. Clement’s,’ he remarked after a silence. ‘On the same subject?’ ‘There is only one. It embraces every other.’ ‘Yes--Love,’ she said; and her voice at the word went very soft. ‘Yes--Love,’ he repeated, still thoughtfully gazing at the fire, his cheek on his hand. His subject on these Lenten Sundays was Love. After having preached not particularly well all his life on other subjects, since his marriage he had begun to preach remarkably well on this one. He knew what he was talking about. He loved Virginia, and had only been married to her three months, and his warm knowledge of love in particular burned in a real eloquence on Love in general. He loved and was loved. The marriage about which Catherine had had misgivings, because she thought him a little too wooden--what mistakes one makes--for a girl so young, had been completely successful. They adored each other in the quiet, becoming way a clergyman and his wife, when they adore, do adore; that is, not wantonly at all, in public, but nicely, in the fear of God. And both were determined to use Virginia’s money only for ends that were noble and good. Virginia was like her father--made for quiet domestic bliss. Also she had never been very pretty, and that too was suitable. The Church has no use, Stephen knew, for beauty. A beautiful woman married to a clergyman easily produces complications; for we are but weak creatures, and our footsteps, even if we are a bishop, sometimes go astray. But she was quite pretty enough, with lovely eyes, and was so entrancingly young, besides being such a good little girl, and rich.